Cal
Cal woke up to feeling warm. When he blinked a few times, he realized it was still daylight. Then again, it was late summer or early fall, so it was still light outside a lot longer than his brain thought it should’ve been.
He felt a pang of pain, and looked down at his shoulder—wait, he wasn’t a cat anymore? He stared at his shoulder and arm that were the sources of his hurting and had thick bandages that smelled of blood covering them, although he hadn’t bled through them yet at least. There was a needle on the back of his hand, and he saw that he’d been on a drip. Likely Noah or Dallas had decided to wait and see before attaching another one but they’d left the cannula for now.
Wincing, he decided moving wasn’t an option right then. He felt weak as a kitten—hah—and when he glanced around, he realized Derek was asleep on the other side of the bed, and Kit in his tiny fox form, slept between their pillows.
Everything that had happened slowly came back to him. He remembered patrolling the yard while Mate and his child were painting. The dog, it hadn’t been a threat until it had seen him. The fight had been brutal, but Cal had managed to grab the reins from the cat and keep it from going all-in.
Cal had kept the dog from biting him too much, while also hoping not to have done much damage to the animal. It hadn’t known what it was doing, its prey drive had kicked in at the sight of a cat—that was all.
Sighing, Cal wondered how much of his being this tired was about the shift itself. Normally, he would’ve brushed away fast. He was a seasoned fighter. Dog bites painful as they could get, were not enough to zap his energy like this.
As he watched Derek sleep, his heart ached. His handsome mate. Derek was tall and lean, he had corded muscle that suggested he was younger than his actual years. Cal remembered him working out a lot in Italy. The salt and pepper hair was even more gray now, and Cal wondered if he’d caused any of the almost-premature graying. Derek’s features were a bit sharp; he could look cold when he was in work mode, working as security. But Cal knew the real man,hisDerek laughed easily, smiled a lot, and looked… gorgeous.
Derek must’ve not meant to fall asleep, as his right eye was still covered by the black eye patch. Cal hadn’t meant what he’d done. Of course he hadn’t. Who would hurt their mate like that voluntarily?
There was still the mystery of how they could be mates when Derek was human. They’d never discussed it, so maybe it was time. He remembered hearing that someone in the Council was looking into it. He wasn’t sure though, he’d been in cat form and that always made things fuzzier.
Maybe it was his staring, but Derek blinked his good eye open and barely suppressed a jerk of surprise when he saw Cal awake.
“Hey,” Derek whispered over Kit’s sleeping form.
“Hi,” Cal croaked, feeling a bit stupid.
They smiled at each other for a few precious moments. Then the feeling of guilt and everything else that’d happened rolled over Cal, and Derek could tell.
Sighing, Derek reached behind himself to grab his phone off the bedside table.
He turned it to show Cal the time. Past five in the evening.
“I need to use the bathroom.” Derek rolled out of bed carefully. “You hungry?” he asked, stretching by the bed.
“Yeah, I am.” Cal didn’t even find it surprising at this point. He’d spent a lot of energy shifting back and now healing, and well, the cat could only eat so much. He felt as if he’d lost weight during his time trapped in the cat form, too. He wasn’t sure if that was how it worked, but oh well.
“I’ll check on the dinner next. Noah should be back to check on you soon.”
“Okay.”
Kit twitched a bit in his sleep and Cal put his hand over his son. It settled the tiny fox immediately.
Cal felt a bit choked up. Kit needed him in this form. The cat was good for being there and guarding his boy, but that wasn’t enough parenting. Derek had been picking up Cal’s slack, and he appreciated it more than he could express.
Soon, the front door of the house opened with a now familiar creak, and Derek greeted Noah.
“Son, you might want to wake up,” Cal murmured to Kit, gently stroking his whiskers with his fingers. “Kit, time to get up.”
The black eyes that blinked open were fully fox for that split second before Kit’s human side caught up. Then, the fox yipped, jumped a few times on the bed, and then shook through the shift.
“Dad!” Kit barely prevented himself from tackling Cal and hugged him carefully instead. The tears Cal could feel wetting his chest made him tear up, too.
“It’s okay, Kit. It’s going to be okay.” This was a new beginning, and Cal would have to believe that whatever would happen between Derek and him, things would work out.
Noah walked in, smiling at Cal and Kit.
Kit, naked after his shift, blushed and pulled a blanket over himself. Oh no, did the boy have a crush on Noah?
“How are you feeling?” Noah asked, ignoring Kit’s embarrassment like the kind man he was.
