Had he set Valen up? There was only one way to find out.
Valen came out of the forest at a full run.
“Valen!” Aaron shouted excitedly, a broad smile lighting up his face.
That didn’t seem to be the expression of a man seeking to deceive him, Valen mused. Even so, he bared his teeth and Aaron looked stricken.
“What did I—? Oh. You didn’t want to see me again. I’ll… I’ll go.” Aaron started to turn away, his cane smacking the ground.
Valen lunged for his cane and caught part of the handle in his mouth. He didn’t bite, but he did hold on, backing up and encouraging Aaron to come with him.
Aaron’s expression went from hurt and disappointed to expressing the beginnings of happiness again. “You didn’t leave.”
“Aaron! Stop!”
Aaron peered over his shoulder. “Father? Mother? What are you—?”
Valen let go of Aaron’s cane and instead clamped his teeth over the wrinkled fold in the front of his pants.
Come on come on. Come. On!
“It’s just my parents, Valen. They won’t do anything to you,” Aaron said.
Barks and growls told Valen that Rivvie hadn’t obeyed and was coming out from the forest.
“Rivvie!” Aaron waved.
“Aaron, come back here!”
Valen recognized the man. Walter, he’d been called the other night. And Walter was Aaron’s father.
Rivvie darted past Aaron and Valen. Valen barked an order at Rivvie to not attack.
If, by any chance, Valen was going to meet Aaron’s parents, he needed to be able to talk to them.
“He’s not going to hurt them, is he? My parents, I mean.” Aaron asked, sinking one hand into the thick fur at Valen’s nape.
Valen licked Aaron’s leg then started to shift. He pressed his head against Aaron’s thigh and panted through his change before standing up.
“That’s amazing, you know,” Aaron murmured, his eyes huge.
Valen surprised them both then. Judging by Aaron’s gasp, he hadn’t been expecting a kiss. Valen cupped his chin then slanted his mouth over Aaron’s. He pushed his tongue past those plump, parted lips and wrapped his other arm around Aaron.
Aaron’s thin body felt so, so perfect against him. Valen decided in that moment, he wasn’t letting the man go. Not unless Aaron was completely averse to being with him. Only time would tell if they were to be a mated pair—wolf shifters mated for life. Once they committed to a partner or partners, that was it, they were all in. He thought Aaron might be it for him and wanted the chance to see if he was right.
“Aaron!”
Aaron jolted and appeared to be dazed as he turned his head aside. He gulped and licked his lips.
Valen wanted to fuck him there on the spot. He wouldn’t, what with Aaron’s parents hollering at him.
Rivvie was bouncing in front of them, barking. His ears were laid flat against his head and his tail wasn’t wagging.
“Valen? Is he going to bite them?” Aaron asked worriedly.
“He’d better not.” Valen took Aaron’s cane and kept his arm around Aaron to steady him. “Why are your parents here?”
“I don’t know. I guess because Matthew said there were shifters out here and I took off with the cane as soon as I could?” Aaron postulated. “Things are strange in the village. My father sat down and had a long talk with me right before we heard you were out here.”
“Weird how?” Valen thought of the scents he’d discovered. He sniffed, and again there was the barest hint of smoke. The wind was coming from the east. Varex’s pack lay in that direction. Valen frowned and glanced east. “Do you see smoke in the distance?”
Aaron put a hand to his brow. “No. Can you see better than I can?”
“Yes.” And Valen thought there was a cloud of smoke amongst the white and gray rainclouds. “Are your parents armed with weapons?”
“Knives, probably.” Aaron lowered his hand. “Mother, Father, please lay your weapons down.”
“Listen to him, Walter,” Anita said. “I don’t think our son is in danger.”
“Are we?” Walter asked.
Rivvie stopped barking and sat down. His ears remained flattened in warning.
“You aren’t in any danger unless you’ve come to harm us,” Valen said to them. “Or to take Aaron from me.”
Walter opened his mouth only to yelp when Anita elbowed him hard enough to make him stumble.
