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Chapter
Twenty
Warol woke and stretched his muscles from where he lay piled with his family. All the ravenous heat had fled his system, leaving little behind except a deep, content hum of satisfaction. The corner of his mouth tilted up as he inhaled the soft bare skin beside his muzzle. His tongue stroked the scarred flesh just above her left breast. The shallow tear had been healed from his saliva within minutes of his claiming bite. Now the sight of it was an irresistible pull for him.
A sense of rightness settled into his body. He was finally mated. He never would have guessed that his life would have been bound in such a way to a human, and at one time he might have rebelled against the idea, but now he felt nothing but peace. Oh, he still didn’t like or trust humans as a whole, but he loved his Arie, and he had come to admire Emala. He could have strung the older female up and bitten off her feet at the ankles for making his female sad, but she had redeemed herself in his eyes with her kindness and generosity since then.
Any other human he preferred to keep his entire family far away from—especially in light of Emala’s story. He had nightmares for days of his beautiful, tender-hearted female being dragged away by huntsmen. The flat-faced males had seemed demonic, lit with savagery, their lips twisted into cruel smiles as their dark blue cloaks swirled around them like angry wings of a predatory bird.
Naturally, his anxiety had only grown worse with the aggression that he’d begun to feel toward the males he called his brothers, especially toward Rager. Thank the gods that it was finally over, and the insanity was now put well behind them.
The whole night was a blur to him, but the happiness and contentment that filled him were better than even the most detailed of erotic memories. In any case, he did remember some things. He remembered the sensation of every part of her body he touched when he surrendered to the mating pull. Love, need, pleasure, and hunger were heavily entwined with those few memories. Yet his last memory before falling asleep was his sweetest. Lying at her side, Warol had watched her chest and belly move with each sedate breath as she slept, her skin flushed red in many areas from the lingering evidence of her desire and their mating marks. He had marveled at her beauty then and had felt the first peace in more revolutions than he could count.
He still felt that even now as he gazed at his mate. Warol smiled privately to himself and stretched slowly. Yawning widely, he glanced down at Kyx curled up against his legs, his face buried against Arie’s hip where he’d placed his mark. One red leg kicked in the air for a second before it settled against the other leg once more. Warol grinned and carefully eased away so not to wake any of his family. Kyx made a blind effort to grab his leg as it slid out from underneath his head, but Warol shifted away with a silent chuff of amusement. The smaller male grumbled with irritation in response but tucked his own arm under his head and snuggled back in without waking. An upwelling of emotion filled Warol as he stood and looked at his family.
They were his.
Even their lead. One cue Rager grumbled from the other side of Arie where he was firmly wrapped around her, but Warol wasn’t fooled in the least. The male never slept that heavily. Nothing got by Rager. A quick glance was all it took to confirm that the male was no longer asleep but was now watching him intently. It was expected. As lead of their triad, Rager was always a light sleeper despite Warol’s best intentions. Both piercing right eyes were peering at him from around Arie’s mane, though the male’s gaze was still sleep-softened. Warol chuckled to himself as he moved away from their nest and growled happily at the looseness within his muscles. A good rutting had completely undone days’ worth of tension. In fact, he would happily bet the lead felt as good as he did at that moment. No doubt they had all missed the intimacy of being curled around their female.
“Come back to the nest and go back to sleep,” Rager muttered, his blue eyes sliding shut again.
Go back to sleep? Warol felt too good—too full of energy—to sleep. He grinned and scratched his left side contentedly.
“I am rested. I am going to go out and see if I can find some fat hares since the snow stopped falling last night.”
Rager sighed but relented, his eyes slipping closed once more as he muttered a groggy agreement.
With one last look at his family, Warol silently slipped out of the cave into the freezing air. The sun had risen hours ago, high in an endless blue sky. No wonder it was so damned cold, even with his thick, protective fur he felt like his sack was going to freeze and drop off his body at any moment. With an oath, he moved through the snow as quickly as possible so that his blood pumping through his body would soon warm him.
