Aviva
“I know that feels better,” Freya says, frowning at the frantically bleating sheep, who is now sheared clean and pretty much naked as it gallops off to join its herd. She wipes her brow, squinting into the sunlight as she gathers up an enormous handful of raw wool and carries it over to the creek where I’m crouching in the water, rinsing another batch of wool until it shines a soft white. “Who’s next?”
“That one,” I laugh, tilting my head to the giant, gray and black ram with spiraling horns that looks like he wants nothing more than to kill us both. He stamps his hooves and lowers his head in emphasis, snorting and shaking his fuzzy head.
“That fucker,” Freya growls, tucking her hair behind her hairs and stretching out her arms over her head. “He’s been getting in my way all morning.”
“I can take him, if you want.”
She shakes her head and picks up the shears. “No, thanks. He’s mine. We have a score to settle” I watch her stride off, posturing toward the ram as he aggressively bleats and tries to ram his horns into her thighs, but Freya grabs him by the horns and wrestles him to his side.
“Freya’s tough, huh?” Shosh says as she grabs a handful of wet wool and hangs it over the rock wall creating the smooth eddy we’re wading in.
“The toughest,” I echo, watching with a smile as Freya pins the ram down, her muffled curses drifting through the air toward us.
“I’m going to be tough like you guys.”
“Well, you can be as tough as you want, but we behave ourselves and don’t run away from our villages.” I jiggle the mass of wool between my hands before lifting small strands out of the cold water, laying them out to dry in the sun. Shoshannah frowns at me and continues to work beside me, occasionally muttering to herself. She’s spent the last few days expecting a severe scolding from me, but luckily for her, I haven’t been in the right state of mind.
Now, when I finally have my chance, I’m too damn relaxed to even care. Not after what Ryan did to me earlier this morning.
My cheeks blaze red despite my best efforts to remain casual and not think about that moment over, and over, turning it into something it wasn’t.
“I didn’t want you to leave,” Shoshannah bites out. “That’s why I left.”
“I was going to have to leave eventually, regardless of whether it was with Ryan or someone else. One day, you’ll leave Endova, too. You know how this works.” I look at my little sister and the way her face has changed over the last year. She’s only ten, but in a few years, her body will transform, and she’ll shed what remains of childhood and turn into a woman. Dolls won’t matter. Her friends will start talking about boys instead of wanting to pretend to be fairies in the woods. She’ll catch someone’s eye, he’ll pay her bride price, and she will be gone.
I blink back sudden tears and look back at my task, licking my lips. “What you did was reckless.”
“I was fine–”
“You could have died in more ways than one. Rogues in the woods. Catching a chill from the rain. Being swept away by the creek.”
Shosh angrily squeezes the wool but drapes it gently over the rocks. “I don’t want to go back. I want to stay with you and Freya.”
“You can’t.” My throat closes around the words. “This isn’t your home.”
“It’s not your home either!”
“It is now. I know you don’t understand, but one day, you’ll be bound to your husband, and you will turn his village into your new home, and you’ll find that you like it there, and that you’re happy. That’s all I want for you, but it’s not your time. You need to be with Father. You have Lora to think about.”
She screws up her face. “You don’t seem happy.”
“I will be.” I hope. I hope I’ll be content here, eventually, even if Ryan continues to keep me at arm’s length. Whatever happened between us this morning didn’t mean anything. I feel it as sharply as I’m sure he did. What had he said to me in the hot springs? Is it just my body reacting?
Freya walks over dripping with sweat and dumps a pile of thick, black wool on the creek bank, huffing out a breath as her eyes shine with pride. “That’s the last of ‘em. Good job, girls.”
“These sheep are smaller than the one’s back home. That’s why it didn’t take long,” Shosh says, looking up her nose at Freya, her tone sharp enough to slice. Freya crouches, her eyes sliding to mine, then she scoops her hand through the water and absolutely drenches Shosh with a splash that sends a tidal wave rippling to the opposite bank of the creek.
Shosh finally breaks out of her awful mood and proceeds to splash her back, all while I watch, thankful for fine weather and the chance to just be with them for a morning.
“Andrew says he’s going to put a loom in my cottage at some point this week,” Freya says as she helps us finish washing the rest of the wool. “This black wool is so fine and soft. No wonder they’re using that ram to breed.”
“You and Andrew seem pretty cozy lately,” I murmur as Shoshannah catches the attention of her new friends and darts away to catch up to them as they go to pick berries or something, all four of the girls carrying baskets as they head in the direction of the gardens and greenhouses at the far edge of the village.
“I don’t mind him at all. Isn’t that weird?” Freya smiles, sitting on the creek bank and turning her cheeks to the sun. “I’ve never met a man I liked.”
