Aviva
The camp is quiet when I return. I’m soaking wet, but thankfully clean of rogue blood, because of the rain. Everyone gave up on sleeping outside in their wolf forms, choosing to sleep in tents instead in their human forms. Everything is soaked. Tarps cover the supply carts, nailed to the ground to prevent any sudden gusts of wind from ripping the tarps off completely and soaking everything my village traded for Ryan’s wares.
I walk by each tent and find Freya curled inside one of them, fast asleep. I start to kneel to crawl inside when Ryan’s voice cuts toward me, emotionlessly rasping, “Get over here.”
I rise and turn to him. He pitched a tent several yards away from the rest of the camp, further into the forest. Its entrance faces the forest, in fact, and I think he means to stay up all night under the shelter of the canvas to make sure none of the beasts within make any moves on his people.
I chew my lower lip as I follow him. He holds the tent flap open for me. I don’t argue as I kick off my water-logged boots and crawl inside.
“Change into something dry,” he says, exits, and snaps the flap closed.
I kneel for a moment, wiping rain from my face. My bag isn’t in here. It’s probably in Freya’s tent, and the only thing available to change into is one of Ryan’s shirts, which is so large on me it brushes my knees and I have to roll the sleeves several times. I’m not sure what to do with my wet clothes, so I leave them near the entrance and sit down on the bedroll on one side of the tent and start untangling my curls.
He’s going to scold me for going after those rogues, I already know it. I knew the second I saw him standing in his wolf form on top of that hill that I was in trouble.
I don’t know how to be his wife. We’re not even friends. He’s still a stranger, and today has just… been hard.
“Are you dressed?”
“Yes–”
He opens the tent flap and slides inside, closing it quickly behind him. Thunder booms overhead, and lightning cracks the sky in two, illuminating the darkness all around us in vibrant blue light.
There’s a soft click, then muted yellow light erupts all around me. It startles me, and I jump. “What is that?”
“A solar powered lantern,” he murmurs. He’s soaking wet. Water drips from his hair as he rolls out a second sleeping mat and begins to unbutton his shirt. The fabric clings to his body as he roughly tears it off and tosses it in the corner with my wet clothes. His eyes slide to mine then inspect the shirt I’m wearing.
“I didn’t have anything else.”
“It’s fine. Your bag is with Freya.”
“I know.”
“You’ll be sleeping–housing–with me, from now on.” He holds my gaze for a second longer before digging through a large leather bag at the head of the tent, taking out some kind of sweater with a hood and pulls it over his large frame.
It’s too quiet in here even with the pounding rain. We’re also only inches apart. I’m waiting for him to rip into me, to forbid me from ever setting foot outside with the intent to hunt. He’s my husband, after all. He can tell me what to do now. I am nothing more than his wife.
“How did you know the rogues were there?”
I hug my knees to my chest as he tosses a blanket onto my mat. “They’ve been tailing us for the last ten miles.”
“I didn’t see them or smell them.”
“You can hear them if you know what they sound like.” I swallow hard as he reaches into his bag for another thick sweater and rolls it up, reaching over the ten inches or so of space between us to lay it on my mat like a pillow. I chew my lip, watching him make… make me a bed, in silence. A bed I don’t deserve, especially after sneaking off.
“What do they sound like?”
“They make little clicking sounds. Like bones tapping together, when they’re walking. The–the birds get quiet when they’re around. When we left the forest and came out into the plains, I noticed the birdsong didn’t follow us. It’d been quiet for a while, for too long.”
“You could hear these things over the rain?”
I nod, unsure what else to say.
He kneels only a few inches away from me, his hands resting on his thighs. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“But I–” He raises his head, his eyes a deep blue in the dim light. The expression behind them leaves me momentarily breathless. “Ryan–”
“This is the second time you’ve scared the fuck out of me, Aviva, and I’ve only known you for four days.”
I scooch a little closer to him as all of the emotions I’ve been burying for those four days come bursting to the surface. “You didn’t have to marry me. You could have left me in Endova. You could have taken Mercy.”
“I didn’t want Mercy.”
“You didn’t want me, either. Why do you care if I’m off dealing with rogues? They were hunting us. They would have found this camp and attacked the moment your people stopped to rest!”
“I know.”
“Then what is your problem?”
He leans in so we’re nose to nose. “The next time you decide to run off into the night, or scale a fucking mountain, tell me so I can go with you. So I can help you.”
“I don’t need or want your help.”
“I don’t want my wife dying.”
The emotion in his voice rattles me to my core. He’s taking this very seriously, isn’t he? I think this goes beyond the fact we’re hand-fasted. “What happened to you?” I don’t know why I feel the need to ask. I noticed the dark look in his eyes the first time I encountered him in our wolf forms, the day Shosh shot him in the shoulder.
That darkness swells as he starts to pull away, but I stop him, my hand flying out and closing around the back of his head.
“Why did you kill your mate?”
