by Lisa Ladew
Anna sighed. “I know.” She turned her head away so Growler couldn’t see her despair. She wouldn’t share it, so she couldn’t have it. He would… he would love it out of her. He would love her so good she would never keep anything from him again. He kissed her, taking her mouth slowly, gently, stopping to savor the sigh that fell from her lips as she relaxed into it. His Anna. Their cave was quiet, dry, dark, as clean as it could be, and private. They could open to each other. He could bare his soul to his Anna and encourage her to do the same. He could tease her prettiness with his fingers and his words and thick thrusts with his body. His strong body that was made for her and her alone.
He growled, the sound filling the cave and she sighed and threw her hands over her head, the fingers curled in a feminine way that made Growler ache to nibble the ends. The skin of her neck was so fine, so rolling and unbroken. His teeth would fit right there, right in that notch. He was rocking his body against her, and she was rocking back. His growl had not stopped, it intensified, and she flung her head back and forth, then snatched one of his hands out of her hair and took it down to her center, wantonly pushing the pads of his fingers through her skirts, up to the very core of her as she rolled her hips and bit her lip, the killing magic finally loosing its hold on her, as she was able to let it go at the same time and it flowed and leaked out of her fingertips and the ends of her hair, leaking down their bodies and onto her skirts where it was absorbed, setting the cotton to dance.
Growler cupped her fyne cunthe with his hand like she wanted and pressed and rolled and watched for clues as to what she wanted more of in the pout of her face and the tremor of her gasps. He set his bear to the watch of the cave. He could no more tell if someone was approaching them at that moment than he could describe where Antimony was. He was gone, completely buried in his Anna’s pleasure, in this act that belonged to him alone, that served so many purposes he’d lost count, but that he would do for the enjoyment of it only. Her moans and sighs and groans and gasps of pleasure were enough to keep him hard for hours, to delay his pleasure until she’d had so much she got out all the stuck magic, all the killing energy, and so much that she would sleep for a week, and then he would seek his own pleasure. Would pound into her, the friction driving them both higher and higher and higher until she clenched and cried out as he pumped a final time and spilled his seed deep within her, leaving Fate’s job to Fate, and Growler’s job to Growler.
Growler did his job very well. No one could take Anna higher, bring her down more definitively, and no one would ever get to try again. His fangs grew in his mouth. Claim her. The voice came from inside. He flipped her over. Freed himself. Pressed into the hot wet core of her and thrust home, pulling her close, lifting her up, his teeth scraping her skin.
If he decided for her then it would be done and she wouldn’t struggle with it anymore. And would she hate him and would it kill him? but he was alpha, and alpha did not ask permission from their mates. He did not decide. But he struck anyway, piercing her skin so she screamed so loud the morning birds outside took to the air with much calling and scolding. Her hips rolled and her fyne honeypot clutched at him, forcing orgasm after orgasm from her and him both. Growler growled until it was over and Anna slumped against him. He pulled his teeth from her skin and licked at her, cleaning what scant blood there was. It was done. A scar there for everyone to see. They’d been running toward this for days now. Weeks. Months. It was done. And they would not celebrate. They would only fight for their right to have done it.
Anna lay still and Growler clutched her to him. Neither of them said a word. Growler watched the fire until it burned to nothing. He held a finally-sleeping Anna to his chest, and tried to imagine the best thing that could happen when he and Anna returned to the cosh.
Good thoughts came hard, but he dug in his bear heels and tried.
Divide. But with strength. Slay a Fatherborne. Cleave together. Divide. There had to be a way.
19 – “Just” Four Days
Anna awoke with a start, the afternoon light from outside the cave telling her that she’d slept for six or so hours. Growler was not there. Anna woke her body up, stretched and moved, feeling good, if unsettled, then set to the cave’s entrance. Where was Growler?