“But do you likehim?”
“Well, he’s not my type,” she says with a little laugh as I sit on the bank beside her. “He’s so–he’s so blond.”
“Blond? So are you.”
She cuts me a teasing look. “I like them tall, dark, and handsome.”
“He’s tall and handsome.”
“He also lives here.” She sighs, stretching her legs out and dipping her toes in the water. “Plus, you know I’m spoken for.”
Her tone drops, edging on disappointment. I purse my lips and look out at the sweeping green hills hugging the village, watching as the group of girls runs up one of them. “So was I, apparently, but no one had paid my bride price yet. It was all talk between my father and the patriarch of Navvan before that from what Mercy told me. Your father and the patriarch of Teshka haven’t come to any agreements yet either.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? I have a few months here. Maybe Andrew will… never mind.”
I lean against her, smiling at my closest, dearest friend. “You do like him, don’t you? You're thinking about the possibility of him paying your bride price, I can tell.”
“I like to look at him,” she huffs, closing her eyes against the sun. “This morning, real early, before the sun rose, I got up and went to the pack house to grab some breakfast for me and Shosh and walked by this building, and the doors were open wide, and you’ll never believe I saw.”
“What did you see?”
“A bunch of guys lifting these things… heavy things, by the look of it. Most of them had their shirts off. It was quite a sight. I lingered, of course, and Andrew caught me, asking if I wanted to come inside and work out, whatever that means, or just stand and gawk at him. Honestly, I could have stood there all day.”
“Why don’t you tell him you like him?”
“Because none of these men know anything about our people and how this works. You got lucky, Aviva.”
“You keep telling me that–”
“You’re married to an Alpha. You would’ve been married to a patriarch’s son had Hardan paid your bride price. I’m the daughter of an elder, so my price is just as high, and I don’t think… I don’t think your new people really understand the significance of all of this, and honestly, that does bother me.” She wraps her arms around her knees. “I want to stay here, but I don’t want to lose what I am and where I came from, even if someone like Andrew could come up with a satisfactory bride price, you know?”
We fall into silence as the clouds drift overhead, blocking out the warm spring sun for a moment. Shadows dance across the waving plains of green and gold as I take in the beauty of this village while also feeling the full brunt of Freya’s words.
My people are spiritual–aligned with the Goddess and Her companions of old. We believe the ancient legends and say the ancient prayers. We follow the practices from a time when wolves were few and dangers were plenty.
When Ryan married me, he vowed to protect me, to protect our future children, our family line. He vowed to honor me before the Goddess, to hold me in his prayers, and to spill the blood of those who ever crossed me, ever threatened me.
He made those vows to my village without realizing it, because he doesn’t know the old tongue. He comes from a land of mates. Mates, which is a concept I still haven’t been able to wrap my mind around. My feelings for him run so deep it hurts, and I can’t get him out of my mind, but that has to be because he won’t let me in.
This marriage is just business to him. To me, it’s my entire life. My entire purpose.
Freya understands without having to voice it. Whether she sees an actual future with Andrew doesn’t matter as much as her hopes that he’d do it in the old way, offer her bride price, and say the vows beneath the Harvest Moon like it’s been done for centuries upon centuries.
But these men are modern and come from a land neither of us can fathom. They must do things differently there. They must not feel in the same way we do. They must not take these roles as seriously at all.
Freya is just starting to rise to gather the wool when Ryan appears, walking in tandem with Jacob, their heads bent in conversation. I haven’t said a word to him since this morning, when he’d taken my picture in a bed we should be sharing more than we have.
The men come to a stop on the opposite bank. Ryan’s eyes meet mine, and for a brief moment, I feel like we’re sharing the same thought, the same memory of being in bed. I feel my cheeks heat again but banish it, burying that longing until I feel nothing at all.
Jacob crosses his arms over his chest and looks at the sheep in the distance, nodding his approval. “You even got the ram. He’s a real bastard. No one has ever been able to shear him since we got him last summer.”
“We’re best friends now,” Freya chuckles, motioning to the bruises starting to show along her legs and arms. “I just had to convince him.”
Ryan keeps his eyes on mine, however. “Aviva, I need to talk to you for a moment.”
Great. I bet he’s going to give me a lecture about how what happened this morning won’t be happening again, how he can’t even look at me, how touching me is painful, something along those lines.
I fight the urge to shift and run far into the hills as I cross the creek, barefoot, and walk by his side back into the village while Jacob wades into the water to help Freya with the wool. We don’t go back to his house, however. He pulls me into the shade of the pack house, his hand gripping the back of my neck as he leans down and… kisses me.