Page 12 of Cathmoir’s Sons (Bad Boys of Bevington #5)
Chapter 12
The End of the Beginning
LUCA
I keep my phone on me at all times, just in case Kellan calls, but I’ll admit I didn’t expect it to be at 3 a.m.
It’s a text, not a call, but I’ve set a special ringtone for Kellan, so even the text wakes me.
Kellan: I don’t know if Law told you, but he sent me a journal. He wrote a story in it, of your great-grandfather’s funeral. It’s very moving. I’m sorry the reality of death hit you so young. If you’d like to talk about it, I’ll listen any time.
I steal out of bed without waking Rhodes, slink to the cuddle pit in the lounge, and settle down to text my mate.
Even at 3 a.m.?
Kellan: WTF? Why are you awake?
Why are you?
Kellan: I had a bad dream so I read the story again to help me get back to sleep. I didn’t know if you knew about it, so I thought I’d text you before I saw you next and put my foot in my mouth.
I knew about the journal. I helped him pick it out. We talked about it while he was writing out the story for you. What was your bad dream about?
The gray dots bounce as she writes, then stop. The phone rings.
I tap up a video call.
She’s propped up against white pillows in a room that’s not her bedroom. Probably Jane Serpa’s guest room, since Law tells me that’s where she’s been staying.
“That doesn’t look like Cait House,” she says.
“We have a house on campus,” I explain.
“Oh.”
Talk about inserting foot in mouth.
“What was your bad dream about?” I ask again, to try to move her mind on from the fact that Rhodes and I have lived together for years.
She chews her lower lip for a moment. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about my dreams with a student.” More chewing. Her flushed, wet lip is making things happen in my boxers and I’m glad she can only see my face. “But I did hear what you said to me at Teddy’s ball. You’re right. You’re the one person I haven’t confided in, who actually knows things that could help me figure out my Path. I’m trying not to be stupid, Luca.”
“Would it help if I made you a promise? Anything you tell me after nine p.m. and before eight a.m., I promise not to mention, or even think too hard about, unless I’m absolutely sure no one will hear us. I won’t betray your trust, Kellan. You know I’m loyal to you.”
Kellan rubs her fingers over her face but nods. “I know you are.”
“Trust me with your secrets.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, then she says, “I’ve always had nightmares. It’s the curse of our Element, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say to encourage her.
“When I was a kid, I used to dream about this desolate street. Pavement crumbling under my feet. Bricks tumbling off buildings. Everything decaying as I watched. But I never felt I was looking through my own eyes. I was looking through this strange, circular frame of bone. Years after I graduated, I learned I was somehow sharing this vision with an Air and Earth witch that Teddy knows, Tsara Faa. She told me where she’d had the vision. I went to Boston and saw the street. It was the same as my dreams. I stopped having that nightmare after that and it’s been a few years since I’ve had one as vivid as the one tonight. I guess that’s why it shook me.”
“Is it common for witches to share dreams like that? Are you related to her somehow?”
“Not that I know of,” Kellan says. “Shared visions usually happen when magi are connected in some way and in close proximity, but I only met Tsara as an adult. She lived in Boston. I visited the city a lot when I was a kid to go shopping with my mother, but we never ran into each other that I know of. It’s possible we crossed paths, I guess.”
“And the dream tonight?” I ask, to focus her back on what rattled her enough to text me at three in the morning.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “It could have been in Boston, I’m not sure. It was in a lighthouse I didn’t recognize, looking over choppy gray water.”
My first year at Bevvy I took an elective with a dotty Air witch on dreams, divination, and Jungian archetypes. I’d never admit it to someone as practical as Law, but I really liked that class. It kicks in as Kellan speaks. The lighthouse is a symbol of guidance: Kellan’s subconscious is trying to offer her insight. The choppy water is her current, unsettled mental state.
“Next to the reflector thing that casts the spotlight, there was a little boy sitting, playing with marbles. I sat down next to him and asked him to teach me how to play. He handed me one of the marbles. I held it up to my eye and saw that it contained a world in miniature. Forests. Cities. Oceans. All held within this marble. The child grew a long, black beak as I looked at the marble and cawed at me, encouraging me to roll my marble into the pattern of eleven marbles he’d set up. Like bowling pins. I rolled the marble and when it hit the other marbles, they all cracked, blood oozing out of them to cover the floor we were sitting on. The crow-child just shook his head and scooped up the marbles, leaving me sitting in a pool of blood.”
This dream is about her fears. She’s afraid of her power, afraid of the impact it will have on her world.
“Kellan,” I whisper. “Let me come over. I won’t do anything but hold you. You need a hug.”
I’m so sure she’s going to say no that I see her mouth frame the word. But my mind’s playing tricks on me, because the word never comes.
Instead, she nods. “I really need a hug. Please—nothing more than that. Please, Luca. I need to be able to trust you.”
“You can,” I promise.
