DCBB Black Glass pt.3
Part 2
Dean started seeing that Braeden woman. Braeden woman was called lady, but lady means woman, so woman she was, just as Cas and Dean and Sam were men. Cas didn’t particularly like her, the way she looked at his Dean. He had heard Sam talking to Dean earlier that day before they went into town, about how he had to start looking for a woman, how he was getting on in years and he had to start thinking about the future. What future? If it was a future without him he didn’t want Dean to take it. Besides, Dean had a long life in front of him, lying flat like a lover or a long stretch of still lake reflecting the lights of the north sky. Cas knew, he had seen it in his night walks in the stars.
Apparently this Braeden lady liked Dean a lot, that they were going to get married, and have a bunch of babies and be happy. Nowhere in that equation could Cas find a place for himself. Because there wasn’t one. Dean was going to leave him to be with a soft woman. Soft woman skin was not something Dean wanted. Again, Cas knew.
She had never even gone hunting, she bought her food with paper and coin and earned her living setting and cleaning tables for other people who bought their food with paper and coin, who bought everything with paper and coin. Dean had showed him this money before, and Cas didn’t know what to do with it. It couldn’t be used to kill a rabbit, couldn’t be used to plant or sow crops or catch a fish. It was meaningless to him. Just as Sam thought hunting was meaningless. Cas should quit hunting for a month, allow the giant to eat away at their stores, and then see how he appreciates what Cas does.
Though Dean left for the town quite often to see the woman, he sometimes brought her back to the house, to see Mary. Cas always made sure he was away on those days, or somewhere else on their property, chopping wood, fishing on the far side of the lake, gutting animals behind the stalls, bathing in their blood in secret.
Dean expressed to him numerous times that Braeden wanted to meet him, that she wanted his blessing. Cas looked at Dean then, really looked at him, and he hoped he conveyed in that gaze what he could not say aloud. Cas sighed, though, and let his wings droop before perking them up, looking at Dean then back to his wings meaningfully.
“She doesn’t know about that yet, but, I don’t think she’ll mind. She cares about us too much to let something like that effect our relationship.”
Cas could detect a small amount of sarcasm when Dean said relationship, and it made him feel warm inside, if it meant that Dean didn’t like this woman as much as he let on. So Cas smiled and nodded, delighting in Dean’s answering grin.
“Thanks, Cas, I’m sure you’ll love her.”
He did not, in fact, love her, and he was sure the feeling was mutual after their botched meeting. Dean had planned on a gentle stroll through the woods, Cas’s woods, to the clearing they played in when they were boys. What Dean had not been expecting was the Braeden woman’s reaction upon seeing him. He could smell her fear, and hesitation-like an animal he could sense these things, he discovered early on when he first began hunting-but what heavily disgusted him was her arousal, her lust permeated the air and he almost gagged, desperate to be out of the cabin and into the free air. Her cloying smell was like overly ripe apples…or unnatural scents that Mary sprayed herself with from small glass bottles, and she had sprayed him with them before when she discovered he disliked them. Her malice grew petty more often than not.
Dean had groomed him that day, saying that he didn’t want to purposefully intimidate her, and Cas almost fought to keep his beard. Dean settled for trimming it instead, which Cas preferred to being clean shaven like Sam. He forced him into the bath, scrubbing off the weeks of accumulated dirt and grime that didn’t get washed away in the melting snow and the lake water. He even forced him into new clothes, but they were still the rugged aesthetic that pleased him. They were John’s clothes, and that made him a little happy, having something of his father’s to hold onto during the day. Dean even trimmed his hair, snipping away at his fringe till it was almost as short as Dean’s.
Then Dean groomed his wings.
He never liked it when anyone else touched his wings, it felt violent and cruel and unnecessarily harsh when they tugged and pulled at his feathers. But not when Dean touched him. Warm bolts of pleasure coursed through his extraneous appendages and he sighed, clicking his tongue in a happy rhythm, letting the older man know how good it made him feel. This must be what lovers felt like.
