Ryan
Jerrod stands beside me in the glare of early morning. Both of us are pretending like we’re watching the dark, angry storm clouds barreling toward us, directly in the path I’m supposed to be traveling today, and not the heart wrenching scene taking place only a few feet away.
Aviva is doing her best to explain to a fitful Lora that they’ll see each other again. Lora is shaking her head and shoving her teddy bear against a desperate Aviva’s chest, telling her to take it to keep her safe at night. What's worse is that Shoshannah is nowhere to be found. She didn’t come here, to the edge of the village, to say goodbye to Aviva, and I can tell by the forlorn look on Aviva’s face that this is one of the most painful things she’s ever had to do.
I’m gutted. Absolutely gutted. This feels so incredibly unfair.
Jerrod sighs beside me, cursing under his breath. I glance at him, noticing the wetness in his eyes. He catches me looking at him and smiles sadly, shaking his head. “I know you think me a cruel man for giving away my daughter like this, but I assure you, this is the best thing for her.”
“How?” I’m not dumb enough to say what I really feel. That he boxed me into this. That he knew I couldn’t refuse because I needed this alliance for my pack. That I’d take her with me even though I think it’s wrong.
“My wife, Gemma, was from the Roguelands. She came here during the Great War two decades or so again now as a refugee.” He shakes his head, running his hand over his beard as he drops his eyes to his sandals. “Her entire pack was wiped out in a single night. She was the only one who survived because she’d been at home healing from an injury while the rest of the pack were in their meeting hall. She wandered the woods, trying to stay hidden, and was eventually taken in by another pack and sent here, to the Deadlands, where refugee camps were being set up for the displaced packs during the war. That’s how I met her. I was just a hunter at the time. A few of us left Endova to go check out the camps, and when I saw her, I knew I had to have her, and somehow, she felt the same way about me.”
He continues, “She was a beautiful, loving woman. I never deserved her, but she loved me and gave me Mercy and then Aviva. We thought our blessings from the Goddess were over, but then she gave me Shoshannah, and Lora.” He sucks in a breath, shaking his head. “The younger girls only ever had Mercy and Aviva. Mercy is so like me. Tough. Quick to anger. Righteous. But Aviva… she is Gemma’s daughter through and through. When Gemma died, Aviva bottled it up instead of grieving with the rest of us. She started disappearing into the woods every chance she could get. She moved on from hunting for food to hunting for sport, killing rogues and other beasts. We only ever knew because the other hunters would find their charred remains, sometimes with her arrows nearby. It caused a rift between Mercy and Aviva. Mercy stays awake at night, pacing the house, waiting for Aviva to return. She won’t admit her love for Aviva because her fear over Aviva’s death overshadows it.”
My muscles tense as I look back at my wife, who is now kneeling next to Mercy, the two sisters doing their best to comfort the youngest. Jerrod continues, “Aviva can’t remain here in Endova because she’ll die in those woods one day. She isn’t afraid. That’s her only fault. Other men have come to me asking for her hand, but I knew, deep down, that even sending her to another pack out here wouldn’t keep her alive. She’d end up back in those woods, chasing death. But then you came.”
“I’m not the man you think I am.”
“I think you chase the same kind of demons my daughter hunts every night when she sneaks out of my house,” he says pointedly, his gaze boring into the side of my face. “I know what they say about you, Alpha Ryan. That you’re cursed. That you have a heart of stone. And… maybe you are. Maybe you do. But I look at my daughter and see the same hurt I see in your eyes.”
“Then why force her to marry me?”
“In time, both of you will understand.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Safe travels, Alpha. I’ll see you at the festival in three months.”
“Wait–”
Howls cut through the air, echoing under the gathering clouds. A few drops of rain start to fall, and my attention is stolen by the scouts I sent out this morning to make sure our route back to Silverhide was clear. Jerrod slips away, and I’m left pondering his last words while watching Andrew and Jacob meet up with the scouts.
“Don’t go!” Lora howls as Mercy lifts her off the ground. She kicks her little legs, thrashing. “Don’t go, Aviva!”
“I’m only thirty miles away,” my wife says tearfully, hugging herself as Mercy clutches a sobbing Lora to her chest. “It’s–it’s a day's travel, Lora, I’ll visit as often as I can.”
The young girl’s scream rips through my heart as Mercy carries her away.
“Please take care of them,” Aviva says loudly, directing her words at Mercy, who turns to her with dry eyes but an expression that rocks me to my core.
This isn’t right. This feels so wrong, but Jerrod’s words still echo through my mind as Mercy nods, swallowing hard, and cradles Lora tightly, walking back toward the village.
I look at my devastated wife as she gapes after her family. Her eyes meet mine, and she shakes her head, turning from me the moment I open my mouth to say something, anything, to make this better.
“Don’t worry about it,” Freya’s voice says somewhere behind me. I whirl as she bustles past me, a heavy bag slung over her shoulders. She turns to me, walking backward. “I’ve seen worse goodbyes. Everyone will be just fine.”
I’m truly at a loss for words as I watch Freya fall in step with a distraught Aviva, both of them dressed in pants and shirts sewn with those strange loops and strings that pull apart when they shift. Freya ropes an arm around Aviva’s shoulder and says with remarkable casualness, “So, how was it? Better yet, how big–”
Aviva shoves her away, but Freya laughs, and to my immense relief, Aviva looks at her with a ghost of a smile on her trembling lips.
