by A. K. Koonce
Asher presses his head into my shoulder and laughs at my surprise.
“You knew Kaino was seeing Shane?” I ask, trying to tear my gaze away from the couple making out in the woods, a shadow of groping hands and tongues.
Asher runs his fingers lightly up my spine, lifting his head, his shining eyes search my face. His touch sends a shiver over my body, pulling my attention back to him.
He’s smirking down at me, kneeling between my legs. His other hand pushes my messy mass of curls behind my ear and he has the strangest look in his steely gaze.
“I’ve made it a point to know things about the mystics here. They’re good. Mostly. Kaino is good.” His fingers trail my face until his palm settles against my neck. “I’m never going to let anything happen to you again, Fallon.” His whisper is slow and promising as he pulls me into his body. His strong arms wrap around me in a hug, the epitome of safety. My eyes close as I listen to the steady beat of his heart.
“Good night,” he says in a quiet breath before pressing his lips to my temple and unwrapping himself from me. I watch as he climbs down from my pallet in silence.
It’s cold without him near. My lips and body tingle, a shadowing memory of him hums through my veins. After a few minutes, leaves crack under foot below my pallet and I throw myself down as if I’ve been asleep for hours—instead of where I always want to be.
Chapter Fourteen
Why Did I Say That
My training has ceased since Asher’s arrival. Declan doesn’t mention it, but I make a point of shadowing him as I had before. Hoping to keep my place as understudy, hoping to keep our friendship…
It’s late, and I want nothing more than to go to bed, but as an understudy, I have to attend the days meeting before retiring to my bed, where I will surely toss and turn for another night.
Luca and I enter the tent, we’re nearly the first to arrive… almost.
A werewolf steps closer to Gabriel, eliminating any space between them. His face is a mass of smooth angry features.
“This isn’t your place, pike,” the wolf slurs into Gabriel’s passive face, pushing his forearm into the hybrids throat, pinning him to a beam supporting the tent.
Asher takes a step toward the two of them, but Gabriel holds his hands up dismissively, his new bionic wrist twisting in the candle light. A smug smirk etches the hybrid’s features, the hundreds of freckles across his cheekbones standing out even in the dim lighting.
“I didn’t know it was a private affair. Did your lord personally invite you, as he did us?” Gabriel asks, his head tilting slightly at the werewolf whose confidence is faltering as he thinks about what the hybrid just said.
“Release him!” Luca demands, storming toward them, her long steps eating up the dry land.
The wolf bares his teeth, his jaw clenching as he assesses his lord’s daughter, her hands held high on the curve of her hip. A moment passes quickly before the wolf lowers his arm from Gabriel’s throat, keeping his eyes pinned on the hybrid as he walks away.
Asher’s gaze slips over my flesh, igniting a flush to creep up my neck and across my cheeks at the memory of his warm body against mine. A deep, unsteady breath fills my lungs as my eyes dart away from his.
It takes me a few seconds to realize Luca is still assessing Gabriel, she appears to be considering her next moves. She takes a single step toward him before back tracking and quickly taking a seat at the long table.
The wolf that threatened Gabriel sits in the third chair to the left of Lord Raske’s seat... Right next to my own seat. Dread sinks into me as I take my seat at his side.
It doesn’t take long for the seats to fill and the meeting to begin.
I sit ramrod straight in my chair. The wood bites into my spine but I ignore it. Keeping my eyes focused on Raske while also not retaining a word he says.
Declan sits to my right, I’m by his side as I have been for all of the militia meetings. Kaino sits across from Declan, to the right of Raske. The three of them are speaking in great detail about something that I can’t seem to keep my mind on.
I wanted desperately to be here. To be a part of the militia to find Asher.
Wish granted.
Now he sits across from me, at Kaino’s side. Throwing knowing glances at me every time I so much as breathe loudly.
