Safe Haven

Propping his hands on the back of the couch, Grey dipped his head to kiss the crook of Destiny’s neck. His arm slid down, leaving him hugging her from behind as he turned his head and skimmed his lips over her temple, to her ear. ”I’m just gonna check, see if she’s alright. I won’t be long.” A promise stamped with a noisier kiss dropped on top of her hair as he straightened up.

He crossed towards the elevator, the grim lines already stretching themselves thin across his expression as he punched the button to head down a couple of floors. If the night clerk hadn’t stopped the two of them with that glint of glee on her face he’d have been settling on the couch with Destiny and Berlioz while dinner cooked. A happy little domestic scene, one that he’d not expected to have any more than Catia could’ve expected her dead fiancé to walk in the door. Jesus.

Grey dragged his hand over the lower half of his face as the elevator descended. The clerk had only witnessed the second half of the situation, but she’d already had the security footage cued up to show him – footage that was now nothing but a static mess between two stretches of the normal, boring feed of the lobby. Cat’s ‘man-friend’ – the term had left him sighing, wondering how many names Cat had in the files to bring in to interview for a new clerk – had rushed in the door, bathed in the flashing lights of a cop car outside. For a moment he’d expected the sheriff’s people to rush in after him, but the lights had vanished after a minute, leaving the guy to reach out to Catia while she’d obviously been freaking out. It had only taken a single glance up at the camera for him to recognise Cameron. Back from the dead, just like Leah.

Oh, he’d been suspicious. Riding up to the penthouse with Destiny, he’d filled her in on the story of Catia’s ’dead fiancé’, skipping rapidly through Catia knowing that it was gonna happen. That was Catia’s admission to make and maybe she would if Destiny’s was a second shoulder for her to lean on through this. A guy who was supposed to have put in the ground in New York, shot in a botched mugging practically the minute he’d put the ring on Catia’s finger. The whole thing had seemed like something straight out of a bad movie, but practically everything in his life had, so he’d not questioned it further. Now Cameron was back, rushing through those doors like the hounds of hell had been on his tail. Where he’d gone to when he’d left was anybody’s guess, for the minute at least.

’She asked me to take over, she’s upstairs’. More glee on the clerk’s face that had faded when she’d caught the look on his. Catia might’ve just looked like an assistant manager, but she’d been more than that in every version of the Grey Haven he’d opened – the clerk? She was barely a blip in the entire empire, wouldn’t even be that when she was out looking for a job again tomorrow.

Knocking on the door would’ve been the polite thing, but, well, he was definitely beyond that now. Grey used his master key card, knowing the faint beep would give Cat a heads up, if she was capable of hearing it. Like he had on the night she’d returned to town to find him sacrificing a wolf on his sofa, Grey slipped through her apartment quietly, failing to startle her as he stepped out onto her balcony and stopped beside the table.

The corners of his mouth twitched, the closest thing he got to a smile most of the time. Grey drew in a deep breath, glancing at her glass before he stepped back through the door for just a second to grab the bottle and one for himself. He settled opposite her, like they were repeating that day. ”It was difficult not to,” he admitted dryly as he poured himself a couple of fingers of liquor. Not checking if Cat wanted a top up, he filled hers practically to the brim. ”We need a new evening clerk, no rush though.” Not when there were bigger fish to fry here.

Settling back in his seat with a creak, he eyed Catia steadily as she fought her composure back into place. Grey gestured with the glass, indicating her rather than anything else. ”I’d say I’m not the one who needs something out of the two of us. I saw the tape. I don’t know whether to say congratulations or I’m sorry. It was him?” His gut instinct had been certainty, but it wasn’t like he and Easton had been besties. He’d known the man in a general way, making small talk those times when he’d come to pick Cat up at the hotel they’d been working at. A few drinks with him playing third wheel here and there. Not enough to be able to set aside all doubts that the guy had come back from the dead.

Tagged: CATIA MCKENNA * Word Count: 857

As her boss he would’ve been encroaching on Catia, slipping into her suite like he had. As a friend, what was proper like that went out the window. He respected her space usually, but these were unusual circumstances – just like they’d been when she’d turned up in Mystic Falls to find him murdering a guest (albeit one sent by the pack) on his couch. This time she had absolutely no reason for fear him, not that she had then. This was a wellbeing check, one that was definitely needed considering that only a handful of hours ago her supposedly dead fiancé had turned up in the hotel. At least the clerk hadn’t been aware of Catia’s tragic past, he might’ve been less smug and more deranged if he had been. Most people didn’t know it was possible to pull the full Lazarus act, thank God.

The bottle dangled from his fingers as he approached, ending up a couple of inches emptier as he filled glasses for both of them. Grey gestured with it as he sat, brushing off her apology. ”Maybe avoiding getting drunk’s a good idea, but, honestly, I’d call the rest of this bottle medicinal. You’ve had a shock.” And wasn’t that a mild way of putting it. If he hadn’t been aware that it was possible, he’d have been as stunned as she was, but that cat had been out of the bag before he’d even made his way to these shores. It was one of the things Malcolm had ranted about, always looking for a way to bring his wife back, but never managing it. If he’d been sober a single day in his life after he’d gone and cheated on his wife with the Alpha’s bitch wife, then he might’ve managed it. He hadn’t been though, every lesson he’d given afterwards ending up a tiny nugget of the truth buried in absolute madness and idiocy.