Dean laughed and ran his hands through his wings once more, a useless gesture, and heat pooled low in Cas’s belly, a heat he was very much familiar with, a heat that in the past would send him deep into the woods for months at a time. But he couldn’t do that now, and he couldn’t immediately take off when Dean was done with him, he was still half naked. He clicked and whirred, looking down and crossing his arms over his stomach in distress.
Dean hesitated and placed a warm, calloused hand on his shoulder. Cas leaned into the touch, closing his eyes and sighing. He felt Dean’s heartbeat, heard it reverberate through the room, and as he leaned back he felt the man’s groin against his wings, and he felt the heat there, and could smell the low, heady beginnings of lust fill his nostrils. His smile curled along his lips, and his whirring grew louder till he was practically purring, like the felines he often crossed in the wilderness. Dean didn’t know how much of an animal he was, he had become. And like all of the animals he knew, he wanted to take, consequences damned, like the eagles in the high branches that hunted and killed and loved with ferocity unbeknownst to humankind.
He rutted back against the older man’s firmness, panting softly at the sheer heat his nest mate was emitting. He couldn’t have the woman take him away, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, he wouldn’t let her. He rolled his back, satisfied when Dean groaned, when his grip tightened and his heartbeat increased. It was beating as fast as the wild boar’s when he hunted them, when he drew in close for the kill; it was beating as fast as the rabbit’s when Cas held it gently in the palm of his hand before snapping its neck and tearing at its flesh in a rabid hunger that could not be sated. He thirsted for Dean’s blood, hungered for his flesh, for his seed, sweat, entrails, for his love.
“Cas…” Dean groaned, and that blessed syllable was the man’s undoing. Cas flipped around on the stool, immediately burying his face in Dean’s groin where his musky scent was the strongest, and he inhaled till he could no more and he was giddy with it. He licked the exposed flesh of the man’s hip above the waist of his pants, clawed at them, unfamiliar with the metal zipper and button and Dean batted his hands away, unzipping them himself. Cas would have sang for joy if he could have, the man wasn’t wearing any undergarments and his erection jutted out of a bed of dark blonde curls. From experience Cas knew they were wiry and coarse and they felt good against his skin, like the twigs on the ends of branches that tore at his face. It had been too long.
“She’ll be coming in half an hour, Cas, we gotta make this quick.”
Again, Cas felt the familiar coil of arousal and rage mix in his gut and he attacked the man’s member, suckling and biting at it, reveling in Dean’s cries and expletives. He didn’t notice the door creak open, didn’t notice a pair of hazel eyes settle on their mating in an unfamiliar mix of emotion. When Cas did become aware, he didn’t react, didn’t make it known, and he knew Dean would have shoved him away if he knew. Sam. Sam was watching them mate.
Cas gasped before swallowing down his bond mate, selfish in wrenching the man’s orgasm from him, which he did in a short while, suckling like an infant at a teat, nibbling at the foreskin till Dean drew away, too over-sensitized to the point of pain. Cas swallowed the man’s seed down, cherishing the part of him he held now in his belly. He no longer saw Sam at the door. Dean gripped his hair possessively, leaning down to lick at his lips, tasting himself on his mate and Cas breathed in his scent, memorizing it, learning it all over again, filing it away in his head. He whined and pressed his cheek into Dean’s palm, looking up at his mate; he smoothed over Dean’s flanks, kneading his flesh and wishing he could never be torn away from him again.
Dean bit his lip and ran a thumb over Cas’s, “You know why I’m doing this…people are getting suspicious, Sam is getting suspicious…”
Sam is beyond suspicion, Cas thought, remembering Sam’s shocked expression.
“I have to do this, at least for a few years. Maybe we’ll get married, have a few children, but they will mean nothing to me, Cas, nobody is like you. Even if all of that happens, I will still belong to you.”