He chuckles darkly, shaking his head. “We’re getting right into that, then?” He tries to pull away again, but I tangle my fingers in his hair to tighten my grip. He grunts in pain but has a slight wry smile on his face as his eyes meet mine. “Why do you go out into the forest every night?”
“I asked you first.” I pull his hair.
He lets out a soft sound that sends a ripple of warmth ghosting down my spine. My heart starts racing out of rhythm as his eyes, heavy with sudden heat, lock on mine. “She threatened someone I love.”
“Then you understand why I spend so much time in the woods,” I reply, giving his hair another pull for good measure. His mouth ticks into a heated smile that has me feeling… dizzy. I let him go, slowly raking my fingers through his wet, dark curls, but he catches my wrist, his thumb pressed to my pulse.
I’m not sure why, or how it happens, or why I even allow it, but he starts to pull me closer, and I don’t shy away from him.
His lips hover just in front of mine, his face tilting slightly to one side, but he doesn’t kiss me. His mouth brushes over my jaw before he dips his head, his curls brushing over my face and neck.
His breath is warm and tickles the crook where my neck meets my shoulder as he whispers over my skin, “Why can’t I smell you? It’s driving me insane.”
I close my eyes, my lips parting as his free hand travels up my side.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. At least, I think I’m saying the words out loud. My spine loosens, and my body feels suddenly heavy as I instinctively lean into his touch.
He groans against my skin, and the noise ignites a feral, primal want that burrows through my lower belly. He lets go of my wrist, and I instinctively wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer until we’re chest to chest.
He pulls me onto his lap. This is crazy. What we’re doing right now doesn’t make any sense, but neither does anything that happened over the last four days, so I lean into it, tilting my head back as he buries his face in my hair and rocks his hips against mine and I’m…
A howl breaks through the night, over the pounding rain. Another howl follows, and Ryan goes wholly still.
Reality crashes down on us both, startling me out of the haze of delusion that’s been clouding my judgment since last night when our mangled palms were tied together and we were blood bound.
Before I realize what I’m doing, my arm slides from his neck, and my hand pulls back, knocking him soundly on the top of the head.
“Ow, hey!” he snarls, teeth bared. “What the hell was that for?”
“For touching me!”
“You’re on my lap,” he growls, his nose pressed to the tip of mine.
Another howl breaks through the rain. “Aren’t you going to go see who that is?”
“It’s just my scouts returning and alerting their next watch.”
My heart is pounding. Neither of us have moved. Neither of us have blinked, either.
“Your useless scouts who didn’t see the rogues?” The breath is knocked out of me as he rolls with me in his arms, pinning me to the sleeping mat. I thrash, but Ryan is strong as hell. He drives his knee between my thighs and… fuck, it feels good, but it also stops me from trying to squirm out of his grasp because any movement against his knee sends… heat–pure, white hot pleasure–settling in my lower belly.
He’s smirking down at me now. I refuse to give him the fucking satisfaction. So, I bare my teeth, my canines lengthening.
“Are you going to shift and rip my throat out, little wolf?”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time,” I growl.
His eyes twinkle with amusement before he gives me a rough shove for good measure and straightens up, letting go of my arms. He pulls his hood over his head. “Go to sleep, Aviva,” he chuckles, then roughly switches off the lamp.
Darkness swells, heavy and cold. I watch his shadow leave the tent and disappear into the thundering rain, and I’m alone.
I rarely ever sleep alone. If I’m alone, I’m sure as hell not fully asleep. Especially since being alone would mean I’m sleeping in the woods somewhere, preferably my hideout in the ruins of the old temple… not on a sleeping mat with a pillow and blanket that smell like him.
My new reality hits me like an arrow to the heart.
I’m alone. Utterly alone. Freya is my only lifeline in this storm, and I can’t go to her right now, can I?
If I did, Ryan would probably use that against me. He’d see it as a weakness.
I’m here, in his tent, because, to his people at least, I’m his wife. This is where I belong.
I curl into the blanket and hold my eyes open. I will not cry. I will not cry.
I do fall asleep at some point which I detest immensely, especially when I wake up to early morning sunlight, and I’m warm to the bone, heavy with a peaceful, enriching kind of sleep and… Ryan’s arm is roped over my side, pinning my arm to my chest. His breath tickles my hair. He’s nuzzled so close, and he’s shirtless… pantless. His knee rests between my bare legs.
I slowly untangle myself from him and hop up, ducking out of the way of the ceiling of the tent, and give him a little nudge with my foot. “Wake up.”
He murmurs something. He looks rather cute with his stubble and his hair all wild and mussed from sleep, but I give him another nudge, harder this time.
“What do you want, Aviva?”
“It’s morning.”
“Sleep in while you have the chance. Jacob won’t be back until noon.”
“How do you know?” I nudge him in the stomach again with my foot, and he grabs my ankle.
“Mind-link,” he murmurs, his eyes still closed, and his face relaxed. “Go back to sleep.”
“Scoot over, then.”
He groans as he rolls over, taking the blanket with him.
Well, this marriage is off to a great start already, isn’t it?