The crow and the beast - Kaz brekker

chapter 45 - An emotional scar

The next day kaz had called upon the crows to make plans for a heist. So they were all sitting in the library waiting for him to explain his plan.

"as it has come to my attention a merchant just outside of ketterdam thinks he can compete with the trading of alcohol. It has also come to my attention that he has gotten a very interesting golden figure of a small dog sitting in his vault. That is our target for tonight." The other crows nodded.

"the house is well protected, Matthias and nina will take care of the guards outside and around the estate while inej and jesper will go inside. Inej will break into the vault and get the figure while jesper deals with any guards inside. Me and Cara will deal with the guard dogs, from my intel I know there are 5 dogs trained to attack anything within the fence." Kaz turned to Cara while he explained the rest.

"they have been trained by a the merchant himself, I know he uses cruel methods for his training. We will try to intimidate the dogs but in case things go wrong I need you by my side, I cannot fight off 5 dogs." Cara nodded signaling to kaz she understood the plan.

it was already turning dark outside so our crows set out for the house. It wasn't a long walk, Cara had shifted in her bigger wolf form so she would be ready in case anything happened. Once the house came in sight nina and Matthias split off from the group to take their positions, the rest waited a few minutes before kaz opened the lock on the fence and they went inside.

jesper and inej entered the house through a window while akz and Cara both waited outside, Cara had her belly against the ground while kaz was hiding himself behind a wall. Suddenly one of the dogs walked around the corner and sniffed the air, then growled. It barked once and the other dogs started showing up from around the house.

Cara jumped towards kaz standing next to him. they had hoped it didn't need to come to a direct confrontation with the hounds. They were all big brown dogs, teeth bare and ready to jump on them. Cara growled but the dogs did not back down, stupid beasts Cara thought, the dogs would never win a fight against her but they thought it was better to attack than get beaten by their master once more.

kaz saw that the intimidation wasn't working and slowly he reached into his coat, he had hoped it wouldn't come to it but he had brought something that he knew would help. He pulled out a beating stick, it was a simple heavy wooden stick a little longer than his forearm. Immediately the dogs changed their behavior.

they backed down a little bit except for one dog, the leader of the pack. Cara saw the stick in kaz's hand and she felt her blood running cold. She got flashbacks to her fever dreams. Flashes of kaz holding the whip while she was back in the pits flashed by her eyes. The murder in his eyes, she had begged him but he had hit her nonetheless. She felt her paws tremble underneath her and for a moment she thought she would simply fall over.

that was until she saw the dog getting ready to pounce on kaz, she saw its back legs tense in anticipation of the jump. And she tensed her own muscles to jump. Everything seemed to move in slow motion for a moment while the dog jumped towards kaz, Cara jumped to and kaz brought the stick up to hit the dog.

what happened in the next few seconds would stay in Cara's mind for a long time. Cara was the first one to reach the dog throwing him away but as she went passed kaz the stick came down. instead of kitting the dog like kaz had intended he hit Cara right above her eye. A yelp came from the big wolf as the tears formed in the hurt eye.

however Cara was still on top of the leader of the pack, she placed her paw on the neck of the wolf and bared her teeth next to his face until he submitted to her. once the other dogs saw this they quickly scattered knowing their pack leader was defeated. Cara got off the dog as it ran away with its tail between its legs.

that's when her the flashbacks came back, only this time it was real pain. She looked over at kaz who still had the stick raised for another hit, she felt her paws tremble again as she slightly cowered underneath him making herself as small as possible for just a moment.

Kaz was angry she could see it in his face, gone was the kind look in his eyes he would have when he was home with her. this was kaz brekker that stood in front of her, the look in his eyes was the same as in her hallucinations. She yelped again when another flashback came through her mind as she shook her head to try and get it out of her head.