After some time, he slowed to a trot and then stilled as his nose caught the scent of prey. He’d expected that he would be able to sniff out a hare’s burrow and dig them free, but just ahead was an autumn-fattened buck eagerly stripping bark off a tree. It was as if the Dark Fathers had set down a fine gift in front of him to provide for his new family. Warol crept forward, keeping low to the snow and his movements slow so not to alert the animal to his presence too soon. He enjoyed a chase as much as any Ragoru, but an easy kill would mean food for his mate even sooner. He was nearly upon it when soft, dark ears turned toward him as the animal froze, its muscles tensing. Then, just that quick, it sprung away.
Warol plunged ahead after it, loping over the snow at full speed. He didn’t see the other Ragoru until they collided. Trotting forward and wobbling as he regained his balance, he turned and snarled at the intruder as the male, a silver of a lighter coloring, bared his teeth in response.
“That is my prey, brashu,” the male snarled, teeth snapping to punctuate his intent.
Warol bristled. He normally would avoid conflict with another triad, but to be called brashu—a male born outside the bonds of a triad and abandoned—was beyond what he’d suffer. He scanned the area with his peripheral eyes.
“Where is the rest of your triad, interloper?”
“This is not your territory,” the other silver stated. “The trees don’t carry your scent marking.”
“It is not,” Warol agreed. “But it is the territory of my triad’s family. We are here with their permission. That buck was my rightful prey to feed my mate and brothers. You need to leave.”
The other male’s eyes narrowed. “You have a mate, do you?” He licked his fangs and grinned in a way that made Warol’s fur bristle with aggression. “It is tiring business being a lone Ragoru. Perhaps they will welcome another if you… tragically disappear.”
It wasn’t unheard of for rogue males who could not form their own triads to assassinate and attempt to replace a rival within their grieving family. A mated family was usually the sole target of such attacks, as the other males would be more likely to accept a strange male to console their female.
Warol fought the impulse to laugh. His triad was the wrong one to attempt that with. Rager would be more likely to take one look at the male and tear him from snout to rectum.
“That won’t be happening. If you are lucky, however, you might be allowed to limp out of here alive.”
The silver’s smile fell, and his eyes narrowed in offense. He didn’t lead in with any telling move to telegraph his intent. The male simply roared and blindly charged at him in his fury, but Warol was ready. His adrenaline running high, he darted out of the path of the other male and rounded on him, slashing down on the male’s haunches. The back was a difficult spot to hit with so many vulnerable spots covered by bony plating along their spines, the sharp protruding edges of which were hazardous to collide with. As he’d anticipated, the other male spun around, giving Warol the opening to slash all four sets of his claws over the exposed abdomen. But the attack left him equally vulnerable. His adversary’s claws missed but he caught a hard forearm across his gut, momentarily knocking the air out of him.
Warol stumbled back, his eyes wandering as he attempted to pull deep breaths of air into his burning lungs. He could see the silver’s head moving towards his throat, the only part of his neck that was unprotected. Instinctively, Warol brought all four of his elbows up just in time to strike a blow against the other male’s hard skull, knocking him to the ground. It wasn’t enough to kill the male as the bony plating continued under the skin over the cranium, but he knew it would make his ears ring painfully and make him dizzy.
Using the opportunity to put distance between them, Warol studied his opponent as they circled each other, each looking for an opening. Ropes of saliva dripped from the other male’s fangs and Warol half-suspected the male to be mad. There was a reason Ragoru mated in triads, beyond the reproductive driven necessities. Ragoru were not meant to be solitary creatures. A lone Ragoru slowly went mad. That was the curse for any male who was unable to be bonded amid brothers.
A triad cared for each other’s wellbeing until they were able to lure a mate. Baleful pale-yellow eyes rolled madly in the silver’s head as if he couldn’t manage to keep his eyes still. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t make him an easy kill. If anything, the lone ones were more aggressive, unpredictable, and violent. They made formidable opponents. It usually took an entire triad to safely eliminate one.
