Page 13 of Cathmoir’s Sons (Bad Boys of Bevington #5)

Chapter 13

I’m Your Creep

LAW

T he singing sucks.

There are too many voices, too many unable to carry a tune. They claw at my eardrums. They keep me from hearing my mate’s sweet voice.

Luca nudges me with his shoulder. Stop whining, you’re giving me a headache.

The singing is giving me a headache.

The singing is beautiful, Luca grumbles back. The women of Bevington only sing this song to send one of their own off to the Mother. There are only a handful of men who have ever heard it. Count yourself lucky.

I’ll count myself lucky when they shut up.

The warbling trails off but then starts up again. Evidently, there’s another verse. With a groan, I put my head down, rest my chin on the carpet of pine needles, and fold my ears down with my paws. Muffled, the noise is slightly more bearable.

I wish I could get a recording of this , Luca thinks, his mental voice rhapsodic.

I’m tempted to swipe at him.

Before I do, the singing, mercifully, ends. There are some muffled sobs among the women who have gathered in a large clearing near Bevington. They have three bonfires going in the center of the clearing and small tents ringing the edge. I’ve already inspected the tent my mate is sharing with Jane Serpa, warded and scent marked it. I’m still not happy Kellan’s spending the night out here in the woods, away from the layers of wards that blanket Bevington, and the further layers of wards encircling Jane Serpa’s townhouse, many of which I’ve added since Jedburgh Abbey, but I’ve made it as safe as possible.

If I’m being fair, there are close to three hundred witches gathered in these woods tonight. Many of them teach at Bevington. Others are illustrious alumni. Anyone choosing to attack this circle would be exceptionally foolish and likely find themselves very dead. Or undead, depending on the whim of the numerous Necromancers here.

But I’m not feeling fair. I had to listen to my brother soothe and reassure our mate for an hour last night, while my own arms were cold and empty. I’ve seen no sign of Caileán since she dropped the monumental bomb that she’s kittering. I kept hoping as Kellan held me on her lap and read the story I dredged out of my worst memories that her eyes would flash blue or her feather cloak would rustle. But my words didn’t stir her fae blood. Afterwards, I could only leave as I’d agreed. Leaving my pregnant mate to go to bed alone and cry herself to sleep.

How can this be? Have the lies I told to keep her safe really brought us to this?

I can’t accept that.

I know I must be patient and persistent. I turn those words over and over in my heart whenever I’m tempted to storm Jane Serpa’s townhouse and demand Kellan forgive me. The Kiss Book was a good start. Luca speaking truthfully—if somewhat stingingly; I did mourn our cousins who fell at the siege of Cait House—about me as he soothed Kellan last night couldn’t have hurt. But I can’t go another day without holding my mate, hearing her sweet words, and checking her scent for the first sign of our kit.

There are still a few women singing around the fire, including my mate, who is sitting twenty feet in front of me as Luca and I hide on the other side of the Veil at the treeline. I know this song. Surely not. I swivel my ears, listening. Yes, yes, it is. “Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton.

I can’t listen to this, Luca moans into my mind. I’m going to cry.

I chuff at him. We don’t cry in our Cait warrior forms. I’m not even sure we can.

Of course we can. Luca blinks rapidly at me. We still have tear ducts.

We’re Cait warriors. We don’t cry.

Although when I hear my mate’s soft voice singing that she must be strong and carry on, I might blink a little more rapidly than usual myself.

My mate and the group around her sing on, through songs I know and songs I don’t. Songs that are folksy and old. Songs that are newer and accompanied by strumming on guitars. “Let It Be” by the Beatles. “Slipping Planes” by Strange Potions. “You Can Close Your Eyes” by James Taylor. “Softly She Lies” by Pluto’s A Planet. “When I’m Old and Wise” by the Alan Parsons Project.

My mate sits close to Jane Serpa, sometimes with their arms around each other. Sometimes moving away to embrace other women and rock together as they sing. The bottles of wine and harder spirits being passed around the circle make the rocking more pronounced and the lyrics gently slurred.

The moon’s long set and the fires are guttering. I expect my mate to find her way to her tent along with many of the other women who have said goodnight and slipped off to sleep. Instead, she lingers by the fires. Her friend Rachel pulls Kellan to her feet and they sway together through “Salute to the Nymphs” by Mystic Tides. My mate sings with her head on the pink-haired Darkswerd’s shoulder. Surely, she’ll stumble off to bed when the song ends?

