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“He said he was gonna marry her,” Dara pipes up. “But now he will need to mate her. Then she can be my best friend forever, and have babies and be my neighbor. I want to have at least five or six babies. Freya should have five or six, too.”
“That’s a lot of babies, love,” my mother says, smiling. “You were not so keen on them last eve when your baby sister was screaming.”
“Fine then, I will have four.”
That is thankfully the end of the discussion for the evening but, the next day, a fancy carriage arrives with Freya, and my fun is over.
ChapterTwo
Freya
There have been reports of a lone shifter in the woods, and I am not supposed to ride my horse there. I’m thirteen now, and a civilized lady, as my mother frequently points out, would take a carriage instead.
It is possible to reach the Baxter clan via carriage by taking a convoluted route, but I’m impatient. Using a carriage requires a man to ready it and prepare the horse before we can be on our way. I’m allowed to ride a horse in the meadow and the pastures to the south, but I am not to ride a horse into the forest to facilitate seeing my friend, at least not while this shifter is around.
My mare is fast and nimble-footed. The shifter couldn’t possibly catch us. Also, this lone male shifter, from all reports, is an adolescent, and I’m convinced he just wants to join the village and not attack anybody on the path.
I used to be good at following rules and doing as I was told, but it’s not just my mother who has made this determination. I might even obey if it were only my mother, for I don’t like to worry her unnecessarily.
No, the reason that I pretend to be going for a ride in the pasture—when I am, in fact, going to enter the forest at the first opportunity—is because Aston ordered it.
Ordered it… like he is my keeper and can tell me what to do.
Worse, he rode all the way over to visit my mother, to put fear into her heart so that she would order me not to ride in the forest, after I told him to mind his own business.
He is fifteen now and thinks himself a man just because he will soon leave to join Hydornian forces far to our north. Some barbarians, especially the young men, leave to support Hydornia in the war against the Blighten, for our enemy is theirs. I conclude that if he can go to war and risk his life in battle, he probably is a man in all ways that matter. It was more the manner in which he made his order that riled me. Standing with his hands on his hips outside his family’s cottage, saying how I’m not to ride the fucking horse again through the fucking forest unless I want to feel his palm against my bottom.
I was red-faced and livid as he gave me a stern talk about riding my horse over there.
If he dares to put his hand on me, I shall make him very sorry indeed. Just because he is two years older doesn’t mean he knows better than me. And even if he does, his delivery of the facts leaves much to be desired.
I don’t know why I’m being so rebellious about this when it’s not in my nature to be so. I’m a good girl. My mother often tells her friends what a well-behaved daughter she has and how lucky she is that I’m not a bit of trouble.
Aston seems to bring out the worst in me and almost compels me to misbehave. He was wicked and merciless with me as a child. I can still recall the day he tossed me in the stream after I complained about getting mud on my silk dress. He said a fancy dress wasn’t practical for playing in the stream. I put fire ants in his boots in retaliation, while he was paddling … and that’s why I ended up with my gown soaked and my hair a bedraggled mess. He sat beneath a nearby oak and laughed as I spluttered and struggled to climb the slippery bank under the weight of my sodden clothes.
I grin, thinking about the fire ants in his boots… and him hopping around as he tried to get them back off.
He got the cane for his part. His father was furious and gave him a stern talking to about the ways of treating a lass, and how I might have drowned, which was an exaggeration given the stream was ankle-deep. It was more like being sat in a large puddle.
He still didn’t tell on me; he just took his punishment like a badge of honor.
I take off across the meadow at a steady canter, following the worn path beside the forest until I’m out of view at the house, and then cut left into the trees, feeling an instant thrill. It won’t take long to reach the village. I hope Aston is there when I turn up. I hope he’s very cross, indeed. I hope he puts his hands on his hip and roars at me about my safety so I can point out to him that I’m perfectly safe and that he doesn’t know everything.
It is a pleasant morning, and the sunlight finds gaps between the high forest canopy to dapple me with warmth. My horse, Beauty, is a sleek brown mare and, while a little temperamental at times, is a joy on days like today when she’s in the mood to stretch her legs. I soon forget all about the shifter. Aston is harder to set from my mind—the young boy who revealed as an alpha and seems to grow an inch every other day.
I don’t want him to leave, even though he won’t be able to berate me if he is gone.
I might even miss him.
Huff! No, I will not miss him at all. I’ll be able to do what I want more often. No one even bothers anymore when he scolds me for my actions. When Aston started yesterday’s tirade his Papa only chuckled and stalked off into his workshop, leaving us to it.
What I read into that is that his Papa thinks I’m a capable lass with a sensible head on my shoulders who can defend myself against Aston and his overbearing, overprotective ways.
Beauty suddenly rears up, snapping me back to the present. I squeeze my thighs tightly and hold on as her front hooves lower and stamp.
“Steady, girl.”
Ears pinned back, she snorts and rears again, this time bucking at the same time and flinging me from the saddle.
