Two Hearts: The Hunt [Slowly Editing]

Chapter Thirty

Caleb's POV

I woke up in the morning to the smell of a rotting corpse, but it still had been the best I felt in days.

I turned off my alarm clock, my senses already vibrating with awareness as Cat's scent awakened them faster than any energy drink or coffee could have.

A soft moan sounded in the early-morning silence of my bedroom, and I looked down to witness Cat crinkling her forehead and grimacing before slowly opening her clover eyes. She looked dazed and confused for a moment, her eyes wandering around before they reached my own. She smiled faintly.

"Hi," she said, her voice hoarse from lack of use. She cleared her throat.

I kissed her forehead, missing the way my lips fit perfectly in between her brows.

"Hey," I replied softly. I couldn't help but grin. Cat was here. In my bed. Right next to me. Her cold, soft body had been all I felt pressed up against my chest the entire night, and it had been extremely soothing.

But I think what was more soothing was the fact that she and I were working things out- that she still felt something for me that I undoubtedly felt for her.

Last night, after Esme left, Cat and I talked. We didn't really discuss much about ourselves as a wolf and a vampire, but rather of the things that had gone awry in our relationship. Apologies were exchanged left and right-some being easier to say and admit to than others.

We both apologized for putting each other in danger. We viewed our previous relationship as one big lie built on a platform of lies. Lies about where we'd been for those few hours when we were hunting; lies about how I would basically disappear off the face of the Earth those nights of the full moon; and even small lies like how Cat needed me to open a jar of sodium phosphate in Chemistry because the top was "too tight"- basically lies about who we really were.

We kept trying to fit into these roles of human boyfriend and girlfriend, and sure, it looked like we pretty much succeeded in crafting a falsified relationship but what were the consequences? Our being with each other was definitely eventually going to have major repercussions, and neither of us seemed to have really cared. When I looked back at it, I realized that I had been a complete fool to allow myself to fall for her the way I did.

Cat told me that it was bad enough that she had fallen for a human, because her kingdom didn't allow those kinds of things to transpire. But now that she knew I was a werewolf, the situation was clearly worse. The same thing applied to me and my pack. I had no idea what the consequences would be they were to find out that I was with a vampire because this sort of thing never happened. My pack was fairly strict when it came to obeying the rules but I didn't think that it said anywhere on those rulebooks that a werewolf could not be with a vampire. Nobody ever considered it a possibility. I sure as hell didn't.

We talked about how it was unfair. It was unfair that we had to be the ones unknowingly and unwillingly thrown into this chaotic mess of war and prophecies. We were forced together without a choice-every time something transpired between Cat and I it was because the witches, specifically Esmeralda, had somehow made it happen. It was hard to tell truth from lie. The lines between the two had blurred until they were unrecognizable.

The only thing that the two of us were sure was the absolute truth was how we felt for each other, and we clung to our feelings as if they were all we had left.

Because, in reality, they practically were all we had left. That, and each other.

After a few given tries, Cat managed to stumble out a surprisingly genuine apology for accusing me of being the murderer of her father. I would have told her just how much her accusation had seared through to my heart, burning me right to the core, but I didn't want to make her feel worse.