Captive Mate BL-Chapter 651: - - -

Jael had kept him from crumbling after the orphanage was burned to the ground. Rae had only known how to survive in the orphanage, it was a mini-society of its own, and despite being one of the children who had been there the longest, he had climbed his way to the top.

So when it had crumbled, so did everything he ever knew.

His mom was one of the many noname whores that filled the dingy clubs downtown. She hadn’t known who his father was, and she hadn’t cared to find out, ditching him as soon as she could at the orphanage.

He didn’t know if she was still alive or not, he didn’t know her name or remember her face, she might as well be dead to him.

He didn’t have the fantasies that the other children liked to indulge in, that an estranged parent was going to come to save them. He already knew that his dad was a worthless piece of shit, possibly worse than his mom.

So he didn’t cry, didn’t fuss, even as a toddler. And when he had been introduced to the darker side of the orphanage, it hadn’t changed much of his already gruesome life.

Rae couldn’t say exactly what it had been, if it was Jael leading the raid or Jael calmly putting bullet holes in everyone who had made his entire sixteen years of life a living hell.

He had sat curled up on that well-used perfumed bed with blood pooling all around him, hearing screams and gunshots going off. It had been hell.

Rae had gotten off the bed to take a peek at the intimidating man who had cut down everyone in his way, staring until they got into their blacked-out cars and drove off, leaving the orphanage a smoking heap of bleeding bodies and shell-shocked kids.

He knew that most had remained in the orphanage, but he had slipped out after their savior left. He didn’t quite know what he wanted to do with his unexpectedly newfound freedom. He had been kept behind the aging walls of the orphanage all his life, only leaving under stern supervision.

He had started to walk after the cars until he caught himself, deciding on the spot that he wanted to find his savior again.

Over the years, his feelings for his saviors twisted into something unrecognizable, but it didn’t change in its intensity. Jael was the reason he kept going day after day.

He had been stoic in the face of everything, but Jael being upset with him completely upended his world. He curled up, feeling sick to his stomach as he replayed the conversation in the car over and over again.

A knock on the door jolted him out of his spiral, Caspian walking in with a kind smile, pushing a mobile tray. "I brought you breakfast," The Omega was saying...

Rae turned over and sat up, struck with a sudden memory that he hadn’t remembered in years. Madam Francesca, wiry with beaded black eyes covered by round wire glasses, right before shoving him into one of the rooms with the perfume bed, had snarked at him that she had raised him for free all these years and it was time to pay her back.

"...maybe you should start with your ice cream so that it doesn’t melt," Caspian was saying, pulling him from the depths of the dark memory, his smile brightening up his beautiful face.

Rae took the bowl of ice cream on autopilot, choking out his thanks. He was relieved that Caspian didn’t decide to keep him company for breakfast, the Mafia Boss’ mate leaving after personally serving him.

There were a handful of scoops in a variety of flavors, and although it was no doubt an expensive brand of ice cream, it tasted salty to Rae, the cold stinging his teeth.

-+-

Caspian returned to the kitchen to have breakfast with Patty, seated at a table in the kitchen study, his attention elsewhere.

"I heard Jael picked a kid up," Patty struck up conversation, curiosity shining in her eyes.

Caspian smiled despite himself, "What are the workers saying?"

Patty shrugged, reaching for a glass of water, "They’re happy he got a kid either way."

Caspian said nothing to that, thinking back to his conversation with Rae. He didn’t quite think that the Alpha was gunning for a father-son relationship with Jael.

He didn’t pay much mind to it, knowing that Rae would leave eventually, Jael would certainly get rid of him.

Caspian didn’t linger long after breakfast, and Patty said nothing to his increasingly frequent disappearances. It was cold, but he layered up, ringing up his bodyguards to tell them the very last thing they wanted to hear.

After driving around for a bit, Caspian returned to the now familiar woods in Asher’s estate. Caspian had thought about reaching out to Angelo, but they weren’t really that close, and he didn’t want to overstep, so there was only one thing to be done.

After they had made the usual hike down to the icy cold creek, Caspian didn’t sit down, instead he turned to his bodyguards, who had been eyeing him warily the entire time, and held out a hand.

"Can I have a gun?"

Peter was already offering him one before Keith stopped him hastily, asking questions first, so they didn’t regret it later.

"What for?" Keith asked with narrowed eyes.

"I’d like to practice shooting," Caspian said levelly.

Keith took one look at the light in his blue eyes and gave in, sighing longsufferingly. He stepped back and let Caspian take the gun Peter had offered.

"Please try not to shoot yourself," He implored.

Caspian paid no mind to the patronizing concern, taking out the magazine and emptying out the cartridges from it before putting them back in. Relying solely on the memory of the few times he went to the shooting range.

Keith said nothing more after that, quiet approval on his face at how decently the Boss’ Missus had handled the gun.

Caspian held up the gun after reloading it, holding it up with a single hand to point at a tree trunk on the other side of the tree.

The gunshot was deafening, and it made his ears ring, but he powered through and fired off a couple more until he had to take a break from the recoil and his ringing ears.

Unlike the shooting range, which provided protective gear, he was just out in the woods shooting at the trunk of a tree and potentially scaring away all of the animal life in this stretch of the woods.

After emptying out the magazine of all its rounds and leaving deep gauges in the trunk of the sturdy tree, Caspian’s ears and wrist hurt, but he wore a bright smile on his face, handing the empty gun back to Peter.

"Let’s leave for the mansion," He said casually, readying to hike back to the open road.