She stumbled for a moment, the tears in her eye making her vision blurry. She felt a mental breakdown coming up, she had them a few times before she met kaz, she knew what it felt like. She needed to get out of here. she looked at kaz one more time, his eyes seemed hard, he was still gripping the stick but had lowered it.

another flashback went through her head, she couldn't be here right now, she just couldn't. and before she knew it she jumped the 2 meter high fence and ran off. She ran straight home, to her comfort zone. She did not hear anybody calling after her but she didn't think anyone would either.

right now it was just her and her demons, once she entered the clearing she almost collapsed from the emotions. The events of minutes ago replaying in her head over and over again, getting worse every time. She paced around the clearing trying to clear her head trying to get the visions out of her head but it just was not working.

her eye was throbbing, her vision still being blurry filled with tears. She didn't know how much time had passed but at least the sun hadn't come up yet when she heard somebody approaching. She didn't have the strength to lift her head, she kept pacing a few steps back and forth on the grass. She could however feel the anger rolling off the person that approached.

she knew who it was but she couldn't look at him right now. Instead she kept her head towards the ground, facing her hurt eye away from him in shame. "what was that Cara?! You left us in the middle of a heist! What is wrong with you! you had one job, the easiest of all might I add!" he waited seemingly for her to shift back and explain to him but when that did not happen he continued even angrier than before.

"how can I trust you to do a job when you just leave like that!? Somebody could have gotten seriously hurt or even worse! Why did you leave?! There was no reason for you to react the way you did I don't understand you!" Cara heard him shifting his weight around, he was getting angrier by the second. "look at me!" she couldn't, she just couldn't. but when she heard him close in on the last few meters between them angrily her body reacted before her mind could. She stumbled to get away from him falling to the ground because her paws were trembling so badly. She yelped as she felt herself hit the ground hard. Automatically her head turned towards the 'danger' in front of her as she could see a blurry kaz brekker. His eyes were cold, his mouth in a thin line as he was clutching his cane hard.

but when she had lifted her head something changed, kaz could see her hurt eye for the first time since the heist a few hours ago. And something clicked. He had thought he hit the dog when it jumped, he didn't think ... oh no. he knew for sure the dog didn't do that to Cara and her reaction to him right now broke something in him. he reached a gloved hand towards her and she flinched away from his hand long before it would even touch her.

meanwhile Cara still couldn't see him clearly and when he reached out his hand she flinched and closed her eyes tightly shut, making it easier for the flashbacks to invade her mind again. her whole body trembled out of sheer terror. She couldn't be around him right now.

she scrambled to get herself up again and ran towards the place she had felt comfort while she was going through these hallucinations, the barn. The door was open so she quickly ran inside, of course it looked a lot different now from when she was locked up here but she went to the pillar nonetheless, it was now a corner of a stable. She went inside the stable laying herself down on the floor putting herself in the corner furthest away from the stall door.

her whole body trembled from the fear, she didn't know how much the hallucinations had affected her up until now. She had a few moments after them but the kind eyes of kaz always brought her back to reality, but when reality wasn't much better from the flashbacks she couldn't hold on to her anchor anymore, she felt herself drown under the emotions.

meanwhile kaz was still outside. He was replaying the events from his perspective over and over again. he had been so sure he had hit the dog when it jumped at him. he never thought for a second he hit Cara. Not even when she flinched away from him at the house. The heist had been successful because only a minute after Cara had gone inej and jesper had appeared from the house with the targeted figure. But he was still angry at Cara, something really bad could have happened he needed to be able to trust his crows. She had broken that trust by disobeying his plans and orders.

he didn't know what to do right now, he should apologize that much he knew but she would never let him get close. Not after his outburst just now. He considered to follow her for a moment but decided against it right now, he instead went to the house.

by the time he had unlocked the door to the house he had a plan, he went straight upstairs changing his outfit to something else, then he went back downstairs and into the library. He picked up Cara's favorite blanked off the couch, the one she liked wrapping herself up in when she was reading. He decided to leave his coat and hat hanging in the hallway, he needed her to see he looked different from what he did before.

