The Chieftain

by V. K. Ludwig

  “Rowan!” Autumn sprung up, but Max held up his palm and gestured her to stay where she was.

  He hurried to my side and once more kneeled down next to me. “You need to calm yourself down. Nothing but another panic attack. Let’s do the counting thing again. One —”

  “Fuck counting.” I rolled myself onto all fours like a fat hog bound to slaughter. “My wife carried that child closer to her heart than anyone ever could. And you… where is she? Where is Darya? At my cabin?”

  Please say yes, nod, anything.

  My sister pressed her lips tightly together, then opened and closed them like a fish on land. In the end, she pointed at the room where Rose grew increasingly fussy and mumbled, “If you would just read the note she left you. It’ll explain everything. She wanted it this way. I swear she did.”

  “To make up for a mistake in the past she wasn’t even responsible for!” I shouted, pushing Rose over the edge and into a full-blown frenzy.

  I worked my heavy body up on two feet and stepped into the room once more, gliding my hand along the half-log wall for stability.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Rose and lifted her from the crib, another one standing empty beside it. “Did daddy scare you? We’ll get you a small bottle ready, and then we have to find mommy.”

  Max came and picked up the note which leaned against the foot of the crib and held it in front of my face. “She told us she would go —”

  “I know where she went.” I walked away from Max and the envelope in his hand, its corners sharp enough to puncture whatever was left of my heart. “You think I’m stupid? East and west aren’t an option. We all know how south worked out for her the last time she ran away. I’ll go north.”

  Max let his head fall back and released a breath of relief, but Autumn just shook her head.

  “Why are you so dead-set on getting her out of the way?” I asked her. “She’s family, for god’s sake.”

  “She might be family, but she left my brother and broke his heart, and I could never forgive her that.”

  I pressed Rose closer against me and stroked my little finger across her lips. She chomped down on it like a teething puppy, letting out little fusses of pain and relief at the same time.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” I asked, an odd kind of warmth filling my chest cavity and expanding my lungs. “I am the one who needs forgiveness here. She might have run away, but she did it because I was a coward, and I failed her.”

  She looked at me from wide eyes. “Failed her because you couldn’t give her a child? But that’s not your fault.”

  “No.” The warmth spread from my core into my limbs, driving out the shame, the humiliation, the damn disgrace. “I failed her because I can’t father children, and I was too scared to acknowledge the truth. Instead of facing it together with her, I looked the other way and pretended there wasn’t an issue. She left because I let her carry the entire weight of it, and relied on her strength because I was a coward.”

  Max gave me a pat on the back, pride lining the upward curve of his mouth. Chances were he wanted to say he was proud of me. He didn’t. Probably knew I’d tell him to shut the fuck up.

  “She said she’d take one of the snowmobiles,” Autumn said, her body sunken into or perhaps almost absorbed by the stairs.

  I stared down at Rose, her face a mix of Darya and something strange that had grown so heartwarmingly familiar to me. “Let’s hope she took the broken one.”

  Chapter 26

  Darya

  Gray-blue smoke pushed through every single gap and hole of the snowmobile, and the smell of burnt oil and rubber nauseated me.

  The cold sneaked through my clothes and prickled my skin, but it still couldn’t measure up to the helplessness which pumped through my veins. I had to get out of here before Rowan found me — and definitely before I changed my mind.

  I leaned over and opened the flap, pulling out a soup of wet snow and chunks of ice. Not that I knew much about these machines, but my guts told me this was beyond my modest mechanic skills. In short: I was stranded and screwed.

  The sky had turned from an airy blue to a depressing gray once more, a deep rumble coming from the mountain range to the north-west. Turning around had never sounded more convincing.

  But I couldn’t.

  Pain clenched my heart.

  Ignore it. This was better for everyone involved, especially for Rose. There was no place safer in this world than with Rowan.