And he’s so distracting. I get it, you’re in unbelievably perfect shape, your body is artwork poured down from the heavens. Does his shirt have to be so tight, though? Does he have to smirk at me every time our eyes meet?
“Fallon?” Declan stares at me unblinking.
I shift my eyes around the full table. Luca sits at the end, eyebrows raised, a faint smirk on her lips. I take a deep breath to release the pressure I now feel building within me from all the eyes that are now solely focused on me.
My eyes wander, pleadingly for someone to repeat whatever the hell he just said. Anyone? Luca? She covers her mouth with her hand as a smile breaks quietly over her features.
Thanks.
“He asked if you could join Luca’s squad tomorrow to hunt south of here,” Asher says, blatantly smiling at me now.
My eyes narrow accusingly at his smug look.
“Of course,” I say, turning my full attention back to Raske.
He nods sternly but doesn’t comment on my lack of interest. He turns back to Declan, filling in the week's agenda amongst themselves.
Asher is still watching me and I avoid his eyes, busying myself with my pen and paper.
“You can look away already. She clearly has no interest in pikes either,” the wolf to my left says.
His words sting, said harshly and quickly, filled with hate and disgust. His name escapes me but his words are all I need to know about him.
Raske barely acknowledges the comment and continues planning with Declan. Kaino’s posture straightens but he ignores the comment, as well. Asher studies him for mere moments before adverting his storming eyes, choosing to stare at the table instead of myself. Gabriel stares blankly at the wolf across from him, the wolf who all but spit in his face. He doesn’t look away, his unseeing eyes seeing someone clearly for the first time in a long time.
My breathing accelerates as the word builds momentum in my mind.
Pike. Pike. Pike.
“They’re hybrids,” I blurt out loudly, almost a scream really.
The warrior stiffens at my side. I look up from my white, clean paper. Communication within the room has fallen away and once again all eyes are on me. I raise my head high and stare into the wolf’s dark hate-filled eyes.
“Pike is a slur and an ill-educated one at that. They’re hybrids. Just like you’re not a dog or a mutt,” I say looking his wide frame up and down. His werewolf status is apparent in his posture, his confidence, and now his anger.
He shakes in his seat next to me. His body trembles to release his natural form, a rage-filled form. But control is practiced in ten fold in this community. His fists are clenched on the table tops, his knuckles white, his eyes blazing. Briefly, a snarl escapes his quivering lips, his mouth turning snout like for just an instant before he takes deep breaths, reigning the beast back in.
“Obviously, you have no idea what my interests are. Because you don’t know me.” I stand, my chair sliding unevenly against the dry dirt.
I walk away in silence into the dark night. I let the full moon shine down on me, the beautiful clear light soaking calming thoughts into my messy mind.
I’ve just made it into the tree line, stepping over a large branch that is barely seen in the darkness, when a hand clutches firmly around my arm.
Fear and anger spark through my nerves, instinctively I grab the dagger at my waist and turn, plunging the blade into the mystic’s shoulder. Pain etches the face before me. But it isn’t the hate filled wolf from the meeting. Asher’s beautiful face is cast in the white streaks of moonlight that filters in through the leaves above.
I cover my mouth with my hand. I can’t believe I just stabbed
him.
“Asher, I’m so s-”
His hands grip both of my arms and he pushes me harshly against a tree. A slight pain stings through my shoulder blades as the bark bites into my flesh. Confusion creeps over my face.
Then his lips press firmly against mine and I settle into him, the tension leaving me in an instant. He kisses me urgently and strongly, all of his strength pushes at the surface to be released as he kisses my lips.
“I can’t believe you said that,” he murmurs against my lips quickly before kissing me again.
His tongue slips against my own, caressing mine before his teeth rake over my bottom lip. He holds my head with both hands, his fingers pushing into my messy hair before his hands dive down and lift me in one swooping motion. My legs wrap around him as he holds me against the tree. My hands travel up his smooth chest and my fingers collide with something hard. With my lips still on his, my eyes flutter open and I see the hilt of the dagger still sticking out of his shoulder.