he took a gas lamp out of the closet and with everything he made his way towards the stables. Once he entered the stables he listened if he could hear breathing, instead he was met with a heartbreaking whimper coming from one of the stables, it had been the same whimpers he would head from her when she was sick and locked up here. he had another moment where everything had fallen into place, she had never really wanted to talk to him about the hallucinations but he had figured it out by the way she would react when they passed the old pits building and how she seemed slightly uncomfortable when he was yelling at some dregs to do their jobs.

he had made it to the stall door now, he lightened up the place with the lamp. Guilt washed over him when he saw her. she had pushed herself as far into the corner of the stable as she could and had her paws over her eyes and snout. Her whole body was trembling and he recognized it immediately, she was being overwhelmed by emotions. The trembling was the thing that hurt the most for him because it hit so close to his own trauma.

when he took a step inside the stable another whimper left the wolf in the corner. "hey love, I am so sorry I didn't know ... I won't hurt you again okay. I have brought you a blanket ..." he made his voice as soft as it could go. Just for a moment the wolf stopped trembling and he knew his voice had reached her.

he put his cane aside against the stable wall and walked inside, placing the gas lamp by the stable door he shrugged the blanked off his shoulders and slowly put it around her body. Her paws lifted off her snout slightly and he caught a glimpse of her green eyes underneath.

he mustered a smile for her before he sat himself down in another corner of the stable next to her. it was cold in the stable and for a moment he regretted now bringing his coat but he refused to give in and get his coat, this was his doing and he needed to live with the consequences, he would not leave her side. She had done the same for him many times not pushing him but just being there for him, in the room while he was having a hard time.

he guessed another 10 minutes had passed before the wolf next to him let out a deep sign, signaling the first moment of relaxation in the body. He knew the sign was the first thing that happened after a breakdown. Another 5 minutes passed before Cara lifted her head off of the ground. He held his breath as she slowly turned her head towards him.

he could see the swelling of her eye had disappeared almost completely btu there was a visible scar right above her eye. It went through the eyebrow. He shivered ever so slight both from the cold and the amount of guild that filled his heart. Cara stood up and for a moment he thought she would walk out and leave him but instead she walked over to him.

he wasn't sure if he could reach out to her, knowing it hadn't gone well outside before so he kept his hands in his lap. She shrugged off the blanked and it fell right into his lap. He pulled it around him and as he did that Cara moved again and nudged his side so he was pushed forward away from the wall. He moved slightly as she moved into the position that was familiar to him. she laid down behind him and curled around him.

they had slept like this before in fjerda he remembered. She placed her tail over his legs and lowered her head until it was level with his. They made eye contact and kaz could see the scar more clearly. It wasn't big but you could see it clearly. He pulled off his gloves and reached out for her but stopping right before he touched her unsure if it was okay.

she nudged her head in his hand giving him the okay as he moved his hand towards the scar. "I am sorry love, I didn't know I hit you. I thought I hit the dog." She moved her head towards his face and nuzzled her snout into his cheek for a moment. "sorry I yelled at you, I really shouldn't have." She pulled back for a moment making eye contact with him once more she nodded her head slightly and he understood she forgave him.

a tear rolled down his cheek once he realized. He had hit the woman he loved most in this world. He had given her a scar she would carry with her the rest of her life. But still she forgave him, in his mind he didn't deserve her, not one bit. But she loved him anyway. He opened his arms as Cara put her head over his shoulder in a hug.

they stayed like that for a while until Cara was exhausted enough to put her had in his lap, kaz watched over her that night, to many emotions running through him to get sleep.

AN: thank you all for understanding my last authors note. It was always the plan to have Cara get a scar above her eye, I toyed around with how she would get it. The hyena's, an accident with elvis or in fjerda but I decided in the end that this was the best (and worst) way to get it while having some relationship development. Thank you all for 11k+ reads by the way!