“Do you think we’ll have to ration it?” asked his mate.
Erik said, “If there is a bad storm, or the winter is particularly long.”
“Or the bears come?”
He placed a hand on the small of her back. “That won’t happen.”
And if it does, I will make sure you are nowhere near this place.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Beau said to her. “I’m sure you will have first pick of all the tube roots and whale blubber.”
Her nose wrinkled. “There’s no whale blubber here.”
Beau pointed towards a sealed jar that was covered by a thin layer of dust. The liquid inside of it was a sallow color, but the contents were still edible. Probably.
“Whoa, you hunted a whale?”
Beau’s lips formed a wry grin. “Who do I look like, Moby Dick?”
Astrid laughed. “Moby Dick was the whale, silly.”
“Bien sûr. I was only testing you.”
Erik shot Beau a look that promised pain if the beta male continued to flirt with his mate. Beau read the signal loud and clear. With a small bow, the beta male excused himself. Astrid waited a moment, craning her neck down the hallway to make sure that he was out of earshot. Then, she turned to Erik and folded her arms under her breasts.
“Why would you do that? Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to make friends around here? Everyone either hates me because they think I killed Sabine or they’re terrified of me because you’re always glaring at them over my shoulder.”
Erik raised his chin. “Beau is not interested in being your friend.”
“Oh, come on. He’s obviously gay.”
“He is still a male.”
Instead of getting angry, his mate ruffled his hair and smiled at him. Any inclination he’d had to argue with her vanished. This had been happening a lot lately, and he was starting to wonder if she was learning how to manage him. He decided he wouldn’t think about that. Ignorance was bliss.
Her hand had moved on to stroke the side of his face. “I’m going to take a nap, okay?”
“We still have more hunting to do,” he said.
There was another hour of daylight left, and with the food stores as low as they were, Erik couldn’t afford to waste it. Easily one of the pack’s best hunters, he knew that he was doing his wolves no favors by staying in the den, even if it meant that the various administrative tasks that Sten was usually responsible for fell by the wayside.
“I think we both know that you’re much better off out there without me,” she said, running a finger down his neck. Her blunt fingernails scraped across his jugular vein. “Please, go do something useful and don’t worry about me. Besides, absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Erik flicked her hand away from his neck, mostly because it was arousing him. “I don’t need to be fond of you.”
His mate frowned. “Wait, are you saying you’re not fond of me?”
Suppressing a grin, Erik guided her to the doorway. "Go. Take your nap. I’ll be back soon.”
Erik started down the tunnel, parting with his mate for the first time in two weeks. Leaving her turned out to be easy, and he was already looking forward to a long and bloody hunt. He only taken a few steps when he heard her call out to him.
“Oh, wait.”
He heard her boots clack against the stone floor and she ran over to him. She placed a hand on either of his shoulders and used the leverage to boost herself up. Her feet left the ground, and she was suspended in midair just long enough to press a quick kiss to his lips.
“Goodbye,” she said. “Be safe out there.”
She didn’t wait for Erik to respond, and he found himself standing in place watching as she headed down the tunnel, disappearing around a bend. He brought his fingers up to his lips where they hovered, not quite touching skin to skin.
His legs kicked into gear and he headed towards the main room. He still yearned for the thrill of a great hunt, but he now found himself wishing that he could be in two places at once.
With the exception of Beau, all of the other betas were already out hunting. Erik passed the main room and headed for the exit, intending on tracking their scents and meeting up with them. He scrapped this plan when he ran into Sylvestre on his way out.
Erik had not seen much of the younger male since they had returned. While he hadn’t sought Sylvestre out, he also hadn’t been avoiding him. Sylvestre had been channeling his grief over his sister’s death into the hunt, and had rarely been in the den.
“Sten told me everything,” Sylvestre said, forgoing greetings. “I know it wasn’t Astrid that killed my sister. And even if it had been, Astrid would have been justified.”
Erik hadn’t planned on bringing the subject up, but since Sylvestre had started it, he decided to ask the questions that had been on his mind for days.
“Did you know?”
Sylvestre didn’t appear offended. “No, course not.”
“Did you suspect it?”
“Did I suspect that she was going to try to kill your mate? No, I never thought she would do something so rash. But I did know that she cared about you. I just didn’t know how much.”
Outside the mouth of the cave, poor weather had already darkened the late afternoon sky. Snow fell in a benign flurry, but Erik had spent enough of his time on the tundra to sense when a bad storm was approaching.
“If she cared about me, she would not have tried to harm my mate.”
Sylvestre tugged at his ponytail. “You can’t blame her for being fucked up after what we went through.”
“You turned out well enough,” Erik pointed out.
“You probably would’ve said the same about my sister a few weeks ago,” Sylvestre said. “I’m starting to wonder if I’m not just going to snap and fuck everything up one day like she did… Like our father did.”
Erik’s lips twisted with displeasure at the mention of Sylvestre’s father, an alpha that it made Erik himself look like a benevolent and reasonable leader. Erik had done the world a favor when he’d removed the Sivuak alpha’s head from his shoulders.
