Ruth managed to turn her head to him and pressed her lips to his arm, a corner of her mouth lifting as she looked at him through half-lidded eyes. She looked like she felt the same way he did, as if all the energy had left his body with that last release, and like she was perfectly content to stay where she was, tangled with him on the platform he had built for them. He watched her for a moment as she fell asleep before his eyes, then followed her into exhaustion.
Chapter 19
They woke in much the same position as they had fallen asleep, though at some point in the night Gron had tucked Ruth closer. He was content to lie and let Ruth stroke his pelt appreciatively after the night they had shared. He had earned back his place, and possibly more. His Queen was happy, they had a home of their own from which they could start their life together. He forced himself not to think about other males or what his possessiveness meant for Ruth’s safety. This was what he wanted, this quiet time alone with her. He wouldn’t ruin his good mood by thinking about things that upset him.
Eventually Ruth peeled herself out of his arms and collected the coverings she had taken off the night before, but she didn’t put them back on. Instead, she showed her teeth to him, and mimed washing herself. Gron rolled to his feet, convinced to start his day now that his Queen was waiting for him. He approached Ruth and scooped her up in his arms, one arm supporting her back, the other supporting her legs. She looked shocked for a moment, but then settled as he walked, and wrapped her arms around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder.
The platform was low enough that he didn’t need his arms to get down. He could make the jump holding Ruth in front of him, which he did easily. He didn’t put her down immediately, enjoying holding her like this. She wasn’t like other Queens, they would never allow this, but Ruth seemed pleased. He would have to do it more often. Maybe he would put off fashioning a way for her to climb up and down to the platform for a few more days. His Ruth was special, and he nuzzled her face to let her know he was thinking it.
He led her back through the forest to the pond she had bathed in before. He could get to it without going through the village, for which he was glad as he understood now that he and Ruth were happiest by themselves, without his family or his alpha getting involved. At the same time, he knew the proximity of his old tribe made the pond safe. He hadn’t explored the land around their new platform enough to risk Ruth bathing there yet.
She slipped into the water with only a little hesitance, then turned to look for him, gesturing for him to follow. He sighed internally. He didn’t understand her need for him to get his pelt wet all the time. He didn’t understand why she went in the water, given that it was cold and her skin was unprotected. But he went to her anyway. Maybe she’d be satisfied with just his company this time.
He waded into the water to his knees, carefully keeping his tail dry, and she showed her teeth again and began to wash herself. She had soaked one of the smaller pieces of fabric and was now using it on herself, and Gron was torn between watching her and keeping an eye on the trees. He had to be vigilant now that the Eater had been spotted nearby, and he was well aware that it had been days since he had last seen Kranu, and he had never known his older brother to give up on something he wanted.
Eventually Ruth finished with herself and began washing him, making it harder for him to maintain his vigil. She wiped his skin and pelt with the wet fabric, rinsing off the dirt and sweat from the night before, starting at his legs and working her way up, at one point pulling him further into the water so that he stood in it waist-deep. When she moved to his back she found his tail pressed stiffly to him out of the water, and gently manipulated it down with her small soft hands until he was almost warm again, then tenderly ran the damp fabric over it. His pelt was thick enough that he didn’t really feel the wetness of it, but he still took it back when she was done and warmed it between his hands just in case.
Ruth continued easing her cloth over him while he did his best to endure it. Ruth spoke to him every now and then, which he enjoyed. It was when she was quiet that he had to worry. Eventually she was done and he followed her out of the water with an eagerness that made her make that bubbling happy sound. She picked up the larger covering and wiped over his pelt with it, her voice amused, before she used it on herself to dry her skin and finally wrapped it around her body to hide her breasts and hips.
Keeping a wet cloth that close to her skin would make her cold, Gron thought, wondering at her motives. She looked at him expectantly, as if to ask “What now?”. He supposed he should take her back to the tribal village, to get what little they had to take to the new platform. He pushed away his reluctance. They would go quickly, and that would be that. Then they could leave and begin their lives together properly. He would not allow himself to be way-laid by his family.
Gron told himself there was no need to be apprehensive, but still he couldn’t help but be afraid of all the things that could happen. He had only just recovered his position the night before, and while surely Ruth wouldn’t take it away again so soon, he knew he couldn’t control where she looked or what she wanted. He wanted to be alone with her. He didn’t want her to look at other males and shop for more mates. He knew it was wrong but he had given up doing good since it only seemed to make things worse and hurt her.
Steeling himself, fighting against the sadness and insecurity that had plagued him since he had returned to his tribe, Gron took Ruth’s hand and led her through the trees. If she took another male, that was her decision. He just wouldn’t leave her side, and tell any male that approached her whatever he had to to make them go away again.
They had just entered the clearing when Gron felt that something was wrong. He slowed his footsteps and looked about him, paranoia rolling inside him. His eyes fell on his family, Kranu talking to his parents, and he realised what it was. No one was working, they were all simply standing about in small groups. There were no calls or talking voices, just whispers as quiet as the breeze, and they gradually stopped as he and Ruth crossed amongst the tribe.
