Chapter 13 Casey
Casey
I storm back into my cabin and slam the door in their faces. The satisfaction I get isn’t enough to even put a dimmer in my anger.
It opens immediately as Khaos barrels in, looming large and furious with me. I can see why people find him intimidating, but I don’t. It’s hard when he’s now all twisted up with my nightly fantasies. Waking up from repeated dreams of them between my legs has just about killed any fear.
I am a churned-up mix of desire, anger, and self-loathing.
“What is your problem now?” Khaos asks, smacking my cabin wall hard enough to startle me.
“My problem!” I shriek.
I do an abrupt U-turn and stalk up to him and hiss; the air escaping from between my clenched teeth. “My date didn’t say I looked nice. He said, ‘hey, sweetheart, you look much more fuckable today than your pics. Your tits are fucking ace.’”
Behind Khaos, I see Hazard wince.
“He said that?” Wrath asks, his eyebrows in his hairline. His silver hair catches the light as he turns to Riot.
I ignore him.
Khaos exhales and puts his hands on my shoulders. I stare at the point of contact and try to find calm and then decide, fuck it. I throw his hands off me, stalking into his space, and, to my surprise, he steps back.
“He wanted to go for a drive. I agreed. He said it was on the way to this really cool place he wanted to show me. Which, for your information, was code for ‘place outside we can have a quick fuck’. I did not know this at the time, but he explained it very eloquently in the car on the way.”
Angel snarls, startling all of us.
Khaos licks his lips, and I can see some form of hesitation or caution appearing in their depths.
“‘But, first, babe,’” I sneer the words, “‘I gotta stop and get a fuel up.’ Now, I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t sure what the fuck that meant, so I just shrugged and agreed.
He drives me out to the outskirts of town.
Parks on the side of the street in the shittiest suburb I’ve ever seen and disappears for an hour!
” I scream. “An hour! When he comes back, he smells like the musty end of a teenage boy’s washing hamper.
He gets behind the wheel and then turns and gives me this smile, all toothy and completely messed up.
I realise he’s sky fucking high. ‘Can you drive, babe?’ he asks.
I get behind the wheel, swapping spots with him, and he puts his feet on the dash and starts rolling another joint.
At that point, not to my surprise, he lights it up and offers me one.
I slam my foot on the brakes, get out of the car, and walk back. It took me three fucking hours.”
Khaos frowns. “None of that was in his profile.”
“Do you know what he yelled while I was walking away?” I hiss menacingly.
Khaos takes another step back.
“Your profile says you’re down for a good time. Why don’t you loosen up and get laid? It might take that stick out of your ass.”
Khaos winces this time.
“He said that?” Riot snarls and turns to go back out.
I stare after him, trying to hold on to my anger but finding myself ridiculously pleased by his response.
Wrath drags him back inside.
“All right, all right. So that was a bust, lesson learned,” Khaos mutters, which ignites my rage again.
“I’m not losing my license over drug possession. I thought you said you checked him out?”
“I did.”
“Where from? Pluto?”
Khaos grinds his jaw. “I’ll check them more thoroughly.”
“You do that.” I turn and go into the kitchen. I open the fridge and pull out a beer and skull it down. It doesn’t put out the fury that I’m feeling. I hate people sometimes. This is why I live alone on a mountain.
“Hey.” The hesitant voice makes me turn.
Hazard stands there staring at me. His fingers trace the pattern on the refrigerator door handle. He won’t actually make eye contact with me. I set my beer bottle down and turn to face him directly.
“I’m sorry, I put that there in your profile, I mean.” His face goes bright burnished red, and he hunches his shoulders, his eyes downcast.
And because it comes from him, I know that it was just miswording, and my frustration at the pack turns back towards the main source of my rage; my disgusting pig of a date.
“I’m not angry at you; it was just…him. He was gross and rude and just…it was awful, and it brought back memories of a different time in my life.”
Hazard opens the fridge and snags a beer. He leans his ass on the island and exhales. “This is all harder than I expected.”
I move so we’re side by side. “Yeah, it is.”
“I really am sorry.”
“Hazard?”
“Mmm?”
“How did you guys get like this?” I lift my arm with the cuff.
The transformation is instantaneous. Agony, thick tension, and shame.
I swear, I can smell all of that in the air.
Hazard purses his lips. “That…was my fault, too.” He falls silent, and when he opens his eyes, I can almost see the guilt in them.
“I liked women, and I liked men. I used to enjoy the chase, the flirting, and the sex, all hot and intense for the first couple of times, but then I would grow bored. Fuck, I was an ass. I would leave, find something new. I didn’t care how they felt.”
He makes no excuses, just gives it to me. His voice is flat, without inflection, just stating the truth.
“I slept with the wrong women. They found out and talked. I didn’t know they had magic, that they were witches.
I didn’t know that Khaos had refused one of them and Wrath the other.
Because I slept with the three of them, they were able to hook the pack into the spell.
Cursing us into being pets for our owners.
They say there’s never been anything so scary as a woman scorned; well, they weren’t lying. ”
I swallow hard. “They played you, didn’t they?”
He nods his head, his distress making the air almost prickly. “Yes, but it wasn’t difficult. I should have been more careful.”
“Hazard, it’s not your fault what other people do.” I reach out, putting a hand on his.
He shakes off my hand and turns on me, one hand gripping my hip painfully.
“Do you know what it’s like to watch-” He cuts himself off and looks away.
“To watch them force Khaos into submission, to collar Riot like he’s a feral beast and leave him all alone in the snow.
The things I’ve seen. What they did to Wrath?
They punished him over and over for everything any of us did.