He kisses slowly down my neck. His tongue flicks over my pulse and my breath comes in uneven attempts.
“You spoke out in a room of silence,” he says, his breath hot against my neck as he kisses me there over and over again, building a warmth deep within me.
My hand drifts against his blood stained shirt until my fingers curl around the wooden hilt. I rip the blade out of him with a quick turn of my wrist before throwing it to the ground at our feet.
“Fallon,” he groans loudly into my neck, his muscles pulled tight beneath my touch from the agony that I just released into him. He bites my neck lightly, a hum of a growl still pulsating over his lips and into me. I shudder a breath as pain flashes into me but it doesn’t hurt, it’s a different kind of pain. A good pain. My back arches against him as I slowly release the breath I was holding.
He flicks his tongue over the shallow puncture wound, healing the wound instantly and I feel my body hum to life. An energy and warmth spread through my heart and settles under the flesh beneath his mouth.
“Fallon, I,” he says kissing back up my jaw as I grind my hip against his.
I pull his hair roughly until we are face to face again and his lips are against mine, his tongue tinged with a faint copper-like taste. His hips align with mine perfectly and I can feel him against every inch of my body, his fingers digging into my thighs as he holds me to him.
“Fallon, I love you,” he says in a harsh whisper—more words that my mind isn’t grasping at the moment.
But he stops kissing me abruptly, pulling my attention back to his words. Replaying them in my mind until the meaning surfaces there.
His mouth is parted and his eyes are wide as he looks down at me. His lips are swollen from kissing me and a trickle of blood clings to his bottom lip. He licks it away as he slowly releases his hold on me. My feet touch the ground, I’m grounded again. I can think again.
My heart pounds hard against my ribs.
Did he really just tell me he loved me?
“Why did I say that to you?” He asks, mirroring my own confusion.
What he just said stings against my chest but I don’t know why. We’re friends and his thoughts are just as chaotic as mine are.
“Did you mean it?” I ask in a quiet and nervous voice.
He licks his lips again and takes a step back from me, my hands fall away from him and hang numbly at my side. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Then he nods heavily before taking another step back as he looks at the dry leaves at our feet.
“Yeah, I did,” he says and looks back at me, his wide and terrified eyes searching mine.
For the first time, I see fear there. Mixed in with the severe white and brilliant silver, there’s fear. My heart both melts and shatters all at once and I’m not able to form thoughts or words.
He loves me?
“I have to go,” he says abruptly.
“Asher, wait.”
I reach out to him, my fingers slipping through the cool air, but he’s gone before the words even leave my lips. Quietness and confusion are all that surrounds me.
* * *
“So wait, wait, wait,” Luca says, repeating herself for probably the third time now as I recall one of the most embarrassing moments of my life to her.
Again.
“So just to be clear, the super sexy hybrid, throws you against a tree, kisses you – which, by the way, I’m going to need a bit more detail on – bites you, confesses his love for you and you do what?”
“Nothing, I-”
“Nothing, right. Yeah, good choice.” Her nose wrinkles as she nods enthusiastically at me.
She takes a large bite of a red apple. The crisp crunching sound lingers in the air around us. We sit at a dinner table, just the two of us. People mill around us laughing and eating and enjoying the cool evening weather.
Asher didn’t visit me last night. I slept alone in a fit of nightmares that attacked my mind, waking long before the sun rose in an attempt to escape them.
“Can we talk about something else now?” I ask in a defensive tone, raising my eyebrows and my voice all at once.
“I don’t know, I don’t think anything else will be as entertaining as this,” she says, dripping sarcasm into every word.
She’s right, my humiliation and his anguish won’t fade anytime soon.
Why did I freeze up? Why didn’t I say anything? Anything. Because anything would have been better than saying nothing to him.
God, his face. I never want to see his face like that ever again. Because of me.
