Cato: #13 (Luna Lodge)

by Madison Stevens

  She only barely stopped from groaning.

  Jill leaned toward her. “So, Wendy, how does your boyfriend feel about you being stationed here? I imagine it would be a bit hard considering the kind of men you’re around.”

  She winked toward the camera, and Wendy’s cheeks heated.

  “I… uh… I don’t have a boyfriend so that’s not really a problem.”

  Jill raised a brow but said nothing. When Wendy looked over to Cato, she could see him staring with interest, which only made her blush more.

  “And you, Cato? Is there a special woman in your life?”

  He grunted and looked away from her. She waited for his answer, but he didn’t give one.

  Jill pursed her lips for a second. “Well, maybe something else will blossom thanks to this party.”

  Wendy opened her mouth to protest, but the reporter was already turning back to the camera.

  “Tune in later in the week for an exclusive look at Luna Lodge. Jill Hope, signing off.”

  The green light on the camera switched to red. Wendy’s shoulders slumped as relief flowed through her.

  “Good,” Jill mumbled to herself. “New love is always a good angle.”

  “But…” Wendy said softly.

  Jill looked up at Wendy and Cato, pinning them each in turn with her stare and a frown. “Next time I’m going to need a whole hell of a lot more from you two.” She grimaced. “It was like pulling teeth. I need you to work with me a little. Remember, the point of this is PR, and you guys could have sold being together rather than running from it.”

  Wendy sighed.

  “But we aren’t together,” Cato said.

  Somehow his words hurt a lot more than they should have.

  Jill grinned at him. “Keep telling yourself that, big guy. I’m going to get some shots around the building. I don’t know what you all are planning, but this party needs to be big, memorable.”

  “But—” Wendy began.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know you want everybody to be comfortable. I didn’t say it had to be fancy, just big and memorable.” Jill held up her hand. “The eyes of the nation are on Luna Lodge, and you need to make sure they see what you want them to see, because they’re going to remember it.”

  Jill stood and strode away, her cameraman not far behind.

  Cato snorted loudly as he stood. “I don’t care if she’s on our side now. She’s still fucking annoying.”

  Wendy stood as well, not quite sure where to start.

  Cato nodded after the reporter. “We better follow her before she causes trouble.”

  Wendy nodded. It was a waste of time, but she wasn’t really sure she was ready to be alone with him again. She didn’t trust her body’s response.

  “Hey you, beefy guy! How about a few quotes?” Jill shouted at some unsuspecting hybrid.

  Cato and Wendy glanced over to one another and hurried outside. It was going to be an interesting time with Jill there.

  Chapter Seven

  They missed dinner. Cato wasn’t a fan of missing pretty much any meal, but missing his favorite hurt.

  Worst of all, Cato and Wendy had followed the stupid reporter all around Luna Lodge, making sure she didn’t go snooping anywhere she didn’t need to be or accosting every hybrid she ran into.

  The woman had a knack for asking the most wildly inappropriate questions. Even if she was supposed to be on their side now, that didn’t change the fact she was annoying.

  Spending all that time in a combination of tedium and irritation didn’t do much for his mood. He was already over this whole damn thing, and all they’d done was one interview about the party.

  By the time the reporter and her crew packed to leave, dinner time was a distant memory, and his irritation threatened to burst out.

  He glanced over to where Wendy stood watching Jill Hope’s van travel down the road to the main gate.

  Cato opened his mouth to say something but stopped when his stomach growled loudly.

  Wendy pulled out her phone and glanced at the time.

  “Looks like we managed to miss dinner,” she said. She chuckled. “By a lot.”

  “Yeah.” Cato grunted. He wasn’t really sure what the hell he was going to make. It wasn’t like he had any skills in the kitchen at all.

  “I guess it can’t be helped,” Wendy said with a sigh. “I’ve got a frozen pizza, and we still have a lot of things to work out for the party. Why don’t you come over to my place?”

  Cato’s heart thumped in his chest. Her place?

  That wasn’t a good idea. Spending all day with her had been difficult enough, and at least he had his annoyance with Jill Hope to focus on and distract him from her intoxicating scent. Alone in her place, he wouldn’t have a chance.

  “You heard what she said,” Wendy said softly. “The eyes of the nation are on us. What we are doing is more important than just a little party. It means something. So we have to take this seriously.”

  Cato swallowed his doubts about working together. It didn’t matter how much it made him uncomfortable. She was right. They needed to make sure things came together.

  Titus was counting on him to see this through. Plus, this crazy idea might actually make Colonel Hall calm down a little.

  “Okay,” he said.

  He followed Wendy across the lot to her car and climbed in. They drove in silence around the corner to the section of the compound that was now being used to house some of the higher-ranking military personnel.

  Few hybrids came near this part of the compound anymore, if only to avoid some sort of accident or confrontation that would make things worse.

  Cato almost growled at the thought. This was supposed to be their home, their land, and yet they were practically prisoners.