No, she merely trades partners. Teddy wraps her arms around my mate and they sway together while singing “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. When their sweet voices soar together in the chorus, I find myself blinking hard again.

They sing on, sliding into “Everything I Own” by Bread with barely a pause. As the chorus begins, Teddy turns into the arms of a tall figure standing behind her, while another steps forward and draws Kellan into his arms.

I shoot up onto my paws. Luca’s beside me, shoulder-to-shoulder, in a moment. Then he relaxes and knocks me with his muzzle.

That’s Charlie Miller, Teddy Nowak’s husband, Luca thinks to me.

I don’t care who it is, he’s dancing with our mate, I snarl back.

Luca grumbles and sprawls back onto his belly.

I remain standing, bristling, watching as the big, blond, bearded man tucks my mate into his chest and sways with her.

Unable to endure watching his hands stroke her back while she sings about giving anything she owns to touch him once again, I bellow.

Kellan stumbles away from Charlie, whirls, and glares in my direction. I don’t think she can see us, buried in Shades of Faery, but she’s heard sounds through the Veil before, so I’m counting on her hearing me.

I growl at her. Loudly.

Another tall man, this one blond and silver-eyed, comes to stand beside Kellan. He follows her gaze but doesn’t meet my eyes, so I don’t think he can see us.

“What was that?” the fae asks Kellan.

She plants her hands on her hips. “My problem,” she snaps. “Goodnight, everyone.”

She storms toward us, her long braid whipping from side to side. As she passes her tent, she raises her hands, extending her claws, and tears open the Veil.

She nearly plows into me as I stand on the other side.

Her eyes go wide and she takes a step back, pressing into the rippling blackness of the Veil.

Has Kellan ever seen us in our Cait forms on this side of the Veil? Luca asks, his mental voice sounding panicked.

Yes, of course she has, I snap.

When?

I can’t remember a specific instance, but surely our mate knows what Cait look like in Faery?

I shed my fur and stand in front of her. “It’s me.”

Kellan draws two quick breaths and straightens. “Well, that was a surprise.”

“You saw us on the battlefield. At Jedburgh Abbey,” I say, wondering if I’m wrong.

“No, I definitely did not. I’d have remembered two massive black panthers with foot-long fangs. My memory’s not that fucked.”

“I-oh.” I cast around for some other time she would have seen our warrior forms. “Well, this is what we look like on the other side of the Veil.”

“So I gather. Why are you roaring and scaring everyone half to death in the middle of Carrie Prince’s memorial? Bromios better have come back, Law.”

I rarely feel that being naked puts me at a disadvantage. But standing in front of my mate, who has planted her hands on her curvy hips again as her eyes rake me, challenging me to provide an explanation for my actions, I feel my nakedness keenly.

Luca, wisely, stays in his warrior form.

“No one but you could hear me,” I reason.

“And Darwin, and Rachel, and anyone with more than a few drops of fae blood. Half of fucking Ivywhile heard that roar,” Kellan retorts. “This is my friend and mentor’s memorial, Law. Have a little respect.”

Her rebuke reignites the fury I was feeling at seeing another man put his hands all over my mate.

“Respect? Is that what you were showing me? Is that what you were showing Luca? We’re your fated mates, Kellan. Were you showing us respect when you let another man rub his hands all over you?”

“What?” Her brow furrows. Then her eyes narrow and kindle dangerously, not with blue flame, but with red rage. “Charlie? You disrupted Carrie’s memorial because I was dancing with Teddy’s husband?”

“I called to you because you were letting another man grope you?—”

“He wasn’t groping me. He was comforting me. I’ve known Charlie Miller longer than you’ve been alive practically?—”

“I’m not a child,” I snap. “I know how long you’ve known him and I know what I saw.”

“Get over yourself, Law. There’s nothing between me and Charlie, but even if there was, you don’t get to come storming in, throwing a jealous fit, just because I choose to dance with another man. You don’t have any say over who touches me. I do not fucking answer to you.”

I don’t need my warrior form to roar at her. “I’m your fated mate! I allow your relationship with the human to appease my brother but I will not endure?—”

Kellan’s eyes narrow further. “You allow ?”

Her voice whips stinging bits of hail against my cheeks and bare chest. I brush them away in a flare of flame.

“Yes, I allow . I allow you to share yourself with my brother and his human. I allow you to run around unfettered, despite the way you constantly throw yourself into the path of danger. But I will not allow you to throw yourself into the arms of other men. Let any man other than the three of us touch you, Kellan, and they won’t live to regret it.”