I push my plate away from me, folding my arms on the wooden table, wishing I could throw my head down and pout like a child. But I can’t, and Luca won’t let me.
“But, just so we’re clear, after he said I love you—”
I lean my head back, staring up at the dark, starry sky and wishing they would fade away into the sun, and that it, too, would crawl back over the sky and I could travel back to last night. If I could have just said how I felt.
If I only knew how I felt.
Chapter Fifteen
A Touchy Breed
Amid all of my jumbled thoughts and awful bad timing, Raske has decided to go ahead with his plan to bring peace with a mortal and mystic union.
“The four of you will go to the camp and mingle with your people, Fallon. You still have friends there, yes?” Lord Raske asks as he addresses Luca, Kaino, Declan and myself.
I nod, thinking of all the people my mother helped at the camp over the years. She was a doctor. The local clinic was only allowed to see the dying. The sick had to fend for themselves and often sought out my mother’s help.
My stomach turns just thinking about how many of them have died without a physician.
“Good, walk around with Kaino and Luca, make yourselves seen. Explain. Explain our community. Explain where you’ve been and how free and wonderful it all is—how happy you are.”
How happy I am. My thoughts drift to Asher and his confession as well as my twisting and disorganized feelings. I nod anyway, agreeing to my supposed happiness. From the corner of my eye, I see Gabriel followed by Asher walk into the tent. They stand back, talking quietly among themselves as we finish up our meeting.
“Declan, you’re to stay unseen. You’re an outstanding warrior but your presence in the human community just won’t work in our favor.”
“Of course,” the hybrid says as he drums his fingers absently against the wooden table.
Raske turns toward his son, Kaino. He and Shane listen closely for what their lord has to say, but his words never leave his mouth.
“I’d like to go as well,” Asher says as he strides up to the end of the table, a pleasant look filling his features. My shoulders tense from the sound of his voice, as if he might tell me he loves me all over again and then disappear the moment he says it. “The community knows Fallon was taken by a hybrid. Let her explain herself, explain the mystics in the naturally good light we always seem to be in.” He smi
rks but no one else shares his humor, aside from Gabriel who clasps his friend’s shoulder, the two of them passing a sarcastic look between themselves.
Kaino and Luca look to their father immediately who simply stares at the hybrid as if he’s suggested we all start doing some quiet book clubs at night instead of celebrations.
“Unfortunately, that doesn’t sound like a good idea, Asher. The humans are a touchy breed, their emotions run higher than ours.”
My head turns slowly toward the mystic seated at the head of the table, my narrowed eyes focusing only on him.
“A touchy breed?” I repeat carefully, in an attempt to find a less disparaging meaning.
I wonder if he’d still think we were pathetically emotional if he knew how much his son cared for the werewolf seated next to him. If he knew his daughter hasn’t stopped talking about a redheaded hybrid since he blindly walked into this community. If he knew that I can’t even begin to explain my emotions let alone feel them.
“The human society has just been raised that way, Fallon. I’m not belittling your race.” His warm eyes smile down at me and I force myself not reply.
“As I was saying, the plan has been made. I appreciate your interest but now is not a good time to introduce a hybrid into a human society.”
My fists clench at my sides, beneath the table my hands are little wads of fury.
“Asher’s going. The humans will wrap their tiny minds around my friendship with the hybrid. They’ll understand that genetics don’t decide if someone is good or bad. They’ll see the good in Asher, just like I do.”
The room couldn’t be quieter if we were all dead. Luca’s dark brows are raised so high I wonder if she wishes we were.
I shouldn’t have said all that.
My heart pounds as I look to Asher at the opposite end of the table. The corner of his lips pull up into a hesitant but arrogant smile.
“Then it’s settled.” Asher raises his palms up as if everything is crystal clear now. “The humans will love me as much as your princess does,” he says with a wink, not allowing any room for protest as he strides from the tent.