Cas keened and lapped at Dean’s fingers, tasting the salt of his sweat and the faint oily taste of his own wings.
“And you will still belong to me.” Dean growled, tightening his grip. Cas saw that his eyes were blown wide in lust, and they glittered in the midsummer sun, like black glass.
They quickly pulled themselves together, and Dean opened a window in the bathroom to be rid of the scent of their sex, and he popped a candy in Cas’s mouth, warning him not to spit it out, though Cas wanted to hold onto his mate’s flavor for as long as possible.
And it was as he was finishing the candy, chewing petulantly, when Dean led the woman through the door. He sucked on the sappy resin, focusing on the syrupy flavor in his mouth rather than the unmistakable scent of the woman’s arousal. Thankfully Dean led her upstairs to see Mary before they left, and Cas stepped outside to wait. It was still midsummer, but the land always held a bitter chill, and he pulled on his buckskin jacket over John’s clothes. He was a little warmer, and knew he would heat up once they started moving. He was just pushing his wings through the slits in the back when Dean and the woman emerged from the cabin. Dean squinted at him through the glare and beckoned him over.
“Cas, this is Lisa Braeden. Lisa, this is Cas.”
She smiled and held out her dainty gloved hand, eyes not leaving his twitching wings.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cas.” Lisa said, and Cas nodded curtly, but did not take her hand. He wasn’t stupid; he had seen Dean and John greet other men before in a similar manner. But that wasn’t how you greeted a woman. She faltered under his gaze and eventually let her hand drop, glancing awkwardly at Dean. Dean just glared at Cas and the younger man ducked his head coyly, though he knew Dean wouldn’t fall for it. He just hoped his mate explained his behavior to the woman and then he started walking to the path in the tree line, expecting them to follow.
He had to keep pace with them; he wasn’t used to walking as fast, as careless, as Lisa was. She was making so much noise, chattering away in Dean’s ear, hanging on his arm, and he winced when he heard a wild boar squeal away at her children somewhere east of the path. Damn. If the woman hadn’t scared her away he could have gone back later for some fresh pork for the dinner table. He treaded carefully over the snow, walking in Dean’s footprints, avoiding the woman’s, and generally keeping his head down.
“Does he ever talk?” Cas heard her ask quietly, and Dean knew he probably heard her, but he answered her anyway.
“No, not even when he was a child. He didn’t so much as utter a peep.”
She giggled, glancing back at him and he smiled, a customary expression for strangers, he thought. He heard twig snaps somewhere off to the left of the path and he focused in on it, though it was hard given how loud Lisa was talking.
“And what about his wings?” She asked, softer than before but, again, Cas could hear her plain as day. Dean smiled thinly, and Cas could tell he didn’t want to talk about it from the tightness in the age-lines around his eyes. They never talked about it, not even John discussed it with him before he died. It was just something they never talked about, and it was never a problem since Cas had no desire to go to town with his brothers after all, and who were the deer and the boar going to tell?
“Uh, we don’t know,” Dean deflected, glancing back at Cas himself and Cas smirked, batting his wings playfully at him. Dean blushed and turned back around, though Cas caught the hint of a smile on his face.
They continued their walk in silence, which was much appreciated by Cas, he didn’t think he could take any more of that woman’s banter. The twigs kept snapping, and he kept getting distracted by them, even stopping to stare along the edge of the trail, through the black trees. The black trees were always bare, but their number could obscure anything they wanted if the thing was far enough away, like blades of grass hiding a viper strike.
“Cas.”
Dean was next to him, looking out at the woods. He held the hunting knife at his waist, gripping Cas’s shoulder and brushing his wing aside to draw close to his ear.
“What is it, can you tell?”