“You are not like your father, any more than I am like mine.”
“But—”
“I have had enough talking for one day. Either come hunting with me, or point me in the direction of the nearest muskoxen herd.”
“The only muskoxen I’ve seen were at least two hours out,” he said, straightening his back. “Are you sure you want to be away from the den for that long?”
“The only thing I am sure of is that hunting lemmings is not an appropriate use of my talents. Let’s get going.”
***
The muskoxen had been much farther out then Sylvestre had predicted, but once Erik had caught their scent, he hadn’t stopped until he’d felled one. Sylvestre had taken one down as well, and then another, and then another, and then another.
Eventually, Erik had to intervene and rein in the young beta male before he decimated the herd. They had killed far more than they could carry, but fortunately they had run into several of the other betas on their way back. Erik had instructed Sylvestre to guide them to the dead muskoxen, whose bodies were likely to have been preserved by the snowstorm.
All told, it had been nearly a full day since he’d left the den and his mate. He had no reason to feel guilty. After all, he had been out providing for his pack, providing for her and their unborn pup. He hoped she would see it that way, because no matter how pissed off she was at him, he planned on fucking her senseless.
Erik was greeted by dozens of eager pack mates as he entered the main room. He drugged the juvenile muskoxen to the center of the room and set it down, giving the signal for his wolves to feed. He backed off allowing them to swarm the carcass. His eyes scanned the room for Astrid, but she was nowhere to be seen. Before concern could set in, he reminded himself that this was the time she tended to want to nap each day, and he was certain he’d find her in their room.
He shifted into h
is human form, not bothering to look for something to clothe himself with. After a day out on the tundra, his den felt sweltering by comparison. He stretched his long arms up over his head and cringed. Usually, he relished the unique range of motion provided by the human body. But after half a day of dragging dead weight through the snow, the muscles in his back had become uncomfortably knotted.
All of the tunnels wove into one another, so he took the one nearest to him, jabbing his thumb into the small of his back as he walked. Within moments, he knew he was being followed, but his pursuer made no effort to hide her light footsteps, and because of that he knew she wasn’t a threat. He tilted his head to the side, just enough so that he could catch Ila’s scent.
He stopped, allowing her to catch up. She was wearing the blue dress his mate had made for her, which Erik found appropriately ostentatious to the histrionic female. Everything else about her appeared off, but in ways that he suspected would not be readily identifiable to most.
Her makeup was poorly done. The dark solution that she always brushed her eyelashes with appeared to have been slathered on, and dry flecks clung to the flaky skin beneath her eyebrows. Her hair, which had always managed to remain perfectly coiffed even after a vigorous fucking, was slightly disheveled, and when she reached up to tuck a flyaway strand back into her bun, he saw that her nail polish was chipped and did not match the color of her earrings.
She was still an exceedingly beautiful female, and if anything, he thought that the imperfections made her look more attractive than usual. If he cared enough, he might have pointed this out to her.
“What do you want?” Erik asked. “Why aren’t you eating with the others?”
“I’m on a diet,” Ila said, her tone unusually serious. “When I saw you in the main room, I noticed that your back was giving you some trouble. I thought you might need a massage.”
This was unexpected. The whole reason he had stopped, was because he thought that Ila was going to tell him something about his mate. The two of them were often together, despite neither seeming to particularly care for one another.
He unconsciously flexed his back as he considered her offer. Ila was too eager to wait.
“Remember? I always used to massage your back after a hunt. I know all of the places that give you trouble. Let me fix them for you.”
He could use a massage. The part of his brain that advocated for his tired body argued that a massage was not sexual, or at least, it didn’t have to be. But he knew that even if Ila did keep her hands off his cock, his mate would not be pleased.
While Ila stared at him with expectant, hungry eyes, Erik’s line of thinking hit a wall. Astrid was his mate, and she was important to him, perhaps the most important thing to him, but that didn’t mean he had to be monogamous, did it? He imagined that she would think so, because for her, sex always had an emotional aspect to it.
Erik had known that even in the early days, when their relationship had been entirely physical, at least on the surface. After they’d fucked, she had always wanted him to hold her in his arms. Several times, he had caught her looking at his lips with mournful eyes, clearly wishing he would kiss her, and perhaps do all of the other things that human males did for their lovers.
He doubted his mate would understand that he had no such issues. While there had always been females he had preferred over others, Erik had always enjoyed having multiple partners. When he’d decided to take a mate, monogamy had been the farthest thing from his mind, but he had anticipated that for a certain length of time, he was unlikely to be interested in anyone but his human. Now, he had difficulty wrapping his mind around the concept of having only one female, forever.
“I could also give you a bath,” Ila said, picking at the polish on one of her fingernails. “Clean all of the places you can’t quite reach…”
“That won’t be necessary,” Erik said. He moved to walk past her, but she turned around to follow him, keeping pace at his side.
“Which one?”
“Both.”
Erik had to stop short as Ila stepped in front of him. She looked him directly in the eyes, but there was no challenge on her face, only apprehension.
“When you’re ready, you’ll come to me first, right? You’ll come to me before the other females?”
