Aviva
Something changed after that night. There was a shift between me and Ryan. He showed me a part of himself that only two other people have seen. Something he locks away, guards, and hides. I don’t know if he’s ashamed of it. I wouldn’t be. If I had the power to shift into a beast like that? Oh, gods, everyone would be sick of me. I’d never shift back. I’d stay like that, ruling the forests, enacting the sick, twisted judgment I crave when it comes to rogues and hellhounds.
Maybe not, but it would be difficult to come back to my human form. I could tell, when he was in that startling form, that he was uncomfortable. I think it hurts him, honestly. The grotesque shape of his spine. The hard as rock muscles covered in tight, scaled armor. Fur sharp enough to tear skin.
It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
But I understand the weight of it. What he carries every day in his heart. He’s sensitive, deep down. I should probably be nicer to him… but taunting him is so easy and fun.
“Put me down!” I screech, banging my fists on his back as he carries me to the edge of the dock at the lake above the village. He’s shirtless, which means I have nothing to grab onto but his skin, which is slick with sweat.
Without ceremony, he tosses me into the water.
“Ryan!” I gulp water on accident, sputtering a cough.
“Have you learned your lesson yet?” he asks, trying to look mad.
I’m in trouble for probably the third time today. It’s been several days since we came back from Endova, since he showed me his beast form. We’ve been moving through time like it’s always been this way. Like it’s been the two of us, living together, running a village, our pack. He has a routine that I’ve been trying to follow the best I can. He wakes up early, before the sun. He shifts, running in his wolf form for several miles around the perimeter of the valley. Then, he goes to what he calls “the gym" with his friends, and they lift heavy things with their shirts off, just like Freya said.
After that, it’s breakfast at the pack house, which he never skips. Then he goes to work–building structures and houses. Tending to his people if there’s issues. Taking stock of the cattle, the gardens, the fields of wheat and corn.
While he does all of that, I stick to the sheep. We have sheep in Endova, and it was the only thing I enjoyed about my duties to my pack. Herding the sheep to the plains to graze; herding them back when the sun set. Guarding them, protecting them, making sure they didn’t fall behind or get lost. I’m good at it. I understand their tiny brains.
Freya has been teaching the women how to use a loom. Andrew built her one shortly after we came here for the first time. She’s making friends and integrating herself in the pack, but I don’t have that skill. I like being alone. I like only having to hear my own thoughts because they’re more than enough. They’re overwhelming enough.
It hasn’t stopped his pack from trying to seek me out. Dahlia and her baby have spent the past few days with me out in the fields. The unnamed baby girl is very cute, I can admit. She looks like her father–dark hair, dark eyes. Dahlia already wants another one.
I can’t even bring myself to hold the baby when she offers. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I used to hold Lora when she was a baby all the time. I raised those girls with Mercy. I know what it takes to be a mother.
I guess I just never saw myself as one, even though I knew that was part of my destiny as a woman. I never let myself think past being pregnant because I’d have to bring the baby into the world at some point. I always imagine my mother then, and shove the idea away, refusing to dwell on it.
This morning started out completely different from the rest. Ryan went straight to work, skipping breakfast and his run, and returned to our house a few hours later before I’d even gotten ready for the day.
It’s a hot morning. Blindingly so. The thin linen dress I chose for the day stuck to my skin the second I put it on. He took one look at me and told me we were going to the lake.
To fish.
I tread water, scowling at him. “You’re doing it all wrong.”
“I know how to catch a fucking fish, Aviva,” he says, gesturing with his hands toward a fishing pole resting on the dock. “And you pestering me isn’t helping.”
“There’s barely any fish in this lake.” I float on my back, bored, but the water is sharp and cool, a bright contrast to the heat of summer. “If you’d listened to me, we would’ve had a feast of trout for dinner. But no, what does Aviva know? I’ve only lived near streams for my entire life!”
He huffs a breath from the dock. “Get out of the water.”
“No.”
“Aviva.”
“You threw me in here.”
“Get out of the water.”
I relax back into an upright position. “Make me.”
Heat and a touch of frustration flashes behind his eyes. He doesn’t move, though.
“Oh, are you afraid to get your hair wet? Poor baby with your pretty curls–” the splash he creates causes me to roll underwater, drifting several feet away from where I was swimming just a few seconds ago. I screech as he starts swimming toward me, but he’s a powerful swimmer, which I hadn’t expected. He dives under and barrels toward me so fast I have no choice but to suck in a breath and prepare for what’s about to happen.
He grabs me around the waist, dunking me underwater for emphasis, and starts hauling me back to the shore. I gasp for breath and dig my nails into his shoulder. “I can swim just fine, you know.”
He pants out a breath as he reaches the shallow part of the lake, able to stand. “I wanted a nice, peaceful morning. This has been the opposite of peaceful.”