“Any decision Aaron makes is his own,” Anita replied. “We will honor that. Now, please, we would like to speak to you and… And please don’t take our son. Not without giving us a chance to talk.”
Valen nodded. He wasn’t afraid of Aaron’s parents.
“You want to keep me?” Aaron whispered, his expression unreadable. “Take me away from my family and village?”
Valen wasn’t certain that saying yes would make Aaron happy. “I want to see if you and I fit. If we…”
Aaron was bobbing his head so rapidly he was going to make himself dizzy. His blond hair flew out behind him like a million thin whips being cracked. “Will you come back to the village with us first? Where are we going to go? What are we going to do?”
“Er. I haven’t gotten that far yet. I just didn’t want to leave you,” Valen admitted. “And while I was sniffing around today, I found something I think your father needs to know about. He’s the leader of the village, the alpha, so to speak?”
Aaron giggled, his eyes lit up with joy. “Yes, that’s him.” Then he sobered. “What did you find?”
Valen looked east again. “Something I fear means bad news.”
Rivvie whined, his nose twitching.
“You smell it too, Riv?” Valen asked.
“Smell what?” Walter looked at him fearfully.
Valen hoped he was wrong. “Fire. Smoke.” Death. The wolf in him was afraid of fire. Most wild animals were.
Rivvie picked up the knives and trotted over with them. He dropped them at Valen’s feet, then shifted.
“My gods,” Walter muttered while Anita cursed.
“Mother!” Aaron looked scandalized. “You cursed.”
“It happens,” she said drolly. “Especially when a wolf turns into a rather stunning naked man.”
“Anita.” Walter almost sounded like a wolf, growling as he spoke.
Anita waved him off. “It’s merely the truth. I’m sure if he’d have turned into an attractive woman you’d have had to put your tongue back in your mouth. Besides, I didn’t get to see Valen shift. I was busy trying not to pass out. You’re a scary thing as a wolf,” she said to Rivvie.
“Thanks.” Rivvie frowned, his brow wrinkling. “Val, that really does look like it’s coming from home.”
“From your home?” Aaron twisted around to look east. “I can’t see anything except the usual mountains and forest.”
Valen was torn. He had Aaron in his arms, and a chance to see if they could have a relationship. The rules were clear when it came to the pack—he’d been kicked out in order to find his own place in the world. He wouldn’t be welcome back, possibly ever. Certainly not before he’d established a pack and committed to his mate.
“I can go,” Rivvie offered. “Please, let me. Father and I didn’t part on the best of terms. If… If something’s happened…”
Valen knew a storm could beget a wildfire. He hadn’t seen or smelled a hint of one. Whatever had happened, he didn’t think it was an act of nature. “Rivvie, not alone.”
“But—” Rivvie began.
Valen narrowed his eyes. “No. It’s both of us or neither.”
Rivvie looked from him to Aaron. “You just reunited. He could be your—”
“I am aware.” If Aaron agreed, and he and Valen formed an emotional attachment to one another, then yes, Valen would ask for his hand.
Rivvie bit his lip. He turned away and stared at the ground.
“You could go with him,” Aaron said quietly. “I’ll wait for you.”
“It isn’t as simple as that.” Valen wished it was. “I am not allowed back on my father’s property. As an alpha, it is too dangerous for him, and for me. Our wolves are very…competitive, and even though I have control of my wolf most of the time, there are boundaries I can’t cross with him. Putting me in shifted form with another alpha, even my father, sets both him and me into a purely animal state.”
“You’d fight,” Aaron surmised correctly.
“To the death, almost certainly.” Valen knew where his loyalties had to be, and he knew where his heart lay. “I want to meet your parents. Rivvie.”
Rivvie finally looked at him again. “Yeah?”
“We’ll go after I speak to them.” It went against what he’d been taught, which was to put his own pack first. Maybe he was doing that, though. Valen just didn’t know.
“I want to come with you. I can ride one of the horses.” Aaron jutted his chin out stubbornly. “I’m going if you do.”