When she breached the cave and found not Growler, but Sir Dewey, set to watch her by Growler no doubt, like she was a toddler, she clenched her fists and sparked magic with her fingers, about to light up Sir Dewey like he was the toddler. He knew it was coming. He stood tall. Did not lift his chin. Just waited for it. But she remembered something Growler had said once. About Theresa and Sir Dewey. She thought for a moment. Yes. She could see it. She dropped her hand. “Theresa?” she asked softly.
Sir Dewey nodded once. “I love her.”
Anna gasped. He’d said love. Bond switches preferred eloquent shifters, thoughtful and intense shifters who spilled their heart with every word from their mouths. And that was the kind of males they got. These ladykillers with tongues like silk and velvet and sometimes sandpaper when you were in a sandpaper mood. But love? That was a word Anna did not even speak in her thoughts. Sir Dewey had said it aloud in the forest. If Antimony threw them all three out of the cosh because of their foolishness, they could cleave together, but what of Theresa? Did she have to leave also? What would that do to Mary Celeste? To Swan? And to Anna herself? It would destroy her to leave her sisters. To be part of the reason the very people she loved the most were hurting, and would hurt forevermore.
“Leave me,” she said simply. She could say naught else. He nodded and stalked away into the forest. “Where is he?” she called to his retreating shadow.
The answer came from far already, but the voice carried true. Anna was sure of the message, even if it made little sense. “He needs four days. He bid me to say that he is working for your future. He says for you to be ready for anything, and give him four days.” Sir Dewey’s bear crashed away through the trees.
His statement played through her mind, crushing her. There was no cosh left. Nowhere to go. Banishment looming. Four days. Anna would give Growler anything he asked, but where was he, and what was he doing and why couldn’t she see him for four days? What if he needed her? What if she needed him?
She did need him. She needed him with her, for all her nights.
Anna sat down on a tree root and watched the sun set through the trees, nowhere to go, nowhere was safe for her. Nowhere was home. But she would give him his four days. She would try.
***
Hours later, as evening fell and the tree frogs set the forest to sleep, Anna watched Growler from a tree set on the edge of a magical meadow of forget-me-nots. The flowers whispered to her but she could not hear them clearly. She was downwind from Growler, and far enough that he shouldn’t be able to scent her. She hoped. She’d ascryed for him, ashamed of it, but still needing to be close to him. She was high in a tree on the forest path before it yielded to flowers, on the inside so the trees would obscure her excellent vision.
Her cover meant she could not quite see what he was up to, what it was he needed four days for. What he hadn’t wanted her to be a part of, for some reason. He’d asked her not to peek but she had not been able to stop herself. A switchy curse, the intense curiosity, especially when it came to shifters.
Anna dropped onto the branch and leaned her head back against the trunk of the tree. She didn’t want to get a look at what Growler didn’t want her to see, but just being in the area, she got a sense of it. Had seen he and the other Bond shifters in the trees. Cutting, swinging, jumping. Displaying such fyne mastery of body that Anna heated at her center and wished for Growler next to her.
But there was much to think about. Muse about, even if she weren’t supposed to. Were they cutting down trees to build a new cosh? This did not seem like a good place. There was magic here, but it would not do for the cosh. It was singular magic. Strong and steady and streaming from one spot in the earth. The cosh liked chaotic magic that spread out and soaked in
anywhere, a bit of Blood magic here, a bit of breath magic there. Rub them in like oil. The long and sharp cosh house would not prefer the kind of magic Anna could sense.
But no, shifters couldn’t build a cosh in four days, anyway, so that was definitely not what was going on here. Should she tell Growler about the magic? No. Her Growler was smart. She didn’t know what he was building, but it wasn’t the cosh. It was something else, and if she didn’t wonder too hard she wouldn’t have to feel too bad about disobeying him. She had no problem disobeying Growler when he told her to do something. He had no claim on her.
But oh bear, he did. He’d claimed her back in that cave and she hadn’t known what to think of it and she hadn’t dreamed of it and no answers had come to her in the night. Her hand stole to her neck and she felt there. The spot was tender, in a good way, and yes, it had scarred already in the shape of his bite. Her thighs clenched as she touched it, her body bucking slightly, mayhap telling her what it wanted. Yes, that bite mark made her think of that bite that flooded her mind with thoughts of his thick cock her hands on it her mouth on it pressing it inside her body.
