KARL
Karl surfaced slowly, as if from deep water. His mind was thick with cotton, his mouth dry as dust. His leg ached, deep, grinding pulses of pain that told him he was still alive.
He didn’t recognize the wooden beams above him. Yellow lamplight cast shadows, and all he could hear was the sound of wind outside and soft breathing close to him.
He turned his head slowly and found Leon crammed into a low camping chair, one arm thrown over his middle, head tipped awkwardly to the side. His hair was falling loose across his face, and there was a line of drool at the corner of his mouth.
Karl stared. This wasn’t the Leon he was used to—fastidious and perfectly put together, feline elegance wrapped in smugness. This Leon looked human, younger, and somehow vulnerable.
Karl’s chest squeezed tight around something warm and unfamiliar. He should be asking questions—where they were, what had happened, why his leg felt like it was burning from the insideout. But all he could do was lie there, watching Leon breathe, and let that warmth spread through him.
Memories returned in pieces. The strange wolves by the river. Drugged dreams, and voices he couldn’t place. Through it all, there’d been Leon’s presence in the pain and fire that had consumed him. And he remembered something Leon had said.
We’re mates.
Karl blinked slowly at the ceiling, trying to make sense of it. Mates. A wolf and a cat? That was impossible, wasn’t it?
How did Leon know they were? Maybe something had happened while he was unconscious. Or maybe he’d known too, and just forgotten—it felt like there were big, ragged holes in his memory. Maybe he’d hit his head as well as his leg.
ButLeonwas his mate? The cat who’d exasperated him almost beyond bearing when they’d started out on this hunt together, his sharp tongue and relentless needling tempting Karl to push him off the nearest high surface. Karl knew he’d land on his feet—cat—but anything to shake the self-satisfaction out of him, if only briefly. So perhaps he’d been different since Karl had gotten himself hurt, but that wasn’t who Leon was, not really.
He knew that Leon’s contrariness drove him up the wall, but when he reached for that feeling, all he felt was a quiet warmth, spreading in his chest, steady and disconcertingly soft. Which meant he was either concussed or high as hell. It was almost as if Leon’s constant poking had worked its way past the defenses that had kept Karl safe so long. Like a splinter of light through a shuttered window, or a piece of grit in an oyster to form a pearl. At that point in his thinking, Karl realized he wasdefinitelywasted.
Leon was here, had found him and had stayed. Tactically, Karl knew it was the wrong thing to have done, and later, he’d be furious that Leon hadn’t gone back to warn Matt. But for now, he let himself believe that he wasn’t alone anymore. That someonewanted him, without expectation. The feeling was so unfamiliar, so all-encompassing he didn’t know what to do with it.
And then he thought of Matt’s expression when Karl told him he was mated to a cat. His snort of laughter woke Leon.
Karl wouldn’t say the cat flailed awake, because that would be unkind. Accurate, but unkind. Leon jerked upright with a snort, eyes wild for half a second before he caught sight of Karl watching him. He stilled.
“Hey,” he breathed, a slow smile spreading across his face. It was warm and disbelieving, like he couldn’t quite trust what he was seeing. “How’re you feeling?”
Karl swallowed against a throat that felt lined with sandpaper. “Been better.”
Leon reached for an enamel mug, his movements smooth and graceful again now that he was fully awake. “You want some water?”
He helped Karl sit upright and held the mug to his lips. Most of the contents went down Karl’s chin again, but he managed a few sips. It was more effort than it should’ve been.
Karl leaned back with a soft groan, blinking at the ceiling. “Where are we?”
Leon hesitated before answering. “Still with the shifters who took you.” He paused. “Michael’s pack.”
Hell. That wasn’t good. Karl thought of Michael’s cold assessment, and the flatness in his eyes. It hadn’t been nothingness, exactly, but a dearth of empathy.
“Prisoners?” he asked.
He couldn’t work out what that expression was on Leon’s face. A mixture of self-satisfaction and… was that guilt?
“Not precisely,” the cat said, and pulled his hair forward over his shoulder to start running his fingers through it. Or attempting to—that once-sleek, shiny length seemed to be full of snarls.
“Then what?” Karl asked, and God, he was exhausted. Just getting the words out was almost more than he could manage. He didn’t think he’d ever been this tired in his life, and yet, with Leon there,his mate,he had someone to lean on.
Didn’t mean he was going to let Leon carry the weight alone, though. He focused on keeping his eyes open and his brain as alert as it would get, waiting for Leon’s answer.
“I may have led them to believe that I’m the crown prince of the cats,” Leon said, and then a wicked smile lit his face and his eyes, and Karl didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so beautiful. Or mischievous. “Just don’t tell Luna. She’d have my tail and whiskers for it.”
“You’renotroyalty, then?”
“Hell, no. Our queen’s elected, not hereditary.”