Valen realized in that moment that he’d just increased the number of his pack by one. “Really? Even if I tell you to stay here and wait for me? After you just said you’d wait for me?”
Aaron twirled one hand in front of them. “That was before the whole fighting to the death thing.”
Walter and Anita approached cautiously. “Son, your mother and I couldn’t help but overhear and I think it’d be better for you to remain here. Your knee isn’t healed from the fall yesterday. The cut could open and get infected.”
Valen clasped his other hand over Aaron’s hip. “You hurt your knee again?”
“I fell getting out of bed yesterday,” Aaron explained. “I haven’t been sleeping well and I was groggy. When I went down, I cut my knee. It isn’t going to stop me from going with you.”
“This is what happens when you have a talk with him,” Anita accused. She reached for Aaron, touching his forearm. “Let’s sit down and talk.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to be possible,” Valen said, looking toward the village. “There’s a small army headed this way.”
“A small—” Walter turned around and groaned. “I told Matthew to stay in the village!”
“Apparently our sons are full of rebelliousness today,” Anita observed.
“This could get ugly fast,” Rivvie said with more of a grin than not.
The sound of hooves striking the ground grew louder. Valen counted almost twenty riders. “Did you plan this?” he asked Walter bluntly.
Walter’s face darkened. “No, I did not plan this. I was too busy following Aaron and making sure he wasn’t harmed.” He turned and made several hand gestures that Valen guessed were meaningful to the guards or whatever they were that had been coming their way.
“Halt,” the lead rider called out. “Walter, are you sure—?”
Walter took a step toward him. “Matthew, I told you to stay in the village. You have directly disobeyed me.”
“As did Aaron last week, and nothing was done to him.”
“I don’t think I care for this Matthew,” Valen said loudly.
Aaron snorted. “He’s my oldest brother, and he’s bossy, but he’s generally not a bad person.”
“Generally?” Matthew called back. “Aaron, I’m not the one who’s standing there with a a shifter wrapped around me!”
Valen slowly unwound his arm from where he had it around Aaron’s hips. “Rivvie, make sure Aaron doesn’t fall or otherwise get hurt.”
“Got it.” Rivvie stepped to Aaron’s other side.
Walter held up his hands, palms up, one toward Matthew, the other facing Valen. “Hold up. There will be no fighting. Matthew, I have no reason to punish Aaron when it was my lack of observation that led him to leave. He and I have discussed what occurred, and our resolution is no one else’s business. You, however, have no reason to disobey me.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “Yes, I do. You’re my father, whether I have to call you Walter or not. I don’t want you harmed, and I saw the shifters.”
“You see me now, too,” Valen ground out as he strode around Walter toward Matthew. “You think you can take me on, go for it.”
“You will not harm any of my children,” Anita snapped, running up to Valen and grabbing his ear.
“Hey!” Valen winced, torn between slapping her hand aside and not offending Aaron or his parents.
Anita let go of him. “Sorry. I can’t let you fight Matthew. You’re at least a foot taller and a good seventy pounds heavier than him.”
Valen smiled toothily at her. “And I’m a predator.”
“There is that,” she agreed. “Matthew’s heart was in the right place.”
“Just his foot was in his mouth,” Walter added. “Matthew, go home. No one here is in any danger.”
Except Matthew. Valen wasn’t going to point that out.
“He was touching Aaron like…like…” Matthew expelled a breath that sent his bangs fluttering. “Like they’re lovers!”
Walter cleared his throat.
Anita propped a hand on her left hip. “That’s because they are, or will be.”
Aaron groaned and whimpered at the same time. “I haven’t even— I don’t understand. I thought I would be in trouble for being different and I’m not. You came back, Valen, but you aren’t staying. Humans and shifters are interacting.”
Valen glared at Matthew, though he intended his words to be for Aaron. “Things change, honey. Maybe it’s not necessary for humans and shifters to remain separate. Are you going to attack me because I’m different, Matthew? Do I seem less of a human in this moment? Less deserving of life or respect? Is there a reason it’s wrong for me to be with your brother?”