Cas could feel the woman’s fear buzzing at the back of his head, but focused on what lay beyond the tree line. He pulled his bow from around his shoulder-he almost hadn’t taken it, but was glad he did-and notched an arrow, pulling the bow taught, training his sight along the path edge, looking for any movement. He moved forward, slowly, each step placed deliberately in spaces known only to him, spaces that would make no sound save for the nearly imperceptible crunch of snow beneath his feet. He heard the patter of small feet, heard the rush of fur against the underbrush, but what he heard was no rabbit. Too big, he thought, straining his eyes to their limit, searching for the danger that lay ahead. A low growl was his only warning before a wolf stepped out into his vision, melting out of the black bone trees like a spectre.
He froze instantly, relaxing his posture and crouching closer to the ground. He drew in his wings, flattening them to his back to make him seem smaller and was glad when he noticed Dean had moved back to the path, quite possibly to take the woman to the cabin.
No women in the woods tonight, only predators.
The wolf snarled, baring its fangs, and Cas slowly withdrew the arrow, wincing at every creak in the aged pine bow and string. He laid his weapon on the ground, moving to sit on his knees. He held his hands out in front of him, palms up, and slowly, ever so slowly, drew his wings around him, letting his scent catch the wind. He knew he smelled of water and ice, of blood and pine, of fire and smoke; he smelled of predation and he knew the wolf would recognize its kin. The wolf ceased its snarling, closing its mouth and licking its snout, snuffing at the wind. It dipped its nose to the ground, sniffing before treading closer, keeping wary yellow eyes on the winged man. Cas drew his wings further up, sheltering them from the harsh sun and the wolf looked at them curiously, then returned to smelling Cas’s outstretched palms. They were covered in wrappings and fingerless gloves, but the wolf licked at the exposed flesh of his fingertips, tasting him, learning him. Cas smiled when its rough tongue tickled him, but didn’t dare move.
It looked at something off to their left, before howling, a deep mournful sound that Cas found himself envying before it took off at a light trot through the woods. Cas remained kneeling on the ground for some time, watching the wolf disappear into the wilderness. He returned to the cabin when the sun was already receding behind the mountains with wet numb knees and numb heart not yet thawed by midsummer.
Dean started seeing that Braeden woman. Braeden woman was called lady, but lady means woman, so woman she was, just as Cas and Dean and Sam were men. Cas didn’t particularly like her, the way she looked at his Dean. He had heard Sam talking to Dean earlier that day before they went into town, about how he had to start looking for a woman, how he was getting on in years and he had to start thinking about the future. What future? If it was a future without him he didn’t want Dean to take it. Besides, Dean had a long life in front of him, lying flat like a lover or a long stretch of still lake reflecting the lights of the north sky. Cas knew, he had seen it in his night walks in the stars.
Apparently this Braeden lady liked Dean a lot, that they were going to get married, and have a bunch of babies and be happy. Nowhere in that equation could Cas find a place for himself. Because there wasn’t one. Dean was going to leave him to be with a soft woman. Soft woman skin was not something Dean wanted. Again, Cas knew.
She had never even gone hunting, she bought her food with paper and coin and earned her living setting and cleaning tables for other people who bought their food with paper and coin, who bought everything with paper and coin. Dean had showed him this money before, and Cas didn’t know what to do with it. It couldn’t be used to kill a rabbit, couldn’t be used to plant or sow crops or catch a fish. It was meaningless to him. Just as Sam thought hunting was meaningless. Cas should quit hunting for a month, allow the giant to eat away at their stores, and then see how he appreciates what Cas does.
Though Dean left for the town quite often to see the woman, he sometimes brought her back to the house, to see Mary. Cas always made sure he was away on those days, or somewhere else on their property, chopping wood, fishing on the far side of the lake, gutting animals behind the stalls, bathing in their blood in secret.
Dean expressed to him numerous times that Braeden wanted to meet him, that she wanted his blessing. Cas looked at Dean then, really looked at him, and he hoped he conveyed in that gaze what he could not say aloud. Cas sighed, though, and let his wings droop before perking them up, looking at Dean then back to his wings meaningfully.