I roll my lower lip between my teeth while I watch the women walk toward the rest of our group, which has gathered on the rugged trail leading back to Silverhide. Aviva doesn’t look back at me. She joins the ranks, Jacob leading the pack. I’m sure some members of the party will shift after a while, but right now, everyone is tired from not only the hunt, but two nights of partying in a row.
We should be home by sundown. That’s the plan, but we’re walking into a storm that I’m sure will force us to make a camp somewhere along the way. I doubt I’ll be able to avoid sharing a tent with my wife this time.
Honestly, I’m not sure I want to avoid it. I need to talk to her. I have to know she’s all right. Because all of this is my fault.
* * *
“This isn’t looking good,” Jacob says as I catch up to him on a hill halfway between Endova and the new Silverhide territory. The creek below us is three times as wide as it had been when we crossed it four days ago on our way to the village. “We’re going to lose the carts if we try to cross here.”
I grit my teeth, my gaze sweeping over the seemingly endless rolling hills. To the west, the dark forest stretches as far as the eye can see. “We need to find shelter tonight to ride out the storm. That’s all we can do right now.” The woods are going to be our best bet in that department. I’m not going to risk my men sleeping out in the open, storm or no.
Jacobs nods and walks down the hill toward the group standing below us. I spot Aviva in the small crowd, still standing with Freya. She’s wet, but whole, and right now, that’s all that matters to me.
Jacob starts shouting commands, and the group begins to move again, following the swollen creek to the west.
I stay behind the group, using the mind-link to tell Andrew and Jacob to send scouts ahead. Three wolves dart away, taking off at the speed of light, and fall out of sight as more rain pours over us in never-ending sheets.
With the incoming night, the air starts to take on a fresh chill that makes me want to strip out of my clothes and shift just to stay warm, but we’re nearing the forest with every second that passes, and the only thing on my mind is sitting by a fire and eating something for the first time since last night during our wedding party.
I also need to talk to Aviva and make sure she’s okay, but I’m not sure what I can even say at this point. “I’m sorry,” doesn’t feel like enough.
I keep myself busy for the next two hours as night falls. We set up camp at the very edge of the forest under the shelter of a crop of towering oak trees. Soon, four small fires are burning, and food is being prepared.
But I’m standing with Jacob and Andrew instead of sitting with my wife.
“The creek is shallower here,” I tell them, looking down at a crude map as thunder booms overhead. “I just don’t trust this storm, and the creek is being fed from the mountains at the far edge of the forest.”
“It might be shallow now, but there’s no telling what things could look like in an hour if this continues,” Andrew murmurs in agreement, nodding his head.
“I’ll take two scouts and cross the creek,” Jacob says, dragging his finger over the map to Silverhide. “We’ll reach Silverhide in… two hours, I’m guessing. It’s only fifteen miles.”
“Once you reach Silverhide, send a group back to help us get the supply carts across the creek. If worst comes to worst, we’ll have to float them across. We’ll need men on the other side to help with that.” I run my fingers through my wet hair, shaking my head. I’d kill for a weather app on a working cell phone right now. There’s no infrastructure for that here–not yet, anyway.
Jacob rolls up the map and heads out, gathering two men along the way. I stand under a tree and watch the three of them shift and take off into the swirling, rain-soaked darkness.
“You okay?” Andrew asks.
“Make sure everyone is either sheltered tonight by tents or sleeping in their wolf forms. We’re hunkering down for the night.” I kick off the tree but pause, looking around the camp. Freya is fast asleep leaning on one of the supply carts, but she’s alone. “Where’s Aviva?”
Andrew steps up to my side. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”
I scan the camp slowly, taking in every detail. “Does she have a scent to you?” I ask.
“Uh, I guess. She just smells like a girl. Why, you don’t know her scent?”
“I’ve never been able to pick it up. I think she masks it somehow.”
Andrew shrugs helplessly. I notice Aviva’s bag sitting next to Freya. She hadn’t been wearing her knife belt during our journey today. I’d noticed it hanging out of the bag earlier.
It’s gone now.
I look toward the dark, stormy woods.
She’s fucking hunting, isn’t she?
An hour later, I find her in a hilly stretch of open fields in the center of the forest. I stand at the top of one of the hills and watch in silent awe, and horror, as she darts in her wolf form behind a massive, mangled rogue wolf and shifts as she leaps off the tips of her claws, her blade outstretched.
It doesn’t even know she’s there. She lands on her human feet, sliding over the rain soaked grass, and silently slits its throat before shifting again and chasing after the second. She takes the second one down in a similar manner but uses its body to leap onto the back of the third rogue, shifting back into her human form again to pierce its skull through the base of its neck.
I’ve never seen anyone move like she can. I’ve never seen anyone able to shift back and forth with such skill and ease.
I’m impressed but also furious as I sit back on my haunches and watch my wife kill, over and over again, stone faced and emotionless, like she can’t even feel her blade doing awful, but necessary, work.
She ensures each rogue is completely dead before sheathing her blade and falling to her knees in the center of the three beasts, then she screams. Loud and furious, her scream pierces the air over the torrents of cold rain and rumbling thunder.
When she’s done, she slowly lifts her head, her eyes meeting mine. I turn and head back to camp.