The crow and the beast - Kaz brekker

chapter 33 - broken promises

A few days went by since the crows returned to ketterdam. Cara studied her books and medicine, treating kaz's bruises and wounds whenever he would get into a fight and providing some of her new medicine to the dregs to try out.

kaz was doing his usual ... kaz things ... working until he fell asleep on his desk, making sure the numbers brought profit, eliminating competition in the barrel, you know the usual. Though Cara had felt how growing a little distant she understood. He needed to make sure everything was running well, they had been gone for a few weeks and he had a lot of work to catch up on.

in fact they barely had spoken a word to one another, not because they were angry with one another but just because they were always busy as life is in the barrel. Cara had met up with inej and jesper to catch up and get a report on what was happening since kaz barely said anything about his work to her.

They had told her that one of the gangs was pushing kaz's buttons, making him lose profit and making sure he had a hard time with getting the resources he wanted in the harbor. That did explain why kaz was in such a bad mood nowadays.

she wanted to talk to him but understood that he needed his space, if he really needed her he would talk to her she told herself. So she waited and life went on, a few more days passed like this. She felt kaz's mood got worse by the day but she kept telling herself that he would talk to her if it got to bad.

she didn't think he would explode however. Cara was mixing herbs carefully when kaz slammed open the door and entered the room like a madman making Cara spill the mixture. That irritated her quite a lot since she had been working on that all morning. She stood up and walked over to kaz first, she decided she would clean afterwards.

"alright now its enough, tell me what is happening." Kaz ran his gloved hand through his hair as he paced through the room. "they have stolen another shipment of mine! that is the third one in a week!" Cara felt his anger rolling off of him and she was scared he would make dumb decicions.

"kaz calm down, lets think how we can solve this." Kaz turned towards her, his eyes cold and murderous. "I am done thinking! These guys need a lesson! I have become weak, I should have killed them all when they decided to steal from me the first time! I am going over there right now with the dregs to put an end to this!" Cara did not fear him and stood her ground.

"no kaz, that is not a good idea! You could get hurt or worse!" Kaz was already putting on a coat. He turned to her. "you don't get to tell me what to do, you have been sitting here for days while I have been dealing with this!" Cara got irritated by his words, her eyes turning cold as she walked towards him standing right in front of him.

"well if you want to get yourself hurt I will go with you to make sure I can pull you out alive." Kaz made eye contact with her. "no you stay here, that's an order!" Cara got real angry now, what was he thinking speaking to her that way!

"you don't own me kaz brekker! I will go wherever I want!" Kaz moved swiftly and before Cara noticed it she was bound. He had handcuffed her to a metal ring on his desk. Without another word he moved to the door. Cara felt the cold metal around her wrist and suddenly her anger shifted into fear. "kaz wait! You can't do this!" he did not look at her as he closed the door behind him locking it.

the fear turned to panic when she yelled again "kaz please! You promised! KAZ!" she felt her knees buckle, her whole body shaking from the feeling of cold metal. She fell to her knees, she was having a panic attack. She was brought back to the pits, back to the metal that held her. back to the pain, and blood. The metal triggered her. "you promised ... no chains."

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kaz looked upon the dead bodies of the gang members, he had done what he came to do. They learned their lesson, never steal from dirtyhands. He had a black eye and a cut in his lip, other than that he was fine. These men were weak, no problem that he couldn't handle.

Relief flooded over him, now that these were out of his way everything could return back to normal, he could count on his shipments to arrive on time. The profit would go up again once the bar was filled. He felt his eye swell a little as his vision got worse. He would have Cara take a look at it when he got home he thought.

wait, Cara. In his fit of anger he had refused to let her come with him. now that he thought about it, he should apologize to her for his outburst, she was not the person the outburst was meant for and he shouldn't have yelled at her. one thing kept gnawing at him though. 'you promised'.

he thought and thought about it but couldn't remember a promise he made her recently, not anything concerning this anyway. He shook his head and went on his way back to the slat, he put his gloved hand back in the pocket where he held the key to the handcuffs. It was wrong of him to handcuff her he realized now but he didn't know any other way to make sure she stayed there, he didn't want to put her in any harm.

halfway back to the slat however he remembered, and with it he had never felt so much regret in his life. She had made him promise when he had asked her to join the dregs 'no chains'. He didn't know why back then but when she told him the story of the pits he had understood why, the metal that would bind her in place was a trigger for her to relive her trauma like human touch was for him.