“She doesn’t know about that yet, but, I don’t think she’ll mind. She cares about us too much to let something like that effect our relationship.”
Cas could detect a small amount of sarcasm when Dean said relationship, and it made him feel warm inside, if it meant that Dean didn’t like this woman as much as he let on. So Cas smiled and nodded, delighting in Dean’s answering grin.
“Thanks, Cas, I’m sure you’ll love her.”
He did not, in fact, love her, and he was sure the feeling was mutual after their botched meeting. Dean had planned on a gentle stroll through the woods, Cas’s woods, to the clearing they played in when they were boys. What Dean had not been expecting was the Braeden woman’s reaction upon seeing him. He could smell her fear, and hesitation-like an animal he could sense these things, he discovered early on when he first began hunting-but what heavily disgusted him was her arousal, her lust permeated the air and he almost gagged, desperate to be out of the cabin and into the free air. Her cloying smell was like overly ripe apples…or unnatural scents that Mary sprayed herself with from small glass bottles, and she had sprayed him with them before when she discovered he disliked them. Her malice grew petty more often than not.
Dean had groomed him that day, saying that he didn’t want to purposefully intimidate her, and Cas almost fought to keep his beard. Dean settled for trimming it instead, which Cas preferred to being clean shaven like Sam. He forced him into the bath, scrubbing off the weeks of accumulated dirt and grime that didn’t get washed away in the melting snow and the lake water. He even forced him into new clothes, but they were still the rugged aesthetic that pleased him. They were John’s clothes, and that made him a little happy, having something of his father’s to hold onto during the day. Dean even trimmed his hair, snipping away at his fringe till it was almost as short as Dean’s.
Then Dean groomed his wings.
He never liked it when anyone else touched his wings, it felt violent and cruel and unnecessarily harsh when they tugged and pulled at his feathers. But not when Dean touched him. Warm bolts of pleasure coursed through his extraneous appendages and he sighed, clicking his tongue in a happy rhythm, letting the older man know how good it made him feel. This must be what lovers felt like.
Dean laughed and ran his hands through his wings once more, a useless gesture, and heat pooled low in Cas’s belly, a heat he was very much familiar with, a heat that in the past would send him deep into the woods for months at a time. But he couldn’t do that now, and he couldn’t immediately take off when Dean was done with him, he was still half naked. He clicked and whirred, looking down and crossing his arms over his stomach in distress.
Dean hesitated and placed a warm, calloused hand on his shoulder. Cas leaned into the touch, closing his eyes and sighing. He felt Dean’s heartbeat, heard it reverberate through the room, and as he leaned back he felt the man’s groin against his wings, and he felt the heat there, and could smell the low, heady beginnings of lust fill his nostrils. His smile curled along his lips, and his whirring grew louder till he was practically purring, like the felines he often crossed in the wilderness. Dean didn’t know how much of an animal he was, he had become. And like all of the animals he knew, he wanted to take, consequences damned, like the eagles in the high branches that hunted and killed and loved with ferocity unbeknownst to humankind.
He rutted back against the older man’s firmness, panting softly at the sheer heat his nest mate was emitting. He couldn’t have the woman take him away, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, he wouldn’t let her. He rolled his back, satisfied when Dean groaned, when his grip tightened and his heartbeat increased. It was beating as fast as the wild boar’s when he hunted them, when he drew in close for the kill; it was beating as fast as the rabbit’s when Cas held it gently in the palm of his hand before snapping its neck and tearing at its flesh in a rabid hunger that could not be sated. He thirsted for Dean’s blood, hungered for his flesh, for his seed, sweat, entrails, for his love.