  He glanced over at Wendy. Maybe there was still a chance to stop that. Even if many in the government hated them, not everyone did. The fact Luna Lodge hadn’t been burned to the ground proved that at least.

  Wendy pulled in front of a small house and turned off her car. She stepped out.

  Cato stepped out of the car and followed her to the door.

  Inside it wasn’t much different from his place. They uniform design of the houses had made it easy to put them up fast. The hybrids had planned for a future where they could live as individuals with families.

  Now that future lay in doubt. It seemed like that sort of fast growth had slowed to a standstill since the military was back with them. There wasn’t much point, after all, in spending a lot of time and energy building houses if they planned to leave Luna Lodge.

  He still hated the idea of leaving all their hard work. So much had taken place, and despite everything, from Reverend John to Glycon attacks, this was the closest thing to a home he had ever known. The Lodge was the place they’d finally come into their own.

  Cato pulled himself from the dark thoughts. It wasn’t for him to decide. Right now, he had one job: party planning.

  “Make yourself at home,” Wendy said, and stepped into the kitchen.

  He listened as she turned on the stove and then came back out carrying a beer in hand. She held it out for him.

  “I’ll just be a sec,” she said, and nodded to her room. “I need to change out of my uniform.”

  He nodded and took a swig of the beer.

  Cato tried to keep his mind on the party they were planning and not the fact that Wendy was changing her clothes in the other room. Thoughts of her body just made his focus turn to shit and pants uncomfortable.

  After a moment she stepped out looking far more feminine than she had before. In fact, he was surprised by the pink tank and soft gray pants.

  A blush sprang up on her cheeks.

  “Sorry,” she said quietly. “There’s only so long a person can wear a uniform in a day.”

  When Wendy made her way to the kitchen, he couldn’t stop himself from staring at her ass in the new pants. They molded to every little dip in the most perfect way he’d ever seen.

  Su
ddenly his pants were about three sizes too small. He chugged about half the beer to help temper the rising passion growing within him. This whole Vestal thing was far more difficult than he ever thought it would be.

  Wendy stood in the kitchen waiting for the pizza to cook.

  There was no way in hell she could go back out there at the moment. Not with the blush she was sporting.

  She didn’t have to pick the pink top. In fact, she had all sorts of t-shirts she could have slipped on, but if she were being totally honest, she wanted him to see her in something feminine, wanted him to see her as a woman. Even if it was just a little.

  “What are you thinking?” she whispered.

  The timer went off, and she slid the pizza onto the tray and set it on the stove.

  “Can I he—”

  Wendy jumped at the sound of his voice so close behind her. The hand that had been holding the tray slammed into the molten hot cheese.

  She winced. “Fuck.”

  She yanked her hand back and wiped the cheese off. Her hand throbbed. Her skin was already starting to turn bright red on the soft padding of her palm just below her thumb.

  A large hand grasped her wrist and pulled it over to the sink. Cato turned on the cold water and thrust her hand into the flowing water.

  “Keep it there,” he said forcefully, a slight frown on his face.

  She watched as he stepped over to her freezer and grabbed a few pieces of ice. He placed them in a paper towel and tied it off.

  Cato stepped back over to her side. He had such large hands, but they held her wrist as if she were some delicate flower. Never in her life had she felt like she might be delicate.

  He leaned in close over her hand, peering at it for a long moment. “It looks like we caught it before it bubbled up.”

  She stared at his face for a bit. His eyes remained focused on her battered hand.

  He wasn’t what she thought he was when she first saw him. Sure, he was handsome, and his hair was super soft, but he was also thoughtful, despite his surface gruffness.

  She could see there was so much more going on that he didn’t say as he took in the world around him. It only made her want to know more about the mysterious man.

  His soft amber eyes found hers, and she felt something flutter deep in her stomach.

  “Do you have any burn cream?”

  She nodded. “It’s in the cabinet in the bathroom.”

  Cato led them out of the kitchen and sat her on the couch. “You sit down, and I’ll get the supplies.”

  Obediently she sat. When he came back into the room, he crouched down on the floor in front of her.

  Cato tenderly pulled her hand into his and removed the ice. As soon as he did, she could feel the heat returning to the spot.

  He dabbed on a little cream, and the salve soothed the burn.

  She watched as he placed two bandages over the spot. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  His eyes found hers again, and the familiar flutter returned.

  Cato shook his head. “You should be more careful.”

  Wendy gave a small smile. “I guess I’m just lucky that you knew what to do.”

  Darkness clouded his face in an instant. His whole demeanor changed.

  “Yeah, well,” he said, and stood.

  His gaze seemed to focus anywhere but on her now. “Maybe we should just start planning first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Wendy’s heart sank a little. She knew it shouldn’t have, but it did. There was something about Cato that drew her in, and despite how wrong it was, she felt something for him.

  “What about dinner?” she asked, but he was already to the door.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  With that he stepped into the night.

  Wendy looked down at her bandaged hand and wondered just where things had gone wrong. Beneath the sour exterior and softer center lay a dark piece of Cato. The more she knew of him, the more she wanted to know.