One corner of Grey’s mouth tipped up as he nodded back at her. The smile didn’t last long then. ”And a day shift receptionist. I’m sure we’ve still got the applications from when we originally hired here. There’s probably plenty of people still looking for something – discrete people.” Ones he would screen thoroughly before they even got to step through the door. He’d always been paranoid about details of his life leaking out to where the pack would hear about them, but since JJ Hart had decided to try and tear his life down (probably with the help of Leah or Catia’s own sister) he’d been even more cautious than ever. It wasn’t just him that he had to protect now, it was Destiny too and he wasn’t about to make any decision that would put her in danger.

Maybe that was why Catia’s fiancé had taken so long to come back, or maybe the arsehole didn’t have any sort of excuse. Quietly, leaving Catia the room to fill in what had happened, he watched her resettle. The blanket in her lap was probably a sign that shock was still clinging on, despite how long it’d been since Cameron had walked back out, and how much she’d already drank out of that bottle. ”You know there are things that can seem like they’re them….” he stared, unsure about just how much Catia knew of the supernatural world. He’d have sensed most of them when he’d walked in though and undoubtedly Destiny might’ve too, but the only sign had been what the night clerk had gleefully told them. ”So it wasn’t something recent then? What did he tell you? Was it some sort of divine intervention? A resurrection? Some arsehole faked his death and held him hostage somewhere until recently?” Whatever story it was hadn’t been enough to excuse obviously taking some time to get back there, Cat was still angry at him. Depending on the story, whether or not forgiveness was coming from her, he might just have to pay the guy a little visit. He wouldn’t be so hard to fob off with excuses.

Tagged: CATIA MCKENNA * Word Count: 675

He might not have understood the grief that Catia had felt at the time, but when Cameron had died, he’d been there with a bottle and sympathy. Loss was something he was familiar enough with to know how you were supposed to act, but the only person he’d ever truly mourned at the time was his mother and that was a loss that had long gone cold before he’d ever felt it. He’d been too angry at Malcolm and everything he’d done wrong to feel any sympathy for him. Now Grey knew just how loss could tear you apart, leaving you hollowed out as the person you grieved took so much of you with them.

Petyr. Grey felt his heart ache for his son as he poured for both of them. It was a constant feeling these days, no matter how the days stretched out. He’d have given anything to get Petyr back, just as he knew Catia would’ve done for her fiancé. Finally he understood and could give more than just platitudes.

He’d managed to wring a smile out of her about the clerks at least. They could all come and go, the only person he needed to stick with the hotel was sitting in front of him. Both of them had started over before and Grey knew he could do it again – always with Destiny by his side now. No matter what happened between them he wasn’t about to give up on her. Love had driven his mum insane and maybe it had contributed to making Malcolm the same way, but he’d seen what it could do and every step he’d taken with Destiny – and with his son – had been about not repeating those mistakes.

Grey sipped at his glass then lifted both hands to ward off Cat’s reaction to his suggestion that this might not actually seem like a blessing in disguise. He’d dealt with plenty of things over the years, slowly putting together what Malcolm had ranted about with who walked through the doors of his hotel. ”I’m just saying, be careful about looking the gift horse in the mouth … until you’re sure about what happened at least. Make sure you can corroborate everything.”[/colod] Could he honestly lecture her about not taking things at face value after she’d stumbled over him killing a werewolf? Probably not, but out of concern, he’d done it anyway.

There’d never been any suspicion in him about what either Catia or Cameron had been until the guy had gone and gotten himself killed. Then he’d realised what Cat might’ve been, but he hadn’t dug through her brain to try and figure out the depths of it – not the way her little sister had dug through his at least. Cameron had just been some poor dead bloke who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Apparently he’d been wrong.

Shaking his head, Grey let out a low hum. His gaze ticked up to Cat’s. ”They can, but not the same way most other things do. They pop back up, start over again. The mythology’s right on that.” It hadn’t been about dragons though. Both were far more human than the stories would have you believe. They’d been at war forever according to the lore, each finding ways to kill the other for good. It would’ve been sheer luck that Cameron hadn’t ended up really dead.

Amusement tugged at one corner of his mouth. ”Like you weren’t in one anyway? So they got rid of the dragon and he got out of his cell and came looking for you. Did it occur to him to ease in slowly instead of bolting straight into the hotel?” The video had shown the way Catia had reacted – before he’d deleted it off the system. Cameron’s return hadn’t been gentle, it had been shocking. You felt like the ground had fallen from under your feet then, everything that mattered suddenly feeling like it was falling from your grip. Grey lifted his glass and swallowed down what was left in it. He knew the feeling all too well.

Tagged: CATIA MCKENNA * Word Count: 683