Anna pulled her fingers away from the brand on her shoulder. Too much. She couldn’t think about it right now. But Sir Dewey’s eyes had not gone to the mark. Had Growler told him? Warned him it would be there? Why did that send a sweet thrill through her? How would Sir Dewey react to such a thing? With desire, mayhap, fangs sharpening to better bite his own love when next she came to him?
Anna stiffened, trying to force the thoughts of sex from her mind. She couldn’t do it. But she had to. There was no turning back now. Growler had decided for her. She was glad. And she would still disobey him, but now he had a right to think maybe she should say yes sometimes, too. Maybe. But they still had to make it through the next few days. Had to let life bring the consequences of their actions to them. When would it happen? How? How many of them would be turned out? Why did she not leave first, get it over with? Because she hoped by some fyne miracle, they would all be saved. That Antimony would change. That something would happen and she could have it all, the bear, her sisters, and the cosh, too.
Anna crouched on a thick tree branch, watching Growler move through the trees so far away, from only the corner of her eye. The cosh didn’t exist anymore. Decisions were being made somewhere. But if she sought them out, she might be banished the moment Antimony set eyes on her. She could talk to Theresa or Mary Celeste in a puddle if she needed to, but would that be smart? They could be keeping their bellies to the ground, too, staying away from Antimony, but not if they used magic.
Antimony had been a temper in recent weeks. The whole shifter-hating thing of hers was worse than ever. She would not say why she felt so. Would not speak with any of them about it, like she was different. Set apart. The only reasons any of them had for her behavior were rumors that were so scandalous as to be regarded as lies. But, even if none of them knew why, the fact was, Antimony would never accept a shifter daring to claim a switch and would endlessly persecute any switch who let a shifter think he had that right.
Anna had really made a mess of that rule. No switch had ever allowed themselves to be claimed before… had she? A female whose name had been stricken from the Keeper’s book with magic, so that none of them knew what it had been. None of them could tease out her story, her history. And no shifter would speak of it, under a decree from Antimony, Anna and Swan thought. If the shifters even knew. Anna thought they did. The shifters were the timekeepers, the history recorders of the cosh. Switches did not keep history well. If some poor switch had allowed herself to be claimed a hundred years ago, then the name had been erased swiftly, mayhap none even knew anymore.
She would go down in history, now. Anna of thy bond element, year 1493, the year of her entrance to the cosh. She would be known as the first switch to be banned by the cosh-switch. Shameful. Growler, too, would lose his status. Would forevermore be known as the as the toughest alpha the cosh had ever known, who had lost it all because of a female. Anna would not entertain dramatic stories of what would happen after in her thoughts. Her mind shied away from that bleak existence.
The night waned on. Anna dozed lightly against the tree trunk, magic holding her in place on the branch, high above the path that led from where the cosh had stood to whatever Growler was building, no home at her front, no family at her back.
***
Anna woke. Magicks swarmed her, some tickling her nose. Her sister’s burnt umber magicks. Swan’s cool blue magicks. They had passed below her on their way to Growler, with one other. A male. Her sisters would not have noticed her if they weren’t expecting her, but the male was certain to have scented her in the treetop. If it was Sir Dewey, she thought he might keep her presence a secret from Growler, unless Growler asked him directly. She gazed that way, toward whatever Growler was building in the trees, counting the lot of them, clustered together. Growler stood with his back to her, his arms folded over his chest. Sir Dewey’s hand was just-so on the head of his walking stick, his profile to her. Anna giggled sleepily at the stick. A bear shifter with a walking stick. He said he’d taken it up in the Royal Navy after a grave injury, but she thought he sometimes produced it just so he could jut it out, but not too far, like he was playing a part of the proper Englishman with the chest so broad and the bear so big you never knew if you should run or apologize when you saw him scowl politely. Anna loved everything about Sir Dewey and thought she might die of happiness if Theresa could mate such a fyne male.