Matthew opened and closed his mouth several times. “That’s not how it’s done,” he finally came out with. “He hasn’t reproduced with anyone and he can’t do that with you! Uh, can he?”
Valen ignored Rivvie’s snickering behind him. “Nope. You and I and every man I know of have the same junk when it comes to reproductive parts.”
“And I’m going to call a meeting to discuss changes in the village rules,” Walter said as he walked to stand by Valen. “I’ve gone along with the way things were just because it was easier and familiar to everyone here. That doesn’t mean it’s the right way, not when there are some who will be harmed by those rules.”
“I don’t understand,” Matthew said. “But I’ll listen.”
“That’s all that I ask for now.” Walter nodded to Valen. “This is Valen. Valen, meet Matthew, my oldest, as I believe I’ve said.”
Valen took Matthew’s proffered hand, noting that it was shaking. He still had a good grip. They shook briefly. “My brother Rivvie.” Valen gestured to him. Niceties aside, Valen asked Walter, “Have you seen anyone else around here?”
Walter pursed his lips before answering, “No, there’s no other village nearby. It’s a good week’s ride by horse to the closest one.”
Valen pointed to the east, then the west, followed by the north. “I found multiple scents about two miles away from here, almost all the way around the village. The reason I don’t believe it’s from any of your people is because none of the scents ever came any closer. I couldn’t find a point of origin, but they did disappear at the stream. I suspect they traveled up it.” Or down it, to Varex’s land.
“How many?” Walter asked.
“A lot, over twenty-five. It was hard to get an accurate number because they aren’t fresh. The latest I found was probably left a few days ago, which were the ones by the stream.” Valen rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know if there’s a lot of fighting between humans anymore.”
Walter appeared to be concerned, with deep lines bracketing his mouth as he frowned. “There can be. What about for shifters?”
Valen had only smelled humans. “Not that I know of, and all the scents I found were Human, or at least, not shifters, that’s for certain. I couldn’t smell another wolf amongst them, and I would be able to. No horses, either. They’re
on foot, or possibly canoes, I suppose.”
With Matthew hovering, Valen felt a little like he was being ganged up on. There was no reason for him to feel that way at all now, except that it was clear to him that Aaron loved his parents, and their opinion would matter to him.
To that end, standing butt naked around them probably wasn’t going to impress them. Unless it was Rivvie near Anita.
“I want to go with them,” Aaron said stubbornly. “We’ll come back, won’t we, Valen?”
“If anyone should go with them, it should be me,” Matthew protested.
“No,” Valen told him firmly. As to Aaron, what was the right answer? Valen only had to look into Aaron’s blue eyes to know. “Yes, we will.” He strode over to nudge Rivvie from Aaron’s side. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.” Then he looked at Walter and Anita. “You have my word.”
Matthew showed impressive restraint by not arguing. He didn’t appear to be happy about it, though—his lips, plump like Aaron’s, were thinned down in displeasure.
“We aren’t going far anyway,” Rivvie added. “Less than a day’s run as wolves, and we can go slower if necessary. It’s not the distance to our father’s pack lands that takes a while. It’s the fact that he has so many miles of property we have to cross before we reach the pack homestead.”
Walter put an arm around Anita’s shoulders. “I would offer to send more of our riders with you if I thought you’d accept. You already know Matthew is more than willing to accompany you.”
“You may need them here. I can’t explain it, but something is off about the humans lurking around here.” Valen couldn’t say what it was at all, except that it gave him a chill inside when he thought of them. “There is no reason for them to have been spying on your village, which is what I suspect they were doing. Keep alert, and armed.”
“Come back to the village before you leave. I need to pack Aaron a few things.” Matthew shrugged when everyone looked at him. “What? He’ll need food and a canteen.”
Valen didn’t care to go to the village. He imagined people hiding behind doors and peering out behind curtains, gawping fearfully at the big, bad shifter. “We’ll wait here for you.”
Run with the Moon Page 9