I roll out of the cuddle pit, tapping a message to Rho so he doesn’t freak out if he wakes up and finds me gone. I leave my phone on a cushion and slip out of my skin, into my fur. The shadows open for me. Normally, I’d need to know exactly where I was going to walk from shadow to shadow, but Kellan calls me like a beacon in the darkness. I step out of the shadows in the corner of the bedroom and bound up onto her bed.
“White—oh. You’re not Whitey. Hey, Luca.” She sits up and sets her phone on the nightstand. She’s wearing a sweatshirt. Her hair’s in a long braid. She looks tired and sadness pours off her like a sour perfume. I stretch into my skin and pull the blue quilt around my waist so she’s not threatened by my nakedness. Then I scoot up the bed to kneel next to her.
Without a word, I open my arms.
With a sigh, she falls into them.
She tucks her face into the curve of my neck. Her arms slide around my shoulders. “Thank you,” she breathes.
“Any time,” I promise. “Any time you need a hug, I’ll be here to give you one.”
She settles in and I have the sense she’s here to stay for a while. Smiling, I ease us down onto the bed and tuck her into my body. I push the quilt down between us so my semi’s not poking her.
“This okay?” I ask.
She nods. “I’m sorry, Luca.”
“For what? Don’t be sorry. You need me, you call. I know things are bad between you and my brother and Rho, but all of us are here for you. Whatever you need.”
“Thank you. It’s been a day and tomorrow’s going to be hard. I want to let go of Carrie, but there’s something horribly final about her memorial. I have to acknowledge she’s gone. Really acknowledge it, down deep. I have to let her go.”
I rub her back, feeling the bones of her ribs and spine through her sweatshirt. She’s lost weight. She’s always beautiful to me, but I hate that even an ounce of her is melting away under her grief and heartache.
Hearing her talk about Doctor Prince gives me another insight to her dream. She’s lost a mentor, a teacher of her inner crow-child. But that same teacher has set her on a path she’s afraid of. A path that could end in blood.
“Tell me your favorite memory of Doctor Prince,” I say, hoping to divert her to happier thoughts.
Tomorrow, the women of Bevington will gather to trade their favorite stories about Doctor Prince and sing her soul off to the Mother. Unless Jane Serpa breaks with tradition—which I highly doubt—men aren’t invited until the memorial the day after tomorrow. Law intends to crash the girls’ night, but even if we successfully lure Kellan away, I doubt she’ll be in a storytelling mood, so I settle in to enjoy what she’ll share with me tonight.
“The time she bailed me, Teddy, and Rachel out of a human jail,” Kellan says, a thread of humor entering her voice.
“What?” My voice shoots up. I know Kellan and her group of friends were troublemakers while they were at Bevington, but I had no idea Kellan had ended up in a human jail.
“She probably came because of Teddy. Teddy was always her favorite student. But I was so ridiculously grateful to see her face, I didn’t care who she came for. We were in Charlemont, a human town east of here. There’s an organization based there, an anti-fae organization called Evanda Hale. It’s run by Rhodes’ uncle, so you probably know about it.”
I grunt. “I do. Rhodes was doing a little work for Evanda Hale when we first started dating. Fundraising, outreach, that kind of thing. He stopped when we got serious.”
“The wild fae don’t have anything to do with human abductions, though,” Kellan says.
“No, but the organization attracts extremists. They’re not there because of the abductions. They’re there because they want someone to hate. The fae are an easy target. Rho didn’t want to be involved with an organization that promoted hate against his boyfriend’s race.”
Kellan sighs. “There’s so much hate in the world.”
“What did she do that night? And how did the three of you get caught by humans?”
“Well, we might have been drinking,” Kellan admits. “Quite a lot. And Rachel might have stripped down to her underwear and passed out while we were breaking into a warehouse where Evanda Hale stores records. Teddy was looking for information on the Bloodelm court, you know the one that was destroyed?”
“I remember,” I stroke her head. “I’d never been there, but I knew about it.”
“We didn’t find what we were looking for. We left Rachel outside and thought we’d cast concealment charms, but I guess we blew it because we were drunk. The next thing we knew, someone reported a naked, drunk girl dancing in an alley and the human police showed up. A lot of the humans in the towns around Bevvy have more than a drop of preternatural blood. These cops could see and hear us and they arrested us. Teddy was afraid if she called her boys, they’d choose violence. Teddy had this ring that was connected to Carrie. She used it and Carrie came. Eventually. She let us marinate in jail for most of the night and showed up around five in the morning. We were sober by then, hungover as hell. She took absolutely no pity on us. She bailed us out, drove us back to Bevington, fed us breakfast, and made us go to our morning classes.”
I chuckle. That absolutely fits with everything I’ve heard about the Chronomancy professor.
“She never told my parents,” Kellan says softly. “She could have busted me. She could have called Rachel’s mother. She could even have called Teddy’s uncle, who made trouble for a while until Teddy and the boys graduated. Carrie never said a word. Never reported it to anyone. Never put a note in our files. I don’t even know if she got her bail money back. She never said. The charges disappeared. She never asked for thanks. I gave her some Nipmuck pottery that I’d recovered and restored. She kept the pot she liked best and donated the rest to the museum. That was Carrie. She never did anything for show. She just quietly got things done.”