“Neither will you,” she responds, her voice blowing a breath of ice through the Summerlands.

“Don’t threaten me,” I snap. “We are Cait and Crow. Our souls don’t lie to each other. Our hearts don’t wound one another?—”

She laughs harshly. “Well, that’s some bullshit right there. We may be Cait and Crow but your heart has wounded mine plenty , Law.”

I snap my mouth shut, feeling like she’s slapped me. How can she throw her own words back at me?

I grind my teeth, trying to find a way to turn this around, to help Kellan see that I’m right, that letting other men touch her is a rending of the bond between us. Caileán said there was no room for any but the three of us in her heart and her bed, but who knows if her unawakened self feels the same? What if Kellan, in her heartache and anger, turns to another man? I couldn’t endure it.

“There are wounds that won’t heal,” I say slowly. “Hearing you, seeing you, smelling another man on you—I couldn’t forget it. It would be seared into my mind and heart forever. I couldn’t forgive it, Kellan. Please, don’t do something we’ll regret forever.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “I haven’t done anything wrong, Law. I danced with a friend. I let him hug me because I’m grieving over the loss of someone very dear to me. You haven’t even offered me condolences?—”

“You won’t speak to me!” I roar.

“We’re speaking right now!” she yells back. “Because you won’t leave me the fuck alone! You’re capable of dumping heartbreaking journals at my door but you haven’t even sent flowers for a woman who considered me her daughter?—”

Kellan’s chin quivers and tears spill again. She dashes them away with furious flicks of her claws.

Was I supposed to send flowers? The human offered a plant of some sort when I told him and Luca of my plan with the journal. Is that traditional among humans? To give her something that will inevitably wither and die when she gets wrapped up in her research and forgets to water it? She doesn’t even keep any green or growing things in her house. Is this the way humans commemorate their dead?

“I-forgive me. I didn’t know it was customary among humans to send flowers for the dead.”

“Benighted Mother, never mind.” Kellan brushes away more tears. “Go back to Cait House, Law. I’m tired. I’ve had too much wine. You’re giving me a headache.”

“Let me hold you,” I say.

“What? No. Fuck off.”

“Kellan, don’t. You’re grieving. You let Luca hold you last night. Let me hold you tonight.”

She presses her palms against her red eyes, her claws digging into her hair. “Hells no.”

“Please,” I say, ready to beg if that’s what it takes to have my mate in my arms.

“Don’t-don’t do that. I can’t handle it when you’re sweet to me. It fucks with my head.”

“I’m still your cupcake,” I say. Beside me, Luca makes a noise like he’s about to cough up a hairball. I knee him into silence. “And your filet mignon. I’m what you need. You need to be held. You need to be comforted. Don’t turn to another man?—”

“I didn’t!” she flares, but I can see her anger’s mostly spent as she wipes more tears away.

“Don’t. Let your mates comfort you. Please, Kellan. Please.”

She rocks forward onto the toes of her boots, pressing her palms against her eyes again. “Nothing more,” she says, so low it’s almost a moan. “Nothing else but comforting. Hugging. No ... whatever we did after Teddy’s ball. I know my mind got rolled again and we ... did things. None of that. You hold me. That’s all.”

“I swear to you on the life of our ... on my life, nothing more. Just let us comfort you tonight.”

“Fuck,” she hisses, dragging the word out. “Where? I can’t crawl into Jane’s tent with the two of you.”

I lift my head and scent. “Jane is asleep. Almost everyone is, except your friend Teddy and she’s well-occupied.” Very well-occupied. Hmm. I might have to ask her husbands for tips. “We’ll draw the Shades. No one will see us.”

Kellan lifts her head and points a finger at me. “You leave before anyone wakes up. In your cat shapes or whatever. But no one sees you.”

“We’re Cait. No one will see us.”

Kellan turns, muttering to herself. I catch “fucking idiot” and “absolute moron to agree to this” before she tears the Veil open again with her claws and steps through. I follow her, with Luca’s shoulder butting against my thigh, as we emerge back into the mortal world, the Shades of Faery streaming around us like black smoke.

Kellan ducks into her tent. Soundlessly, Luca and I follow her.

Her tent is low; I have to duck. But it’s wide enough to easily accommodate two spacious air-mattresses which are already mounded with pillows and blankets. There’s a soft rug underfoot, and a low table between the mattresses, spread with containers of food and bottles of wine and water. The dark lump of Jane Serpa snores quietly on one bed.