His family saw him and their expressions made him afraid. His parents looked... mournful, like something awful had already happened. He immediately began looking for Mruin, but he found his younger brother leaning dejectedly against a tree a short distance from the rest of his family, as if he had been exiled from the conversation. Mruin was fine, so what could have happened? Perhaps they had received news of his sister, and her new tribe, but then why would the whole village care? Maybe someone else had been lost. Maybe the Eater had returned.
But the way his parents were looking directly at him, focused as if he was the cause of their pain...
Disappointed.
Then Kranu turned and Gron saw that he did not look sad, or hurt. His face was carefully sheltered, harmless and bland, as it always had been when they were growing up and he was doing his worst work, and Gron knew Kranu had said something about him. He had not given up on his campaign against Gron and Ruth. Gron stopped moving and growled, his lip curling back to show his long teeth. He felt Ruth come up close behind him, and tucked her behind his back.
“Gron!” It was his mother who spoke first, her commanding tone breaking his growl.
He shifted his focus to her. “What has he done?” he snarled, his voice deeper and rougher than he had ever heard it.
“What have you done, son?” Gryla replied.
Gron’s tail flicked uncertainly as he reflexively considered his recent actions, but he found nothing that they could object to, nothing that deserved this reaction.
“Nothing,” he told them, his voice sure, but he still grew nervous as Grasta moved closer at his flank. He didn’t like having her there, able to attack him from the side. He knew she could force him to submit through brute strength.
Kranu growled, stepping forward. “No, I told them what I saw,” he said.
Gron focused on his brother again, and the full dizzying weight of his hatred and rage settled back on his shoulders, dr
agging his head down into a crouch, ready to fight and taste blood. “What you saw? What did you see?” he demanded.
Kranu drew himself up into his usual haughty sneer. “I saw you mount her,” he said with disgust.
The knowledge that his brother had again been watching him and, more importantly, Ruth as they came together as mates in what they thought was a private moment made Gron insane. He snarled viciously, the sound making the unBonded males around him flinch away in submission, and he rushed for Kranu, tearing himself from Ruth’s clinging hands in the process and making her gasp, though he did not hear it.
“You dare-?!”
The Queens moved to intercept him before he reached Kranu to tear him apart, but he had just enough sense left to rein in his charge.
“Look at him! See how violent he is!” Kranu accused, looking for support from the others around him. “Bonding to the strange Queen has made him insane!”
“Insane? The insane one here is you, Kranu! Following me with her, watching us... if I am insane it is only from being raised next to you, and your hate, and your jealousy. You are a cruel, cowardly, desperate, pathetic-”
Kranu snarled and lunged for Gron, the Queens not ready to stop him as they had been watching Gron, thinking him unstable, while Kranu had been calmly talking to them moments before. Gron met Kranu’s charge gladly, their bodies slamming together as they fought for purchase in the soft leaves at their feet and in the fur and sweat-slicked skin of their opponent. Their teeth reached and cracked and snapped as they fought with a fury that was worse than any of their childhood brawls no matter how coloured by hate they had been.
This was different, this was not merely the inevitable explosion of frustration and hate that had always been between them. This was primal, a savage battle for victory over a rival. Gron wanted to end all the hate of his brother and all his endless interfering. His jealousy had hurt Ruth and put them both in danger. Gron couldn’t live the rest of his life with Kranu constantly sniping over his shoulder. Even so, he wasn’t thinking about killing his brother. His jaws sought his shoulder, not his throat. But he wasn’t trying to avoid killing him either. Whatever skin he caught between his teeth, he would tear.
As they grappled, snarling and roaring, heedless of the tribesmen around them and the spectacle they created, Gron was aware that his brother was meeting him with more determination than he ever had. Kranu had always been confident in his victories as the older and larger of them, and had always played with Gron, to make him feel small and weak, as if the fight was easy. He never let it be seen how he really felt, though Gron knew. Now however, Kranu’s pure crystallised jealousy glittered in his eyes as his face dove and snapped before Gron’s, contorted by hate.
It was a testament to how much being with Ruth had changed Gron that he didn’t go down under the onslaught of Kranu’s furious weight. He was not winning the fight, but he had blood on his hands and fur in his teeth and he was not beaten yet. Kranu’s blows buckled his body but he did not break.
Males grew stronger after they Bonded. They fought for a cause, and they did not like to lose. They had their Queens to protect. UnBonded males preferred to surrender than to fight, they got scared and did not see the point in being hurt. They were not brave like Bonded males. Kranu had always been different as far as that was concerned. He wanted to fight. He wanted to assert his dominance though no one challenged him. He had a need for it, and Gron had always given up and sated that need rather than risk serious injury to defeat the incurable, bottomless dissatisfaction within his brother.
But not now. He would not submit in front of Ruth. If Kranu knocked him down, he would fight him on the ground. He would pierce his brother’s skin, feel his hand break between his teeth, rip his tail off for being so despicable. Kranu wanted Ruth, but Gron would never let him past.