“You admired her,” I say.
“Almost as much as I admire Jane.”
“Jane told Law that she and Carrie thought of you as their daughter.”
Kellan sniffles. “She did? When?”
“I think it was the night he brought you to Cait House.”
“Did you—does Law tell you everything?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it. Law’s a cagey fucker.”
Kellan snorts. “He is. Luca ... the three of you ... why? Please tell me why? It hurts so much that they lied to me.”
I shift so I’m lying on my back and tuck Kellan against me. She settles her head on my shoulder. Her warm breath feathers across my bare skin. Goosebumps rise and my nipples tighten. This should be a moment when I draw her on top of me and continue the conversation joined as only lovers can be. But she doesn’t remember forgiving us. She’s still caught up in rules and regulations that are only a step away from human laws. I need to be patient. I need to wait for her to remember everything.
“Can I explain some things about Law? Without pissing you off?”
She gives a weak chuckle. “Everything about him pisses me off right now but you can try.”
“You know Evan Lords, right? He’s dating your friend, Rachel.”
“Yes, of course I know Evan.”
“He came to see Rhodes. Twice, actually. He offered Rhodes protection against the mage who attacked you at Jedburgh Abbey. He’s an interesting guy, Lords. A little broken, I think.”
Kellan nods, rubbing her cheek over my skin. “He was incarcerated for too long, cut off from his Element, without much hope of getting released. Something happens to mages who are cut off from their Element for years. Their souls die little by little. Not all of Evan that went into Karkarus came back out.”
“I hope being free helps him heal,” I say sincerely, because for all that I think he’s not the man the Capricorns need, he seems like a good guy. “He doesn’t have the right mindset if the Capricorns are going to take up the green mantle again, though. If he’s going to lead paladins, warriors, he has to lose the softness that’s brought him to see Rhodes. He said too many died at Jedburgh Abbey and he couldn’t lose anyone else. Generals can’t think like that. If anything, Lords should have considered using Rho as bait for Bromios’ remaining followers. I don’t think that ever crossed Lords’ mind. But you know who has considered it?”
Kellan hiccups softly. “Lawson.”
“Uh-huh. You know why?”
“Because he hates Rhodes.”
“Yeah, that’s probably part of it,” I admit. “But the bigger part is that Law’s been trained since birth to lead the Cait. We’re at war with the Mirk and have been for generations. I don’t know what the war will look like after Jedburgh Abbey, but even if it’s over, you don’t lose the mindset. Law’s been trained not just to be a king and lead his people but to be a general in a war. He knows how to make the hard decisions. He understands that in any war there are losses. He’s seen that firsthand. He’d never say that he couldn’t lose anyone else. He knows he doesn’t have the luxury of thinking that way. That was, until he met you. You’re the one person Law can’t lose.”
Kellan’s breath catches again. “Luca, that’s not true. You, Aine, your parents?—”
“Believe me. If we were all drowning and he could only save one of us, he would save you. He’s never felt that before. I know he hasn’t because we’ve talked about it, and I’ve felt the way his heart kindles around you. Our freshman year at Bevvy, a dozen Mirk Riders banded together and raised a small army of Mirk beasts. Nothing like Jedburgh Abbey but enough to overwhelm Cait House. They laid siege to Cait House for three days. My dad and Law killed eight Mirk Riders between them to break the siege. They were both wounded but they lived. Some of our cousins weren’t so lucky. Law brought me the news of their deaths. He didn’t cry; it’s been years since I’ve seen Law cry. He told me they’d fought well and helped save Cait House. I asked if he’d say the same thing about me if I’d died and he said yes. He wasn’t being an asshole, Kellan. Well, he wasn’t being more of an asshole than usual. He meant it. He knows I’m expendable. I’m literally the spare. You’re not. We only get one fated mate. Law would do anything to protect you. Don’t underestimate the lengths he’ll go to. I know you feel you don’t need his protection, but, forgive me for saying so, you’re wrong. While you’re going through this transition, you’re vulnerable. And while you’re icing out Law and Rho, we’re all vulnerable. I’m not trying to convince you to forgive them. I know you need to work through your feelings. I’m just asking you to see Law for what he is. Being a student at Bevington is the least important thing about him. Does that make sense?”
Kellan turns her face into my shoulder. Her skin slides wet and sticky against mine. I stroke her hair and let her cry.
She falls asleep with tears still wet on her cheeks, mourning things she can’t change and is having trouble accepting. I slide carefully out from under her and tuck the quilt in. It’s a huge temptation to stay, to hold her all night, to see what develops. Am I ragingly jealous of Law reaping the rewards of her somnophilia? Just a little fucking bit. But she said she needed to trust me, and what she really meant by that was that she needs me to prove I won’t cross the line when she draws it. In Faery, with Caileán, we can be mates. In the mortal world, Kellan wants us to be teacher and student. Friends, but not lovers. Law won’t ever observe her rules and boundaries. He’ll always be what she needs instead of what she wants. But she’s asking for something different from me.
I can be that for her.
I slip into my fur and dive back into the shadows.