He quickened his pace as fast as his hurt leg would allow him. his heart hurt when he thought of the panic in Cara's voice when she had called for him when he left. It was pure panic he now realized. She had helped him so much with overcoming his trauma and this was how he had repaid her .... What had he done.

When he entered the slat he was immediately approached by one of his lieutenants. "boss, we think something is wrong with Cara, she kept screaming and crying, we tried to check on her but you locked the door so we let her be." Kaz had never had more fear in his life than he was experiencing now. This is how he would lose her he thought.

"out of my way" he forcefully pushed the dreg to the side not caring to be so close to another human being right now as he rushed his way upstairs to his room. He was so stressed that he had difficulty with getting the key into the lock.

finally he managed to unlock the door and throw it open. "Cara I am so sorry –" he stopped abruptly as he took in the scene before him. Cara wasn't there anymore. There was blood on the floor, the handcuffs were still attached to his desk however. The room was trashed, lots of broken glass around and finally he saw that the window was broken.

He slowly walked into the room and walked over to the dresser, picking up the picture of Cara and her mother. The frame it was behind was broken. Jesper and inej stormed into the room. "kaz what happened." A single tear felt from his face.

"I lost her ... she will never forgive me for this"

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Cara ran, she ran as fast as she could on 3 legs until it was dark outside. She needed to be away from ketterdam. She was angry and hurt. How could he have done that, how could he break his promise so easily.

she found herself on the beach, it had begun raining a little while ago, her fur was soaked but she didn't care. She looked over the ocean, the thousands of water droplets that hit the water calming her down. she needed to get her head straight.

she was mad at kaz, more than mad right now but she also knew fully well that she loved the man, meaning that she couldn't stay angry at him for long. She jus couldn't believe he would break his promise like that, without a second thought. She knew he was a harsh man, she had always heard the stories of dirtyhands in the barrel but after everything they had been through she thought that he do something like this to her.

She heard the hooves from a mile away but she was to tired to move, she just hoped it wasn't kaz. and lucky for her, it wasn't. inej sat down next to her, her eyes falling on her hurt paw. It would heal Cara thought, she had broken and cut her hand while forcing the cuffs off earlier.

inej hadn't said a word while they say together in the rain for at least half an hour. Until at last she spoke. "he regrets it." Cara lifted her head to look at inej for a second before letting it fall on her front paws again. he couldn't just break his promise and think everything would be right again if he 'regrets it'.

from Cara's actions inej knew what Cara was thinking. "I am not here to drag you back to ketterdam Cara, I also won't tell him where you are. I came to tell you that kaz made a mistake, he didn't break your promise on purpose he forgot ... which might actually be even worse now that I think about it ... sorry." Cara lifted her head again to look at inej.

Now she understood why it was so easy for him, he had just forgotten about it all together. On one side it hurt that he had forgotten something that was so important to her but on the other side she understood, he had a lot to deal with as gang leader and club owner and he really wasn't in his right mind yesterday when he cuffed her to the desk.

she wanted to tell inej that she understood but she was to tired to switch to her monstrous form and she did not want to be in human form right now. She opened her mouth and tried. "I ... under – stand" inej looked a little surprised but nodded. She walked over to her horse and took a package from the saddle, she carefully put it next to Cara before she sat down again. Cara could smell it was medicine.

"he knows what he did was horrible. He has locked himself in his office in the crow club and refuses to see anybody right now." Cara knew kaz was hurting, especially if he really forgot their promise. She decided then and there she wouldn't just leave him, she couldn't even is she tried.

She stood up slowly. "will you go back to ketterdam?" inej asked. She nodded her head. She put her hurt paw on the ground and yelped, that was definitely not healed yet. "lets take a look at that first shall we." Cara nodded and shifted to back to human so inej could take care of her hand."

inej bandaged Cara's hand after disinfecting the wound. Once she was done she send the horse off, it was stolen anyway as the girls walked back to ketterdam together.