Erik didn’t say anything, he only stared down at the hand that she had pressed against his chest. She glanced down, and then quickly drew her hand back, as though his skin had burned her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, staring down at the floor. “You’ll never be ready… Will you?”
“I don’t know,” Erik said, as much to himself as to her.
She stepped back, and he could see tears welling up in her blue eyes. For once, her tears were not accompanied by theatrical whining, and he wondered if this was what it actually looked like when Ila cried.
“I liked being with you,” she said. “Not like Sabine did. Never like that. I just liked the way being with you made me feel. Everyone looked at me like I was someone important. I was someone important. I was your favorite. And now, I’m nobody’s favorite person. I’m nobody at all…”
Erik should have walked away right then and there. He sensed that he could get away and that she wouldn’t have followed him if he did. But he also felt a measure of obligation towards her, not only because she had saved his mate’s life, but also because he had been careless with her.
“Everyone begins as nobody,” he told her. “You are at a starting point. Stop wasting time looking back at who you were, and consider who you want to become.”
He left her in the tunnel, feeling more eager than ever to get to his mate. Now, however, he was hoping that she would want to sleep. He was disappointed when he didn’t find her nestled under the furs in his room, but after a short walk, Erik caught wind of her, and followed the scent trail back to her room.
Beau lay sentinel outside her doorway. The slender white wolf appeared to be asleep, but as soon as Erik approached, Beau’s ears perked up. Erik was torn between feeling possessive of his mate around the other male and being grateful to Beau for watching over her while he’d been gone. He settled on an apathetic middle ground, and dismissed Beau with a wave of his hand.
Erik stepped into the room, and there she was. His mate was curled up beneath several layers of furs, sleeping soundly. The clothes that she had made for their pup lay scattered at the foot of the bed, alongside a crumpled pile of her own clothes. As Erik approached he noticed that she had removed the buttons from all of the shirts she’d brought with her, and had sewn them on to all of the pup’s clothing.
He crouched down and picked up one of the small garments, frowning. Would their pup really be that tiny? Erik didn’t think so. She must have made them wrong.
Poorly made, and impractical as they were, Erik didn’t lay down until he had picked up each one and carefully folded it. After stacking them neatly on one side of the bed, he climbed under the furs with her, pulled her into his arms, and went to sleep.
***
Astrid woke to her whole body trembling. It startled her so much, that her mind hardly registered Erik’s presence beside her. She tried to remember what she’d been dreaming, but nothing really stuck out. It had been days since she’d had a nightmare, and usually with those she woke up screaming, not freezing.
“What is it?” Erik asked, taking hold of her shoulders.
She shrugged out of his grip and then pulled herself into his lap. She wrapped her arms around his torso, hoping to siphon some of his heat.
“It’s so c-cold in here,” she said. “Can we go somewhere with a f-fire?”
Erik pried her from his chest. His critical gaze swept over her. “Your skin is hot to the touch.”
As if suddenly realizing the implications of that, Erik’s eyes widened with alarm. “Tell me you didn’t go near that cesspool of disease?”
Astrid blinked at him. “Huh? You mean Torok? No, I haven’t been anywhere near him.”
“Then i
t was the other one,” Erik said, scowling. “Shila. You should not have let her touch you.” And then to himself, he muttered, “I should not have let her touch you.”
“It’s no big deal,” Astrid said, gaining some control over her teeth. “It’s only a cold. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been sick up here, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Here, pass me my bag and I’ll take some medicine.”
Erik dropped her bag down in front of her, and she began pawing through it, looking for something to help with the fever.
“I think I gave the last of my Tylenol to Shila,” she said as she dug through the side compartments. “I might have some ibuprofen in here. I don’t think that’s the best thing to take while your pregnant, but I imagine it’s better than running a fever. Anyway, when did you get back? I don’t even remember you coming to bed.”
When he didn’t respond, Astrid glanced up to find herself alone in the room.
“Geez, you could have at least said goodbye,” she muttered. “What I wouldn’t give for you to have a cell phone, or maybe one of those GPS tracking devices embedded in the back of your neck.”
Not finding anything useful, she dumped the contents of her bag out on the bed. No ibuprofen, just a half chewed roll of antacids and an empty box of Benadryl. Why hadn’t she thought to pack more medicine?
Because you had no idea how far from human civilization these packs really were, and you never thought even for a second that you’d be up here for more than a couple weeks.
As reasonable as that argument was, she wished that she would’ve left the makeup and the magazines at home and packed more practical things. Hindsight was 20/20, but there was also common sense.
Eric stormed back into the room, and to Astrid’s horror, he was dragging with him a terrified-looking Shila.
“I didn’t mean to get you sick,” Shila blurted. “I swear!”
Astrid rubbed her temple with two fingers. Her head was beginning to pound. “You didn’t get me sick. Eric, why did you bring her here?”
Eric was sneering at Shila. “She used all of your medicine on Torok, so now it will be her responsibility to ensure that you get better.”
Enslaved by the Alpha (Shifters of Nunavut Book 2) Page 30
