22. Kato #3
Maybe I should feel bad for dragging them back to Nate and Cas, but it’s hard to. Even without the full sensation of our bond, I feel better than I have in…forever. Breathing them in.
Dunno what I’ll do if and when they get here. Guess I’ll worry about that later.
Sometime around dawn Cas stirs, turning to face me. He watches me with large, dark eyes, almost black, framed by snow-white lashes. They’re like a still, deep pond in winter, his eyes. Yet to freeze over.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Sober yet?”
“More or less.”
He noses my hand where it rests on the pillow. “How are you feeling?”
“Awful,” I say honestly. “Hardly slept at all.”
He watches me for a moment, eyes searching mine. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Nathan and I didn’t have sex, for what it’s worth. I needed comfort, and he provided. It wasn’t…sexual.”
I swallow hard. “When the roles were reversed, me and Nate did way worse.”
“Ah, that’s my fault. You were in rut still.” Cas smiles faintly. “Besides, I could tell you were into each other from the beginning. Far be it from me to intervene.”
“Yeah, well…” I wonder how obvious that was to everyone else.
I rub my face. “Look. I’m sorry. Me and liquor just don’t get along, ever.
When I drink, every single bad thought I’ve ever had in my life comes out to play and I’m convinced it’s the fucking truth, you know?
That I’m useless, that no one wants me or gives a shit about me, that everyone’s better off without me—”
“None of those things are true,” Cas interrupts.
“And then I turn into a monster. That’s why I’m not allowed to drink anymore. But being alone without you two…it sent me somewhere dark. And I just…went backwards. Old Magda offered me a drink, and then I got myself another drink, and…I just wanted to escape. The pain.”
“Love,” Cas says softly. “It’s alright. It’s been an awful past couple of weeks. I don’t blame you.”
“I blame me,” I mumble.
“We were trying to sort out how we’d come break you out this evening, you know. Figured your uncle would be distracted during the fair, that it’d be our best opportunity. Too many strange shifters swarming to worry about us.”
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt because of me. I would’ve figured it out. I mean…I did, didn’t I?”
“My tragically clever alpha,” he says softly. “You give yourself way less credit than you deserve.”
I reach out and touch his face. He gives a soft sigh, turning his head into the caress as I stroke his cheek. His lips brush the inside of my wrist very gently.
“Did I scare you?” I ask him. “Carrying on like that.”
“You don’t scare me, you wee terrorist,” he admonishes, voice soft and playful. “Truthfully, no. I was scared for you. I hate seeing you hurting like that.”
I smile briefly before my face falls. “I did kill someone, though. Accidentally. While drinking. That’s why I’m here in the first place.” I didn’t need to confess that but I’ve got this urge to bare my dirty soul all at once, show him all the ugly parts. “I mean, he came for me first, but—”
“Kato.” Cas is very patient. “Do I look like a priest?”
“Christ, no. Don’t you have to be old to be a priest?”
“I don’t know. That’s not my point.” He props himself up on one elbow. “You don’t need to sit here and tally every awful thing you’ve ever done and beg my forgiveness. I didn’t know you when you did those things.”
“I’m still that person, though. Who did all that bad shit.”
“Are you?”
“Um. Yeah?”
“Look, Kato. All I’ve seen in the time I’ve known you is a very earnest person who tries their best. And sometimes fucks up, but so do we all.” He shrugs one narrow shoulder. “You’re my alpha. That’s all that matters to me.”
“One of them,” I point out. “So you don’t think I’m a massive fuck-up?”
“Not really.”
“Fucking liar.” I’m smiling, though.
“Kato, I’m a beta with a womb. Who’s the real fuck-up here?”
“I almost killed you, though,” I say. “Trying to breed you like that. I’m so sorry.” And there’s so much more I’m sorry for, but these are the immediately tangible things: murdering a wolf or two, nearly murdering him.
“None of us were thinking straight. I vaguely remember being very unhelpful on that score.”
I rub my face. “Distinctly unhelpful, yeah. You were going to let the whole pack run a fuckin’ train on you. There were wolves climbing in through the windows and you were ass-up like an offering.”
“Well,” he says sheepishly. “I’m glad you didn’t let that happen.”
“I think Nate would’ve wiped out the entire pack himself first, yeah.”
Cas shifts closer, butting his head under my chin, and happily I wrap my arms around him and draw him close.
His scent is comforting, and any lingering soul sickness from my bout of bad behavior begins to dissipate.
My fingers card through his hair, ghosting the back of his neck, and he shudders and sighs.
“So you missed me?” I murmur against his hair. “Yeah?”
“I did,” he confesses. “Very much. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we were separated.” The tip of his nose runs along the underside of my jaw. “And by the way—not pregnant.”
Both my stomach and heart somersault, switch places, then tumble back again. “What? You’re not? Are you sure?”
“Niall is.”