Kellan twirls her fingers around herself and her coat, sweater, jeans, and boots unwrap themselves and slump to the floor. In a black T-shirt and men’s black boxers that I’m fairly sure are mine, she burrows into the bed.

Luca and I follow her gingerly, trying not to touch her in any way that would piss her off. It’s impossible. The air-mattress isn’t as firm as a normal mattress. With Kellan’s weight in the middle, the mattress collapses us inward onto each other. I get a handful of breast and a mouthful of hair before I slide my way onto her far side and curl carefully there.

She shifts onto her side and puts her head on Luca’s shoulder as he lies on his back. I spoon her but leave a breath of space between our bodies. It’s strained and awkward for several minutes. Then whether because we’re all tired or because of the sagging of the mattress or because Kellan’s anger slowly seeps away, we shift. Kellan arches her back until she touches my chest. I ease closer, fitting the curve of my legs to hers. She slides her arm across Luca’s chest. I drape my arm hesitantly around her waist.

Kellan rolls over suddenly to face me. “You hurt me.”

“Sorry, the mattress is too soft. I wasn’t trying to squeeze you?—”

She blows out a wine-sweet breath. “You hurt me.”

Oh.

“I’m sorry.”

“Did you care at all? Did you ever think, ‘this is going to rip Kellan’s heart out of her fucking chest when she finds out that I’ve lied to her over and over’?”

“I did care. I do care. I didn’t lie to you over and over. I lied to you about one thing. How much older I am than Luca. It’s two minutes, not years?—”

“You lied to me about not knowing Rhodes.”

“Yes, true, although I avoid Rhodes as much as I can.”

She curls her hand over her mouth. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m furious with you.”

I hook my fingers through hers, draw her hand away from her mouth, and press her fingers to my chest, over my heart. “I know you’re angry. You have every right to be. I lied to you. I did what I thought was right, to protect you, to give you what you need. I’m sorry for hurting you, Kellan, but I’m not sorry for what I did. I won’t ever be sorry for protecting you.”

“I’m also furious you think I need protection.”

“Are you furious I think you need protection, or are you furious that you need protection?” I ask. When she just glares at me, her eyes glinting icily in the dark, I continue, “I know you’re fiercely independent, Kellan. I know it must sting to be vulnerable. I’m not discounting your feelings and I will apologize forever for hurting you. I’m just asking you to recognize what you’re really angry about.”

“I’m angry about all of it.”

I massage her fingers. “I know.”

“Don’t think The Kiss Book makes up for everything.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“I do love it, though.”

I smile and squeeze her fingers.

“I wrote you one of my memories this morning. I was watching Teddy’s twins play and I wrote you about the time I broke my sister’s Yule present. I was twelve. She was ten. I did it on purpose. I’d been taking art classes after school. Drawing, painting, sculpture. I loved them. Just before Yule, Mom told me I couldn’t go anymore. Now, I realize it was because my parents couldn’t afford the classes. But at the time I was convinced that it was because Chelsea had asked for an instant camera for Yule. Chelsea’s magic hadn’t come in yet, so she could still use electronics safely, but I couldn’t even touch it because I was just learning to control my Element. I was so angry at her. I stared and stared at the camera. The harder I stared, the more I could see inside the camera. The way it worked. The parts that moved when she took a picture. That night when she slept, I used my Element to damage the shutter mechanism, so every picture she took came out black. Mom was furious. She said Chelsea must have broken it and she wouldn’t be getting it fixed because Chels couldn’t take care of her things. Chelsea cried and cried.” Kellan swallows with a click. “I was so mean to her, Law. She was my little sister, and I was so mean to her. I should have loved her better. I don’t ... I don’t want to be mean to you. I don’t want to look back on this in a few years and regret the way I treated you. I don’t want to love you badly.”

I tip my chin and brush a kiss across the tip of her nose. “You could never love me badly.”

She takes a shaky breath.

“Shh,” Luca soothes, wrapping himself around her back. “No more tears tonight. You’re going to be very hungover tomorrow.”

I draw Kellan’s hand down and wrap it around my ribs. I shift so she can pillow her head on my shoulder and sigh with contentment when she tucks herself into my side.

“Luca’s right. Sleep, mate.” I kiss the top of her head. “We’ll be gone when you wake. But I’ll still be with you, watching over you.”

“I’m not sure if that’s comforting or creepy,” Kellan whispers, her voice thin with sleep.

I chuckle. “I’m happy to be your creep.”