  I worked my gloved hand deep into the flap once more; the heat emanating from the overworked engine boiling whatever moisture had seeped through the worn fabric.

  A voice came from behind the snowmobile, the baritone of it way too familiar to keep me from freezing in place. “On the run again?”

  I let my eyes wander upward, higher, higher, inching a broad, dark figure into view. Black Thermo pants. Jacket unzipped. Broad shoulders. A baby dangling from them in a flower-print baby carrier.

  My heart did a Yo-Yo, repeatedly dropping into the depth of my stomach then clanking against the back of my throat.

  “The flap broke for good. Not taking in enough snow to cool the engine.”

  Did I really just say that? The flap broke?

  Awkward small talk didn’t even begin to cover it…

  “Yeah, I know,” Rowan said but remained rooted into the white ground. “There ain’t no fixing that. But to be honest, we hoped you took the broken one.”

  “You did?”

  Rose tossed and turned her head, her view toward my voice obstructed by pink and red flowers. Seeing her again sucked the air out of my lungs, reminding me of what an empty shell I was for the one hour she wasn’t part of my life.

  Rowan fumbled a large, orange backpack off his body and lowered it onto the seat of the snowmobile. “Not sure if I got everything, but it has a good amount of diapers. Bottles. Her warmer. Things she likes. You know… her favorite Binky, the elephant blanket, the… uh…”

  His voice trailed off. He shoved and pouted his lips around his face as if he had to chew whatever he wanted to say down to manageable chunks.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, still cowering behind the snowmobile, hiding behind the hood.

  “Look…” He unbuckled the safety strap of the carrier from his hip, slipped one arm through the shoulder piece, and fumbled Rose out. “It doesn’t matter how much I love her or that I seem to be a natural at this daddy thing. She belongs with her mother.”

  “But the people —”

  “Fuck the people,” he said, his eyes focused on Rose’s leg which got stuck in one strap. “If they got a problem with it, they can come take it up with me. I never wanted to be a chieftain, anyway.”

  “You’re a good one.”

  “Maybe.” He freed Rose’s foot and walked over to me, each of his quick steps synchronized with a beat of my heart. He kneeled down next to me and sat Rose on his lap, his eyes locking with mine. “I’d choose a life with you and Rose over being a chieftain ten times over.”

  “But… but you are chieftain.”

  His gaze wandered across the snow for a moment before coming back to me. “Yeah. I don’t think the founders put in a back-out clause. It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that Rose has to go with her mom.”

  “You love her,” I stammered.

  “So much, you got no idea.” His steel-gray eyes filled with the tears he held back. He ripped a glove off his hand and let the back of his hand run across my cheek. “But I also love you, and there’s no way I could ever separate you from your child.”

  Gravity pulled me closer to the ground.

  He still loved me.

  “Why are you sending me away then?”

  “Because it is dangerous. You know it is. But… there’s more.” His face turned rigid, and his gaze turned to Rose for two eternities before he went on. “Max ran some barbaric tests, and he confirmed that… I know now that I…”

  “That you can’t —”

  “Don’t!
” He silenced me with his hand. “I’m sick of being such a fucking wimp. I couldn’t give you Rose, and I won’t be able to give you another child. Because I can’t. There. I said it. I can’t make children. Shit… I should have done this years ago.”

  Disappointment slid over me. Not because he couldn’t give me a child, but because he thought it mattered.

  “It was never about children, Rowan. We could have adopted. It was about —”

  “Me not being there for you. Ignoring how much you suffered from my damn ignorance. I understand that now.” He fisted a handful of his hair and rested his forehead against his palm. “Shit, I feel so ashamed. I was so scared you would leave me if I had myself tested and… you got no idea how sorry I am. This is all my fault.”

  I leaned over to him and pressed my head against his, Rose cradled between our two bodies. “No, it isn’t. I shouldn’t have run away.”