  Chapter Eight

  I guess I’m just lucky that you knew what to do.

  Cato scrubbed a hand over his face as he stared in the mirror in the bathroom. He’d slept like shit the night before and looked about the same.

  Why did Wendy have to say that? Of all the things she could have said, it was the one thing that still haunted him from his time before the Lodge. The wounded or dying hybrids hurt during Horatius Group training, or just as punishment.

  People like him. But at least he’d survived.

  He sighed loudly. It wasn’t fair to be angry with her about something she didn’t know. Cato knew this. That didn’t change the fact that the differences in their lives were right there staring him in the face.

  He glanced at the time on the clock next to his bed. It was early still, but he needed to stop by and eat before heading to the ballroom to start the party planning.

  He’d come home right after being with Wendy and raided his fridge. There hadn’t been much, but he’d found some bread and cheese. Not the dinner he had been planning, but it was better than going to bed hungry.

  Cato shook his head and sighed. He might be uncomfortable, but he still had a job to do. Without wasting any more time, he got dressed and tossed on some shoes before heading outside.

  He decided to just walk to the breakfast hall. He needed some time to think.

  Chilly air still nipped at him, but he didn’t mind much. Even when things were much worse, the cold never seemed to bother the hybrids as much as it did the humans around there.

  It wasn’t like they weren’t affected at all, but just much less so. It made sense. A super-soldier would be less useful if they were too sensitive to different climates. Not every fight was in the tropics.

  Still, Cato was eager for the coming warmer weather. It would be good to feel the sunshine on his skin and smell the perfume of spring. The winter had been long, dreary, and filled with threats to his people.

  Not to mention better weather would aid their travel to the new place. Even if this party changed the relationship with the military, it was only a matter of time before things changed back.

  Some crazy would jump the fence and get shot, or some other reporter would try and whip up outrage against the evil “monsters” of Luna Lodge. They’d never win the war of public opinion, no matter how many parties Jill Hope filmed.

  The breakfast hall was crowded when he arrived. People were eating quickly before heading to their jobs. He filled his plate full of food on the line and glanced around the room.

  With his main job being a guard, he dealt with quite a few of the men on a regular basis, but there were only a few who he considered close friends.

  Cato wouldn’t say he was a hard person to know. The hybrids all had a shared past, but he still found it hard to connect to the others.

  His gaze caught a pair of hybrids in the distance: Nikon and Alair.

  Nikon waved him over to where he and Alair were sitting. The two men were guards like him, and over time, they had come to know each other better than most. Although he hadn’t shared everything with them, the two seemed to understand that there was always more on his mind.

  Many of the other hybrids were leery of the two men. It wasn’t often that the Horatius Group used children from the same family in their experiments, and certainly they hadn’t used a lot of twins.

  Although the pair weren’t actually identical twins, most people thought they were just because they looked so similar. Anyone who spent much time around them quickly learned that, looks aside, the men were very different.

  Cato liked them though. They were easy to be around, and there were always things to talk about, despite the fact that Alair could be a bit quiet at times. It was nice having friends.

  It was a concept he still wasn’t totally sure about. Having fellow men in a squad was one thing, but that was something different than an actual emotional connection beyond the task or job.

  “Haven’t seen you in a few days,” N
ikon said with an easy smile. “But it looks like you’ve been busy.”

  Cato frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Nikon gave a quick laugh and ran a hand through his blond hair. “It’s all over the news. The interview you did with that reporter and that hot soldier chick.”

  Cato bristled at his comment. Rage bubbled up in him just hearing another man talk about Wendy.

  He took a deep breath. He was supposed to be clearing his head, not letting himself get worked up over petty bullshit.

  “Her name is Wendy,” he grumbled. “And we were ambushed. Titus and Colonel Hall set this all up. Now we’re stuck setting up a party that everyone in the nation is going to be watching. I can’t believe I have to help set this shit up.”

  Nikon gave another laugh. “Well, whatever the reason, it sounds like a great idea to me.”

  Cato glanced over to Alair who had remained quiet during all of this. “What do you think?”

  Alair looked over to him and gave a small smile. “I’m sure it will be fun,” he said, a little sullener than Cato would have expected. Apparently Cato wasn’t the only one having a tough time lately.

  Nikon snorted. “Don’t mind him, he’s just mad that he asked out the wrong girl.”

  Cato frowned. “And how does that happen exactly?”

  “It happens when you’re a pussy and aren’t clear with the person.”

  Alair glared at his brother, a growl under his words. “What, because you have all this experience with women? You weren’t even there, so what the fuck do you know?”

  The smile stayed on Nikon’s lips, but Cato could see the serious look in his eyes.

  “I know that if it were my Vestal,” Nikon said, “I’d make sure I was clear with my intentions.”

  Alair rolled his eyes and looked back to Cato. “You meeting over the party today?” he asked, clearly wanting to change the subject.

  Cato shoveled eggs into his mouth. “After breakfast,” he said after chewing for a few more seconds.

  “And how’s that going so far?” Alair asked.