“I’m having fun.” I wrap my legs around his waist beneath the water, my dress billowing out around me. “You’re the one who's been uptight and grumpy all morning. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Because I told you you wouldn’t be able to catch any fish here today? It’s too sunny. They’re all at the bottom, and the better fish are in the stream up the valley–”
“I know,” he grinds out, holding my gaze.
I slide around his waist to face him, comfortably supported by the cool water all around us.
“Then what is the matter?”
He sighs and rests his forehead against mine. “We’re leaving for Moonrise in a few hours, remember?”
I chew my lower lip. We haven’t talked about this very much. I knew he had to leave, and he wanted me to go with him. But I hadn’t noticed any preparations being made for the journey, which would take several days, I was sure. I’ve never been to Moonrise. I’ve never traveled through the Roguelands and up into the mountains where the witch coven claims its territory. But, I know for a fact we’ll be on the road for a while.
“My bag is packed,” I tell him. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
“We need to shower and dress,” he says, more to himself, like he’s mentally checking off a list. I find it odd he’s worried about looking presentable when we’re going to be camping out every night and covered in road dust, but what do I know about traveling through the Roguelands?
“I’m sorry I ruined your fishing trip,” I murmur.
“You didn’t ruin it. I ruined it. I just woke up in a bad mood.”
“I know. Your grumbling while you got dressed this morning woke me up.”
He smiles softly, his eyes downcast on the water between us.
Honestly, this is the closest we’ve been to each other in days. Ryan needs space to work through the… the mate stuff. We sleep in the same bed, sure. I wake up with his arm resting over my hips in the morning. I know he hesitates before he gets out of bed, probably wondering the same things I am. Wanting the same things but holding back.
Now, we’re only inches apart, and the tension between us is stronger than I’ve ever felt it.
“I don’t like the idea of being gone for this long while things are still so uncertain in Endova,” he admits.
“The tribes fight all the time. This is nothing new.”
He eyes me, scanning my face. “You know Hardan is going to continue to be a problem.”
I shrug, “He could be, but you taught him a lesson, for sure. We would have heard by now if he made any more moves on Endova or Teshka. Anyway, if we do have to go to battle with Navvan again, you can just shift into your beast.” I tighten my legs around his waist. “I’ll ride on your back into battle. They’ll be so scared they won’t even fight.”
He smiles boyishly, the corners of his mouth twitching as he fights his lips back into a straight, serious line. For some reason, I don’t believe his terrible mood is because I made fun of his inability to catch fish all morning or because the tribes are fighting.
“Are you nervous about seeing your family?”
“It’s been over a year since I had the chance to see them, so yeah. I guess I am.” He sounds a little broken up about it. A year without seeing my family… I can’t fathom it.
His hands slide up my thighs to my ass, squeezing on impulse, like he can’t help it. I bite my lower lip, my mouth only a few inches from his. “We need to go back and get ready.”
“Are you sure?” I lean in, brushing the words across his cheek as my breasts press against his chest.
He shudders, gripping my ass even tighter as he holds me there–close–my body flush with his. Having sex with him twice hasn’t been enough. It’s all I think about. This must be because of the bond. That constant ache of his absence between my legs….
“We can’t,” he says against my ear, his teeth catching my earlobe.
I close my eyes as a shiver of longing licks down my spine. “Why not?”
“You’re in heat, Aviva, I can feel it.”
“So?”
“So, you’re not on a contraceptive tonic, and I could get you pregnant.” He pulls away enough to look at me fully. “We’ll pick some up in Moonrise. My cousin is a midwife. She’ll be there, and she has everything you’ll need.”
“How can you tell I’m in heat?”
“Because–” He grits his teeth as he adjusts my position against him, like I’m too close, but he’s also searching for any kind of friction to satisfy his own desire. “I just can. It’s a mate thing. Feeling the mate bond with you… I can feel other things too now. Sense things. Like every morning when I wake up next to you, and you’re warm, soft in my hands and wet…”
My heart skips as he leans in to nip at my neck. I squirm in his grasp, desperate for him to touch me. I’m ready to beg for it.
“I was barely able to control myself the last two times, but I don’t think I could again.”
“Please,” I beg, whimpering as I grind against him.
He rolls his neck, groaning. “Not here. Soon, I promise.”
Somehow, we untangle ourselves. I trudge behind him back to the house where he orders me to take a bath and change my clothes. He leaves in a huff, and an hour later, I’m dressed, my hair clean and air-drying as I sharpen my knives at the kitchen table.
I wasn’t sure what to wear. I had a feeling we wouldn’t be leaving until tonight, after nightfall. It’s far safer to shift and travel under the cover of darkness, anyway, since it would only be the two of us. So I picked another pretty dress that hugs my breasts and hangs loosely around my waist, soft and airy to combat the heat. This will do until I need to change into my dresses from Endova when we set out to travel.
But two male voices drift toward me through the open windows. Ryan’s is familiar, but I can’t place the other. It's new… but familiar in a strange way that immediately sets me on edge.
The door opens.