  “Running away was the best thing you could have done. It was just the right boom I needed for a wake-up call. Besides, it gave us Rose. I didn’t mean to send you away, Darya. When Max confirmed the results, it seemed so much easier to split than taking responsibility for this mess.”

  “Then don’t send me away,” I whispered, my body trembling from the tip of my nose down to the soles of my feet. I stabbed myself in the heart with my own plea. I waited for his answer, one agonizing heartbeat at a time.

  “They will try to replace me.”

  “Then let them try!” I dug my gloves into his sides, shaking him in desperation yet still barely moving his massive body. “We went through things together far worse than this. Let me be there for you now and make up for the time I wasn’t. Please!”

  A tear landed on my sleeve. It wasn’t mine.

  “I feel so fucking weak,” he said, his vocal cords a drowned, shaky mess.

  I let go of his sides and wrapped my arms around his head, pressing kisses onto that hair I loved braiding so much. “I know you feel like a lesser man, but believe me you’re not. How many men would have the strength to accept a child like Rose as their own? How many men leave bastards behind and never look after them? Those are lesser men, not you. You put your family above your own life. Without hesitation. That’s something only a true man does.”

  “So, you ’don’t...” a sob ripped through his words, “want to leave me? You ’don’t think ’I’m a joke?”

  “Rowan,” I whispered into his hair. “Of all the men in our Clan, other Clans or beyond walls, you are the very best of them.”

  Seconds ticked into minutes without a word said. I cradled my husband’s bobbing head, sheltered underneath my folded arms. Rose gave the occasional coo from underneath this web; not upset or impatient, but rather eager about being enclosed by the two people who loved her the most.

  Rowan freed his head from the tangle, his silver-speckled beard standing wild in all directions. “Did you really think I would let you run away again?”

  “Yes,” I whispered and brushed the unruly strands of hair back into his beard. “But I’m happy that I wasn’t successful this time around. And even happier that you found me. Did you read my note?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. And I won’t ever open it. But I appreciate you tried leaving something behind this time.”

  He used the snowmobile to push himself up together with Rose, then offered his hand and helped me up. His arm slung around me, and he pulled me into his muscular chest. A good kind of dizziness overcame me, and he sealed it with his trembling lips placed onto mine.

  “I’ll bring you back home, woman, where you belong.” He grabbed the orange backpack, flung it over his shoulder, and grabbed my hand to pull me behind him.

  “But the snowmobile…”

  “That piece of junk is beyond saving,” he said and pointed at the juniper, some thirty feet in front of us. “Now mine, on the other hand, is in great shape, so you better hold on tight because I got no time to waste.”

  He wasn’t kidding. Impatient and with an unchecked strength, he picked me up by my waist and sat me onto his snowmobile.

  With Rose tugged into my coat and zipped in front, Rowan’s hurry and the speed of the engine let tears skitter across my cheeks. I clasped my arms around his chest and pulled us closer against him, the strong but even beat of his heart pounding against my palm.

  By the time we reached the cabin, a handful of scattered stars had pushed through the thick, loaded clouds.

  I let my hand rub across Rose’s back, her face pale and soft underneath the night sky, except for the red tip of her nose. “She fell to sleep.”

  “That suits me just fine.”

  He helped me off the seat, then slid one arm underneath my butt and the other around my shoulders to scoop me up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Carrying my wife over the threshold,” he said, making his way up the stairs. He turned sideways, picked up his leg, and supported my weight with his thigh while he turned the knob. “Feels even better than the first time. Probably because I carry you two as a bundle now.”

  He lowered me onto the kitchen rug. “Think she’ll wake up if you put her in the crib?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  I walked over to the bedroom and stepped up to her crib, lowering her down slowly, and placing her onto her mattress with skillful ninja-mom movements. All the while, Rowan pushed and pulled our bed frames, leaned mattresses against walls, and rearranged them a moment later.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Getting her out from between our beds. Go lift the other side.”

