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Ava looks up at me. “You’re at war with your father?”
Her expression implies that there’s no way she can understand a world where a father would wage war against his sons. Leonidas’ aggression is the cement that bonds our fraternity. We are all so very different, and left to our own devices, would probably wage war against one another.
“It sounds as though we are now.”
“Why?”
Her question holds an innocence that is almost painful to behold.
“He wants to unite the prides. He wants to become a king. But that is not how we live our lives.”
“He wants to fuck every female on the planet, you mean,” Kain says. “We need to go. Now. The armies won’t stand without you. They’ll submit to him. They need their alpha.”
He is right.
“We have to go. Ava, pack your belongings.”
“I have to bring Buttface. I won’t leave him here alone.”
“Bring what you need.”
6
Ava
I’ve never locked the door of my house in my entire life, but for some reason I feel compelled to today. The sun has risen and there’s a melancholy to the wasted broken crops, ruined fences, and astral skies visible at the verge of the sun’s halo. I have a very strange feeling in my belly. It’s not sadness. It’s just the deep sensation that I have suddenly and unexpectedly come to an end of an era.
Buttface is yowling through the wicker basket I have put him in. My grandmother used to pack this full of food, and we used to go down to the river that runs through the forest. She never planned on me going on a picnic like this, but I like having it with me. It’s a part of her. I never had to worry about having parts of her with me before, because she is buried with the rest of my family in the cemetery behind the house.
“Azlan?”
“Yes, Ava?”
“Tell me I’m going to come back here one day.”
His expression softens from the serious mask it has been since Kain told him that war had come to his world.
“I’m going to bring you back here, Ava. My intention was never to abduct you against your will. There may even come a time where it makes sense for you to take refuge here, perhaps with our child.”
“Because of the murderous males?”
“Yes.”
This is all getting very complicated very quickly, and much more dangerous than I had first imagined. I bought Azlan to deal with a Growler infestation, and now I am being swept off to a war by that very same warrior. Should I be surprised? Maybe not. This is how the universe works. You don’t always get what you want, and when you get what you want, you get far too much of it.
I could tell him no. I could stay here. I could keep living my life the way I have been living it. I doubt he would insist on taking me. I’m surprised to find that I want to go.
“I just need to say goodbye to everyone,” I tell him.
He looks briefly puzzled. “Oh. Yes. I see. Yes. Go ahead.”
I go back around the house and find myself flooded with memories. This is where the family graves are. There are dozens of them, each of them my flesh and blood. I have never been very far from them, even when they were gone from this life. There is one grave that is open, covered with plastic and planks to stop the water from getting in. It was dug to be mine. It seems maudlin, but we knew it would have to be done one day.
My family has always prepared for the inevitable. Frankly, I planned on sort of just lying down on the edge of mine when I got old and sick and hoping that I’d fall in when the event occurred. Probably wouldn’t have worked out, but that was the plan. Even a bad plan is better than no plan, I figure.
“I’m going away for now,” I say. “I don’t know how long I’ll be, but the farm’s in good hands… actually, no. It’s not. It’s in nobody’s hands. I’m sorry. I haven’t found a human man to move here and look after things, so I’m following an alien alpha Leonid to his war torn world to have his baby as part of a sort of transactional deal we made, which frankly, I think I got the worse end of. But what’s new.”
I have the feeling they’re listening to me. Leaving without saying goodbye would have been rude. In spite of what Azlan says, I have the feeling I am not going to be back here for a very long time. There’s a feeling of ending in the air, the kind of transformation that cannot be resisted, and can never be undone.