“Cas…” Dean groaned, and that blessed syllable was the man’s undoing. Cas flipped around on the stool, immediately burying his face in Dean’s groin where his musky scent was the strongest, and he inhaled till he could no more and he was giddy with it. He licked the exposed flesh of the man’s hip above the waist of his pants, clawed at them, unfamiliar with the metal zipper and button and Dean batted his hands away, unzipping them himself. Cas would have sang for joy if he could have, the man wasn’t wearing any undergarments and his erection jutted out of a bed of dark blonde curls. From experience Cas knew they were wiry and coarse and they felt good against his skin, like the twigs on the ends of branches that tore at his face. It had been too long.
“She’ll be coming in half an hour, Cas, we gotta make this quick.”
Again, Cas felt the familiar coil of arousal and rage mix in his gut and he attacked the man’s member, suckling and biting at it, reveling in Dean’s cries and expletives. He didn’t notice the door creak open, didn’t notice a pair of hazel eyes settle on their mating in an unfamiliar mix of emotion. When Cas did become aware, he didn’t react, didn’t make it known, and he knew Dean would have shoved him away if he knew. Sam. Sam was watching them mate.
Cas gasped before swallowing down his bond mate, selfish in wrenching the man’s orgasm from him, which he did in a short while, suckling like an infant at a teat, nibbling at the foreskin till Dean drew away, too over-sensitized to the point of pain. Cas swallowed the man’s seed down, cherishing the part of him he held now in his belly. He no longer saw Sam at the door. Dean gripped his hair possessively, leaning down to lick at his lips, tasting himself on his mate and Cas breathed in his scent, memorizing it, learning it all over again, filing it away in his head. He whined and pressed his cheek into Dean’s palm, looking up at his mate; he smoothed over Dean’s flanks, kneading his flesh and wishing he could never be torn away from him again.
Dean bit his lip and ran a thumb over Cas’s, “You know why I’m doing this…people are getting suspicious, Sam is getting suspicious…”
Sam is beyond suspicion, Cas thought, remembering Sam’s shocked expression.
“I have to do this, at least for a few years. Maybe we’ll get married, have a few children, but they will mean nothing to me, Cas, nobody is like you. Even if all of that happens, I will still belong to you.”
Cas keened and lapped at Dean’s fingers, tasting the salt of his sweat and the faint oily taste of his own wings.
“And you will still belong to me.” Dean growled, tightening his grip. Cas saw that his eyes were blown wide in lust, and they glittered in the midsummer sun, like black glass.
They quickly pulled themselves together, and Dean opened a window in the bathroom to be rid of the scent of their sex, and he popped a candy in Cas’s mouth, warning him not to spit it out, though Cas wanted to hold onto his mate’s flavor for as long as possible.
And it was as he was finishing the candy, chewing petulantly, when Dean led the woman through the door. He sucked on the sappy resin, focusing on the syrupy flavor in his mouth rather than the unmistakable scent of the woman’s arousal. Thankfully Dean led her upstairs to see Mary before they left, and Cas stepped outside to wait. It was still midsummer, but the land always held a bitter chill, and he pulled on his buckskin jacket over John’s clothes. He was a little warmer, and knew he would heat up once they started moving. He was just pushing his wings through the slits in the back when Dean and the woman emerged from the cabin. Dean squinted at him through the glare and beckoned him over.
“Cas, this is Lisa Braeden. Lisa, this is Cas.”
She smiled and held out her dainty gloved hand, eyes not leaving his twitching wings.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cas.” Lisa said, and Cas nodded curtly, but did not take her hand. He wasn’t stupid; he had seen Dean and John greet other men before in a similar manner. But that wasn’t how you greeted a woman. She faltered under his gaze and eventually let her hand drop, glancing awkwardly at Dean. Dean just glared at Cas and the younger man ducked his head coyly, though he knew Dean wouldn’t fall for it. He just hoped his mate explained his behavior to the woman and then he started walking to the path in the tree line, expecting them to follow.
He had to keep pace with them; he wasn’t used to walking as fast, as careless, as Lisa was. She was making so much noise, chattering away in Dean’s ear, hanging on his arm, and he winced when he heard a wild boar squeal away at her children somewhere east of the path. Damn. If the woman hadn’t scared her away he could have gone back later for some fresh pork for the dinner table. He treaded carefully over the snow, walking in Dean’s footprints, avoiding the woman’s, and generally keeping his head down.