  I did as told, and together we carried bed and baby over to the wall. He pushed our bed frames back together, and I helped him drag the bulky mattresses back onto the frame of welded wire.

  “What do you think?” he asked, placing his hands onto his hips with a pride smirk on his face.

  I leaned against him and pressed my head into his hard chest. “Looks like a marital bed to me.”

  “Damn right.” He scooped me up once more and wrapped my legs around his waist. Then he walked me over to the bed and threw me onto the mattress. “And you need to quit running away from your husband.”

  “Or…” I said in a drawn out way, freeing myself from my coat and opening the button on my Thermo pants.

  “Or I’ll start chaining you to this bed, Darya.” He climbed onto the bed and pulled the sweater over his head, the look at his strong, inked torso making the hairs along my neck stand on end. “And have my way with you twice a day. Or four.”

  He crawled across the mattress and closed in on me, unbuttoning and losing his pants on the way. His cock hung between his legs like a metal rod, pointing right at the target.

  He gave a tug at my pants. “Take that ugly thing off.”

  “But it keeps me so warm.”

  “Oh, you won’t feel cold one bit, I’ll make sure of that,” he said in a voice so deep and husky, I could feel my pussy quiver from the inside.

  I kicked it off with my legs and sent it to the ground along with my sweater and the Thermo shirt from underneath. Then I leaned back onto my elbows and raised my hips, swaying my white panty from one side to the other.

  He lowered himself onto me, kissing my cheeks and licking my earlobe. His fingers reached for my thighs, working themselves up and stroking between my lips. They pulled my panty down, then he one-finger-dived inside, rotated along my walls, only to come out again and spread my juice across my entrance.

  I closed my eyes and let myself fall onto my back, clueless as to how he had sunk his head between my legs. Until his tongue worked my pussy, that is, licking my clit and sucking my lips wide open. I arched into him, rubbing my drenched pussy across his mouth.

  “Turn around,” he said, the lust in his voice offering little preparation for what came next.

  He plunged his arms underneath my legs and, without effort or strain, flipped me around and onto my stomach.

  The tip of his cock rubbed against my folds, wetting himse
lf on me, and testing my patience. I had none and pushed myself up on all fours, arching my back and offering myself to him.

  I wanted him.

  Needed him inside me.

  His fingers slung around my hips. He pulled me against him, driving his thick cock inside me, leaving no time for my walls to stretch.

  I moaned. Reason enough for him to grab harder and push deeper. Each thrust he gave turned my body into a landscape of shivers and trembles.

  “Shit,” he said with a quiver and let his thrusts come to a stop. “Don’t move an inch, or I’ll blow.”

  I clenched my pussy around his cock, teasing a deep groan from his lips. His hips swung into desperate mini-humps. “I told you not to move.”

  I stretched out my hands in front of me and lowered my upper body down onto my breasts. “Did you now?”

  “Oh, I know what you’re doing. Stop teasing me like that.”

  “Or what?”

  He quickly wrestled his thighs between mine. “Or this.”

  A kick of his knees spread my legs apart. He split between me, leaving my pussy wide open and exposed, ready for him to take.

  His rocking motion continued, and he plunged inside of me full force. He fucked me hard and fucked me good, pounding against me until there was nothing between the wall and my head but my outstretched arms, palms pressed against a log.

  “You won’t run away again,” he said, then slapped his burning hand onto my ass. “Say it. No more running away.”

  “Ah.” I threw my hand between my legs and fingered my clit, pushing back against him with the other. “No more running away.”

  He raked his hand through my hair and grabbed a fistful, pulling my head back and himself deeper inside me. My clit quaked, sending trembles through the inside of my pussy.

  I let out a whimper. “Shit, Rowan, fuck me.”

  He didn’t. Instead, he pulled out and had me turned onto my back faster than my mind realized. Hot and hard, he pushed back inside of me and began pumping once more, cupping my face inside his palm.