24. Cas
CAS
Adrian
Are you alone?
I frown at my phone. This isn’t the first thing I’d expected Adrian to text me. Frankly, when we’d exchanged numbers before he and Niall left the other day, I hadn’t expected him to message me at all. I thought he’d just done it because Niall had offered his.
But here I am with a message. A confusing one. Besides, I’m not alone. Rarely am. The cabin isn’t big enough to have three grown shifters living here permanently. Only one bathroom, a wee kitchen and living area, and the sole bedroom don’t really give us much breathing space.
And the cabin is never quiet. Right now, Kato is clattering about at the kitchenette as I scroll through videos on my phone, occasionally stopping to watch one for a minute or two before moving on.
The algorithm must have decided I’m an omega wolf shifter, because it keeps directing me to POV vids about nest building and managing your heat symptoms. One annoying influencer who keeps coming across my feed is always shilling his vitamins that are apparently the best for having your hole return to its pre-pregnancy state.
The sparkle effects he adds to the videos make me wonder if he puts glitter on his arsehole too.
Sometimes I really wish the internet didn’t exist.
Nathan isn’t here, though. At my insistence, he’s gone to submit the paperwork to make us an official pack.
If approved, we’ll have proper protections and can start building more houses on the land to allow more shifters to join us, eventually.
Nathan and Kato were both worrying about my name going on the paperwork and Bash being notified by his connections, so our compromise was Nathan choosing to drive all the way to Edinburgh, to the council office there.
He’s been gone since the crack of dawn and won’t return until dark, if the waiting times posted on the council website are to be trusted.
As I ponder how to respond to Adrian, I watch Kato’s progress with dinner. He’s informed us he’s cooking all by himself, and that neither of us should help because “I’m actually a really great cook, I just never got the chance to prove it before.”
Judging by the state of the counters, floors and walls, he’s a complete and utter liar. Shame they don’t do delivery out here, because I doubt whatever he’s making is going to be edible in any sense of the word. I’ll probably try to eat his food anyway. Anything to see him light up with a smile.
I figure I shouldn’t keep Adrian waiting much longer. Unlikely he’s the sort of person who’ll be patient being left on read.
Cas
I’m currently witnessing Kato murder a chicken for the second time, the poor bird.
What’s up?
The response is almost instantaneous.
Adrian
It’s omega stuff. Don’t want the alphas overhearing. Call me?
Cas
Call?
Adrian
Yes
Who the fuck calls anyone anymore? With a sigh, I unfold myself from my pretzel shape on the couch and go to the door.
“Need some air?” Kato asks, head craned towards me. “Sorry. This curry isn’t going precisely as planned.”
“Adrian wants to chat. Says it’s top secret omega stuff.”
Kato’s brow quirks. “You think he’s pregnant?”
“Not unless Niall’s magically discovered a way to pop a knot.”
“You never know!”
I shake my head at him, my hair—in dire need of a trim—bouncing around my face. “I’ll be back in a bit. Don’t burn the cabin down.”
He makes an offended noise. “I would never do that to the fuck shed.”
I don’t even try to hide my amusement as I walk out of the cabin and wander around the back.
There’s a wee path that heads deeper into the woods, so I take it until I reach a little clearing carved out by Nathan.
He’s cut away the bushes to form an oval and felled half a dozen trees, using their stumps as natural seating.
In the middle sits a small section for a fire pit, unfinished but for a circle of stones.
Maybe one day soon we can be out here at night, roasting marshmallows under the stars and warming ourselves in the frigid darkness.
I seat myself on the closest stump to the path, pulling my oversized jumper down so my bare skin doesn’t touch the damp wood.
It rained overnight, leaving the earth smelling of petrichor and the greenery bright and lush.
Occasionally a droplet of water falls from a tree above me as the wind catches its leaves.
Shivering and keen to get back to the cabin, I pull out my phone and hit Adrian’s contact. I open my mouth to speak when—
“Hello, Casper.”
The world tilts. My free hand grips the stump, holding tight so I don’t slide off onto the grass. Rapid blinking doesn’t clear the black spots threatening to overtake my vision. Breathing heavily, I try to process the voice that came down the phone.
The voice that doesn’t belong to Adrian.
“Did you miss me?” Bash asks brightly. Far too amused. Far too pleased with himself.
