Hours had passed and Kairo had been seated on the porch through all of those hours, his blank eyes gazed at the grey sky. Longing was painted across his face whilst he sat there in silence, completely unaffected by the snow or the fact that it was almost night time. He just wanted a break and no matter where he went, he never found it. The only peace he knew had left a long time ago, he thought he had dealt with it but obviously not since it loomed over his head for every second of the day. A weight had been resting on his shoulders ever since his family died, it was foolish for him to expect Marcellus to instantly take the pain away. Kairo had tried to use time to heal but it had failed. He used to sit with the pain and simply feel it but this went on for months without any signs of healing. Kairo was finally beginning to accept the fact that death left a heartache that no one, not even himself, could heal.
"It's been a while since K.O struck, huh?" He chuckled to himself, his hot breath turning white because of the cold which slightly amused him.
"Yeah, it has been. I like it better that way." Hayes grumbled, his voice was low and barely audible. The Lycan hadn't appeared in Kairo's mind for a couple of days now and he was only just speaking now.
"What do you want me to do, Hayes?" Kairo groaned, he was starting to become annoyed with Hayes' behaviour. No matter what he did, the Lycan wasn't happy with it.
"Whenever I'm with Marcellus, I can't even feel your presence anymore because you completely detach from me." He scoffed, "When I suggest going back to my old ways, you are also completely against it."
"That's not fair."
"You know what's not fair? Having to do everything my fucking self." Kairo snapped, he was so angry that he actually said the words aloud and they echoed through the forest.
Before Hayes could even answer back. Kairo shut him off and went inside the house where he found some vodka. Grabbing the bottle, he went back outside and sat on the porch once again. His thoughts were filled with Marcellus and how he didn't deserve any of this.
Kairo was not suited to mate with anyone, nonetheless a King. It was not fair for Marcellus to be mated to someone who's heart belonged to a man who was six feet under. He didn't want to make him compete with a dead man because that wasn't possible. Christopher would win day in, day out.
It was ill-fated from the start. He didn't want to do anything anymore.
Taking a sip from the bottle, he enjoyed how the vodka burned his throat and the feeling it gave him. He watched as a black car came out of the woods and parked right in front of the house, it wasn't Marcellus' car, that was for sure.
[...]
The King sat in his office writing away as he caught up with everything that had happened whilst he was bedridden. Theo had done an excellent job at keeping up with the pack's needs but Marcellus now had to do his job with focusing on the whole country's needs.
He was also working this late to ignore the aching pain in his heart. It had been almost 7 hours since Kairo had left and he still hadn't come back. Not that Marcellus would blame him if he chose to never come back but it still hurt. It felt as if he was floating whenever Kairo wasn't near him but he was sure that the feeling wasn't mutual. If anything it looked like Kairo was drowning.
Marcellus hated how sad his mate looked all the time. The tall, muscular man always had a blank expression on his face, you could never tell what he was thinking. His smiles were few and fake. Everything about him felt forced and Kristian had been complaining that Kairo's wolf hadn't communicated with him yet. Not even a single hello.
Both wolf and man felt rejected but somehow they understood. They understood that their mate had someone that he loved deeply and they had died. They understood that it would take time, energy and a hell of a lot of patience. But they couldn't help but feel a bit dejected at times.
Marcellus stopped writing and just imagined Kairo, just to soothe his heartache. He could see him clearly in his mind. The way his brown hair naturally just rested on his head. He could tell that Kairo hadn't had a professional haircut in years but the messy yet short hair suited him. His cheekbones were prominent and his cheeks were sunken in slightly, making his jaw even sharper. Honey brown eyes glanced through his long eyelashes and the strands of hair that reached his eyes. Surprisingly, Kairo didn't grow any facial hair, instead he was smooth with thick and naturally red lips.
He was also 6'0 which was only a few inches below the towering King with an astounding height of 6'5. Marcellus couldn't deny how attractive his mate was for a man who had been a recluse for 6 years. He was naturally beautiful.
Marcellus wanted to know everything about him. That was all he wanted.
[...]
"You remind me of myself." He said as he grabbed the bottle of vodka from Kairo and chugged it down, also enjoying the burning sensation.
"How so?" Kairo asked curiously, he watched the other man sigh as he gazed at the sky, the snow slowly fell to the ground.
"Dead Inside. Broken. Depressed." He turned and faced Kairo before he said, "and bitter."
Feeling offended, Kairo snatched the whiskey bottle back and drank some. Ignoring the man beside him, he confessed, "Y'know what, maybe you're right. But I've felt this way for song long that I've forgotten how it felt like to be anything else."
"Through all of these years you had no one." He sighed before he ruffled Kairo's mop of hair, "Now you've got someone who wants you to stay by their side, regardless of your past and present struggles."
Getting up from the porch, the man snatched the vodka bottle and drank the rest before placing his hand in front of Kairo for him to grab. Hesitantly, Kairo grabbed his hand and used his strength to stand up. They walked side by side towards the car. Even though they had drunk alcohol, werewolves didn't get drunk so driving wasn't an issue.
"What made you depressed?" Kairo stared into the man's playful eyes. He was now insanely curious about what could've possibly caused such a horrible thing.
"My mate cheated on me." He revealed with a smile. Weirdly enough, his smile was genuine.
Theo turned around and lifted his shirt, showing his back which was littered with claw like scars. No patch of skin was left clear, his whole back was filled with scratches, some deeper than others. Then Kairo finally understood.
Theo's mate had mated with him and marked him but had been with someone else throughout the duration of their relationship.
"Did you reject them?"
Fixing his shirt, Theo thought about what he was about to say. It still hurt to say.
"No. The rejection would've killed me."
Kairo's eyes widened slightly because he understood the depth of what Theo was going through. That meant that he got new claw marks whenever his mate would have sex or even kiss the other person. In order to stay alive, he chose to deal with the excruciating pain of an unfaithful mate.