They tore and kicked and beat and whipped each other, seeking to deliver crippling damage while always having to dodge their opponents fatal tusks in a frenzied snarling flurry of fur and fangs. They could hear the shouts of others around them, Gryla ordering them to stop while Grasta told her to let them fight it out.
Gron could hear Ruth screaming, then something hit Kranu. Gron used his surprised flinch to temporarily gain the upper hand before Kranu recovered, before something hit him again. Gron saw a watershell roll away from them out of the corner of his eye but he couldn’t let himself be distracted. Kranu may not have been trying to kill him before, but he wanted a decisive victory now that Gron was actually putting up a fight.
Gron only realised that Ruth’s screaming was perilously close a flash before Kranu jerked again from being hit in the back. Gron tried to separate himself from his brother to make sure Ruth was not injured accidentally from coming too close, but Kranu’s hands were in his pelt and his feet were positioned to trip him if he tried to move. Gron had no choice but to lean into the hold and seize Kranu’s arms to prevent him from accidentally striking Ruth.
Another scream and another flinch, and both brothers paused long enough to look over Kranu’s shoulder, where Ruth stood with a long branch the width of her arm held in both hands, and she was livid. She beat Kranu with the branch by turning her whole body into the swing, clearly intending to hurt him, not just distract him.
Gron heard his name among her snarls and shouts, punctuated by awkward points of her finger that she tried to make without letting go of the branch. She hit him everywhere she could reach. Kranu let go of Gron and stumbled away from him, an arm out to block the branch as she continued to swing at him, driving him back until she could stand between him and Gron. She held the branch out in front of her and cast a glance over her shoulder at him, her eyes skating over his injuries.
She turned back around and used her branch to slowly point around the circled tribe, most of whom cowered from her, some of whom stared at her in surprise. Gron didn’t have to understand her words to know she was issuing orders and threats, which she illustrated by brutally smashing the branch against the ground, hard enough to puncture divots in the earth, after which she pointed it at Kranu for a long moment, looking at him with her eyebrows raised in silence.
It was probably the smartest thing Kranu had ever done, Gron thought, that he didn’t challenge her in that moment. Instead, he dropped his gaze and stepped back.
Ruth turned back to Gron and approached him almost gingerly. She held out her hand as if she wanted to touch him but was afraid of his wounds. Her expression was anguished as she looked over the bruising that was forming and his bleeding, torn flesh. He rumbled to reassure her and took her hand. He didn’t hurt that much. Her expression hardened and she jerked her head down in a decisive motion before quickly pulling him away in the direction of the tree his platform was in, keeping the branch in her other hand.
At the foot of the tree she pushed him towards it, moving her head again when he motioned that he would carry her. She put her fingertips next to a cut on his back briefly, then gave him another push. She turned away and raised her branch, placing her feet apart. Guessing that she intended to guard him, Gron was as quick as he could be scaling the tree. He was beginning to feel his wounds now.
He grabbed her bag. There was nothing else that they needed. All the baskets and tools could be replace or remade, but he had never seen anything like the things Ruth kept in the bag, so he quickly brought that down to the forest floor where she took it off him and slung it on her back. Then she took his hand and marched back the way they had come. Despite the tension in her body, the anger and worry and determination in her face, her touch on his hand was light and gentle, as if she was still worried about hurting him.
As they passed through the village again, no one seemed to have moved. Ruth stiffened but kept walking, her head sweeping from side to side as she simultaneously watched for threats and glared them into submission.
Grasta called out to him. “Gron! You must find your own territory now. Do not come back here. Take your Queen and go.”
He understo
od. Queens could not live together, especially not Queens of mating, breeding age. Grasta had allowed Gryla to stay because she had stepped down peacefully and at the time, Gryla’s court had been the majority of the tribe and to exile them would have left Grasta with nothing worth the fight. Gryla was aging out of her prime and had children young enough to need a tribe to raise them. Grasta was aging into her prime and needed guidance from someone experienced. It had worked well enough at the time.
But Ruth could not stay. She was stirring up the males and causing dissention and division, through no fault of her own. Even if she did not Bond any more of Grasta’s tribe, she might breed children of her own, perhaps a daughter who would challenge Grasta. The alpha couldn’t allow that to happen under her nose, in the midst of her tribe, without looking weak.
Now Gron and Kranu had fought so viciously and so publicly because of Ruth, Grasta had to take action. Sending Ruth to her own territory was kind. It was the natural way, what should have happened eventually anyway, but an exile was enough to keep Grasta’s pride intact.
Gron spared Grasta a grateful look. “I understand. Thank you,” he said.
Then Grasta turned from him. “Kranu! You are hereby exiled!”
“What?” his brother snarled. A chill went over Gron. To exile an unBonded male... His people needed a tribe. To be alone was to be desperate. In Kranu’s case however, Gron couldn’t imagine him staying. Not now. He was too angry, too greedy. Surely it was only a matter of time before he left the tribe to seek another, a Queen to Bond to.
“You fought in front of me over another Queen, what did you think would happen?” Grasta demanded, keeping a surprisingly level tone. Gron would have expected her to beat a male who had flaunted his disloyalty in such a way, but perhaps Grasta thought he had been punished enough.
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