“Does he ever talk?” Cas heard her ask quietly, and Dean knew he probably heard her, but he answered her anyway.
“No, not even when he was a child. He didn’t so much as utter a peep.”
She giggled, glancing back at him and he smiled, a customary expression for strangers, he thought. He heard twig snaps somewhere off to the left of the path and he focused in on it, though it was hard given how loud Lisa was talking.
“And what about his wings?” She asked, softer than before but, again, Cas could hear her plain as day. Dean smiled thinly, and Cas could tell he didn’t want to talk about it from the tightness in the age-lines around his eyes. They never talked about it, not even John discussed it with him before he died. It was just something they never talked about, and it was never a problem since Cas had no desire to go to town with his brothers after all, and who were the deer and the boar going to tell?
“Uh, we don’t know,” Dean deflected, glancing back at Cas himself and Cas smirked, batting his wings playfully at him. Dean blushed and turned back around, though Cas caught the hint of a smile on his face.
They continued their walk in silence, which was much appreciated by Cas, he didn’t think he could take any more of that woman’s banter. The twigs kept snapping, and he kept getting distracted by them, even stopping to stare along the edge of the trail, through the black trees. The black trees were always bare, but their number could obscure anything they wanted if the thing was far enough away, like blades of grass hiding a viper strike.
“Cas.”
Dean was next to him, looking out at the woods. He held the hunting knife at his waist, gripping Cas’s shoulder and brushing his wing aside to draw close to his ear.
“What is it, can you tell?”
Cas could feel the woman’s fear buzzing at the back of his head, but focused on what lay beyond the tree line. He pulled his bow from around his shoulder-he almost hadn’t taken it, but was glad he did-and notched an arrow, pulling the bow taught, training his sight along the path edge, looking for any movement. He moved forward, slowly, each step placed deliberately in spaces known only to him, spaces that would make no sound save for the nearly imperceptible crunch of snow beneath his feet. He heard the patter of small feet, heard the rush of fur against the underbrush, but what he heard was no rabbit. Too big, he thought, straining his eyes to their limit, searching for the danger that lay ahead. A low growl was his only warning before a wolf stepped out into his vision, melting out of the black bone trees like a spectre.
He froze instantly, relaxing his posture and crouching closer to the ground. He drew in his wings, flattening them to his back to make him seem smaller and was glad when he noticed Dean had moved back to the path, quite possibly to take the woman to the cabin.
No women in the woods tonight, only predators.
The wolf snarled, baring its fangs, and Cas slowly withdrew the arrow, wincing at every creak in the aged pine bow and string. He laid his weapon on the ground, moving to sit on his knees. He held his hands out in front of him, palms up, and slowly, ever so slowly, drew his wings around him, letting his scent catch the wind. He knew he smelled of water and ice, of blood and pine, of fire and smoke; he smelled of predation and he knew the wolf would recognize its kin. The wolf ceased its snarling, closing its mouth and licking its snout, snuffing at the wind. It dipped its nose to the ground, sniffing before treading closer, keeping wary yellow eyes on the winged man. Cas drew his wings further up, sheltering them from the harsh sun and the wolf looked at them curiously, then returned to smelling Cas’s outstretched palms. They were covered in wrappings and fingerless gloves, but the wolf licked at the exposed flesh of his fingertips, tasting him, learning him. Cas smiled when its rough tongue tickled him, but didn’t dare move.
It looked at something off to their left, before howling, a deep mournful sound that Cas found himself envying before it took off at a light trot through the woods. Cas remained kneeling on the ground for some time, watching the wolf disappear into the wilderness. He returned to the cabin when the sun was already receding behind the mountains with wet numb knees and numb heart not yet thawed by midsummer.