They stole my brother’s innocence and turned Angel into someone I don’t recognise.
I did that; each blow to them is a blow to me. ”
“And what did they do to you, Hazard?”
He shudders. I reach out and put my hand on his chest, above his heart. The pain is so strong it’s almost like I can feel it.
“They ignore me mostly; that’s part of the curse. Whatever they do to the others, I feel it. I get to bear witness and watch.”
His words are bitter and angry. He leans back and closes his eyes.
Damn it. He steps back, but I step with him. I throw my arms tight around his waist and slam our bodies together, hugging him fiercely. He stands there with his arms held out stiffly, and then he wraps them around me and buries his face in my hair.
“What’s this for?”
“Something for you,” I whisper back. “Don’t stop smiling, Hazard. You might be the one who brought them here, but I think you’re the one stopping them from falling into ruin.”
I step back, taking in the stunned and shocked expression before I quickly leave the room. I have to because, if I don’t, I might cry…or burn the house down.
If I ever get my hands on those witches…
I pause in the hallway and lean against the wall. Damn it. They are all growing on me. I’m starting to, dare I say it, like them. Enjoy having them around. I want to help them. I try to find the resentment I used to feel, the fear, but it’s gone.
I’m in dangerous territory now. If I’m not careful, I will want them to stay, and that is one thing they can’t do.
I flop down on the couch beside Hazard. He shifts the laptop over to my lap.
“This guy seems nice.”
I stare at the profile picture. He’s not handsome, but his smile is wide, and he seems happy, like he’s living the life I would want. I click on his profile and read. He owns his own gardening business and is single. A family man looking to settle down.
“He does,” I say reluctantly.
On paper, he’s everything I should want. Yet, sitting here next to Hazard, I can’t bring myself to feel any sort of excitement for him. Hazard shows me three other dates they’ve organised, and I agree to two of them.
He sends a message to the third, and we watch as the dots appear. A photo shows up, and it takes me a second to comprehend what it is. I blush but refuse to look away.
“You’d be sorely disappointed. He’s definitely out,” Hazard says.
“You should send him one back.”
Hazard’s eyes widen and then gleam. “I should, shouldn’t I?”
I slide my phone to the red-haired wolf. He takes it, stands up and disappears. When he comes back, he hands me my phone back, but my eyes drift to the telltale hard bulge in his pants.
“Well, that was anticlimactic. He blocked us.”
I huff. “Annoying.”
“Want to watch a movie?”
I close the laptop screen and launch myself over his lap, snagging the remote. He grabs my thighs and holds me against him. I struggle harder and crawl up the couch, clicking as I go. The TV flashes with shows, and I get it to romance.
Hazard growls and throws himself on top of me, pinning me to the couch. I freeze, feeling the hardness of his erection grind into my ass.
My breath stutters, and I shift my hips almost without thinking. Our groans are simultaneous.
“What the hell are you two doing?”
I turn my head to Khaos and bare my teeth. “Practice.” I lie through my teeth, but I’ll be damned if I sit through another lecture from him. “Isn’t that what you said? I needed to learn how to be okay being touched, O wise and ancient one?”
Hazard snickers into my shoulder and flexes.
My eyes widen, and I bite my lower lip to hold back another moan.
“Hazard,” Khaos’ voice is livid.
Hazard scrambles off me, and I turn to watch as he stands up and storms out of the house, slamming the door shut behind him.
I stalk towards Khaos and stand in front of him. “That was bullshit.”
He opens his mouth, but I interrupt him again.
“Do you know what kills a soul as quickly as violence? Apathy, isolation, segregation. Don’t do that to him, not in this house. Consider it a rule.”
Khaos stares at me. “You don’t know-”
“He told me, Khaos. I do know. Stop blaming him for what others did to you. Are you a pack?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love him as pack?”
“Yes.”
“Then forgive him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, that’s what my dad said, too. I am my father’s mistress’s child. I am unwanted in the home I grew up in. They weren’t mean, not until after my mother died; they just pretended like I didn’t exist.”
“Casey, it’s not the same.”
I shrug my shoulders. “It’s enough the same.”
“It’s not his fault. It’s mine. They used him to hurt me,” Khaos growls low and furious. “I am my father’s son, and they wanted to use that.”
I idly wonder who his father was, but I don’t really care.
Ah. “Well, then, what was that?”
“Protecting him.”
“From?” The answer dawns on me and makes me die inside. “From me,” I whisper.
He looks away. “We don’t really know you. And you are wearing that.”
I look down at my wrist and cover it with my other hand. “Yeah. Okay.”
“And you don’t have a pack or a wolf, so you don’t understand.”
“I hear you.”
“At the end of the day, no matter whether you’re the nicest master we’ve had or not, you are still a master, an owner, and we are still on leashes, and I won’t let you hurt my brothers.”
Yep, this conversation is not what I want to hear, but maybe it’s what I need to hear. “Good talk, Khaos. I have to go…do anything now, so let’s chat again later.”
I turn away, but he spins me back, staring down at me. “If things were different…”
“If things were different, you never would have noticed me in the first place. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t be friends if we didn’t have this, and because we do, we never will be.”
“We would have noticed you.”
I tilt my head to the side and smile sadly at him. “No, you wouldn’t have, and that’s okay. Let’s fix this, and you can go back to your lives, and I’ll return to mine. No harm, no foul.”
I tug myself free of his hold and back away from him.
Riot appears beside me, and I flinch. He opens his mouth, but I turn and stalk out of the house. I need a moment. I need to run.
The full moon is tonight.
I’m going to put some distance between the six of us, and I’m going to go and just be.
Alone.
Always alone.