Growler, Sir Dewey, Theresa, Mary Celeste, Swan, and another shifter, a strong wolf who moved next to Swan. Bringing up the rear was the First Breath Switch with a dark panther stalking behind her left hip, ready to strike any who got too close to her. Anna frowned. This looked like a meeting she should be in on. Why would Growler do something, anything behind her back? She stared away from the meeting and refused to believe the thoughts that came into her head.
She mused in that way, staring at the trees for so long, that sounds of construction started up again, that switches and shifters might have passed underneath her. She hadn’t noticed.
Anna dropped to the forest floor and headed closer to Growler, to what he was building. He would forgive her. He always did. Ahead of her, in the clearing of purple flowers with one massive tree in the very center of it, Bond shifters worked quickly, on the ground and in the air. Something was coming into shape. A tall house, not a long house, a tiny cabin soaring over her head, big enough for two people to live in cozily, platformed into a notch in the branches of a mighty tree that sat with two others around that massive tree in the center, the one too big to build in because its notches reached so high.
So different than what she was used to, it was. And she wasn’t supposed to be seeing it. Ahead of her Growler hung from a rope with just one hand and swung from one tree to another, a massive board tucked under his other arm. He released the rope, then dug into the tree and socked the board where he wanted it, with an audible, slapping thunk. Anna jumped, and licked her lips. The hard male with the shorn hair and eyes like diamonds oozed sex as bulky athleticism and she couldn’t concentrate with him in front of her at. She swallowed hard and pulled her eyes away. Tried to keep them away. Failed.
From behind her, an owl hooted twice. Growler’s head jerked up, facing her way. She could see herself on the path from his view, almost. A tall female, hair wild, dress dirty and ripped, although she could mend and clean it with magic alone if she took the time, walking up the path in the forest, toward her shifter and his secret, her feet clothed in soft, dark boots. Their eyes locked. His face gave away nothing. Mayhap he would frown at her. Give her a stern look. Mayhap she would hand herself over for his use for less. She pulled herself together, forced her eyes off the biceps of her male, and spoke high in the air, so the wind would grab her words and carry them behind her, in the tone she reserved for only the worst offenses. “By the Bear, I’ve never heard an owl with an accent befitting a Rear-Admiral in His Majesty�
��s royal navy before.”
In front of her Growler snorted, hard and flat to the sky. Behind her a proper English owl choked. Anna shot magic behind her, missing on purpose, but warning him away. How dare he set to watch her, again! Unless Growler had set him to watch for anyone, not just her.
Anna shot a tiny ball of magic at Growler. She should hand him more, but of course she wouldn’t. But she was claimed now. He’d asked for four days she hadn’t given him one. Maypoled in the worst way, that was her, she had been since the first time he’d brought her a vampire head. Growler stood tall and crossed his arms over his chest, watching her, waiting to see what she would do.
She stopped moving. His complete and total acceptance undid her. He wasn’t going to warn her off, wasn’t going to scold her or lecture her. He wasn’t lying in wait like a viper ready to penetrate her with poison fangs when she said one wrong thing.
He’d claimed her though it meant everything and she’d come to find him when he hadn’t wanted her.
They were even. Ok. Time to trust him. She stopped still. Moved sideways. Found a dry spot under a tall evergreen. Made a nest. Faced the other way. Bedded down to relax. To sleep. To give him his four days, but not a moment more. She had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to comfort. So she would wait.
20 – Hell Has Come
Days passed for Anna until they ran together in her mind, night and day the same in the forest. Anna gazed up at the mid-morning sun from her position reclining on a branch in a tall tree, just above where she’d stepped off the path, resolved to give Growler what he asked for. He hadn’t stopped working once. Hadn’t slept at all. Barely stopped to eat or drink, although he had brought her water and meat three times. She wasn’t hungry. She was in waiting. There were more cozy wooden cabins rising. She’d spoken with Theresa only briefly, in a small crockery of water. Theresa had confided they were also hiding out in the woods, avoiding conflict. None knew where Antimony was.