Fear seizes my breath. How has he found me? I don’t think Nathan would have submitted our claim to the council yet. He even changed my name on the application to ensure I’d be harder to find—Cas Ross-McLeod, not Casper Blackwood.
But if Bash knows where I am, then why the hell is he calling me on Adrian’s number?
I swallow, throat hot, and ask him exactly that.
My voice breaks as I do so. I don’t sound like myself at all.
I sound far away, like this is happening very far away from me, another Cas on another plane of existence.
Because this can’t be happening to me. Not now.
I thought he’d have given up, realised I was a failed experiment and cut his losses when I didn’t call up the council and report his crimes.
I should have known this was all too good to be true.
“Ah. Well, that’s pretty simple, actually, Bash says. “I have Adrian, ergo I have his phone.”
Pain flares as I realise I’ve dug my nails so hard into the wood I’ve broken one. The scent of metallic blood hits the air. It grounds me. Slightly.
“Please don’t hurt him,” I say. “He doesn’t deserve it.”
Bash hums. “You did. Fucking cheek of a beta like you thinking you’re above being courted by an alpha like me.
I have a pack. Land. Money. Any other shifter would have been grateful for what I did to you.
I took you and improved you. Made you better.
Almost perfect, even. If only the stupid synthetic womb hadn’t screwed us over. ”
Us. He’s still talking as if there’s an us, ranting about procedures going wrong and the veterinarian not listening to him properly and how this time he’s going to do better.
I’ve never met someone who loves the sound of their own voice quite like Sebastian Harrington.
I lift my finger with the broken nail to my lips and suck on it to ease the sting. Around it, I ask, “What are you going to do to Adrian?”
Bash stops his tirade. “Pardon?”
I try again without my finger in my mouth. “Adrian—what are you going to do with him? What do you want?” I have a million more questions, but those are the two that need answering most urgently.
“You left me and almost died!” he exclaims. “Obviously I can’t abide by that.
And luckily, I happened to overhear a couple of stablehands at the awful horse show talking about the strange white-haired omega who turned up, sent half the pack into rut and then got himself mated by the alpha outcast and the pack alpha’s bum of a nephew. That just won’t do, Casper.”
I almost—almost—apologise. That’s how small he makes me feel. Like I’m nothing to him but a terrible inconvenience. “What has any of that got to do with Adrian?” I ask, dread coiling in my gut. “You can’t force a mating on him. His pack alpha will—”
“Mate him?” Bash interrupts, sounding disgusted. Relief surges, despite the fear knifing me. “I wouldn’t touch an omega like him. Did you know he’d been letting a beta sully him? Waste of good breeding stock.”
“How do you know about Niall?”
“Ah. Now, that is a question, isn’t it? Those stablehands I overheard?
Chatty bunch. Even pointed James and I right to where the two of them were getting busy with each other.
” He makes a protracted shivering sound then sighs.
“At least the assault on my eyes helped cover our approach. Made for an easy pickup.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that James is with him.
The beta may be a large animal vet by trade but his station seems to have changed.
I suppose moonlighting as Bash’s personal scientist and engineering the experiments that irrevocably changed my body must have done that.
My hands are shaking so excessively that I’m struggling to keep hold of the phone. “You have both of them?”
“Indeed. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up soon about all of this, Casper.
Because I need you to do one very important thing for me.
Give your alphas an excuse for your absence and then come all the way to the end of the turnoff that leads to your little cabin you’re pretending to call home. Hurry. I’m waiting for you.”
“And you’ll let them go? If I come?” The words are barely more than a whisper. My mind is oddly blank, whited out like a thick blanket of fog. I can vaguely feel tears staining my cheeks, but I couldn’t say how long I’ve been crying.
“Bit late for that, I’m afraid. I’m sending you a photo. If you don’t get here in the next fifteen minutes, Adrian will suffer the same fate. The clock’s already ticking.”
The line goes dead. I sit there with it at my ear, unable to move until it buzzes. Numb, I let my hand drop to my lap like it’s a dead weight. I open the message.
It’s even worse than I thought. Bile rises in my throat as I stare unblinking at the image. Red. So much red. Far too much. With a lurch, I turn my head to the side and retch, my brain finally catching up to what I’m seeing.
My eyes sting as I empty my stomach of its contents, wishing I could purge myself of the image on my screen instead.