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“Ivy.”
“Ivy,” I repeated, letting out a short purr as I said it. I liked that she’d answered me without hesitating. “I’m De’drik.”
Those dark orbs sought me again, and I couldn’t help the warmth that spread through my chest. I wanted her to be comfortable with me, at least until I returned her to her home.
Feeling the strangest sense of loss at the thought of leaving her, I swallowed and looked around my camp. I needed to pack up so we could get going, but I didn’t want her flinching away every time I moved.
“Drink the rest of the water. We’ll get more when we cross a stream.”
Her hesitance to move from where I’d placed her was obvious, but once she finished the little water we had, she finally unfolded and took a step toward the opening.
Where I stood.
Forcing myself to turn away and not watch her lips after seeing them wrapped around the mouth of the jug, I began the process of packing my things. Although I wasn’t watching her, all my senses were focused on Ivy, waiting to see if she’d run once she thought I was distracted.
It wasn’t long before I heard motion behind me, but I turned only to see her rolling up the furs. Stuffing the few supplies I had into my pack, I gave her a nod and a soft purr when she came over and held the bundle out to me. Though she avoided my gaze and still looked a bit nervous, she’d come closer to me without prompting, and I took that as a good sign that she’d accepted my presence.
Settling the pack on my back, scuffed dirt over the coals of the fire and looked around. After assuring myself I hadn’t forgotten anything, I turned to Ivy. She was standing at the very edge of the overhang, watching me with a softness in her gaze that made my breath catch, and for a moment, the urge to keep her trapped in the cave until fall when she’d enter her heat almost kept me from moving.
Clearing my throat, I looked around again before moving up beside her.
“I found you in that direction,” I said as I pointed a claw to the northeast. “Is your home that way?”
I watched a little furrow appear between her brows as she looked up at the sliver of sky we could see between the canopy and the cliff, and I realized she was looking for a reference point. The sun was rising to our right, with the cliffs and mountains to our back, but she likely didn’t know where her village was.
“The great water and the human village are in that direction,” I told her, pointing again toward where I’d found her.
Her face clouded for a moment before she nodded.
“Yes, I live in the… village.”
She said it like village was the wrong word, but it was the only one I knew for where humans gathered. I did have to admit that hers was different enough from the ones on the other side of the mountains that it deserved to be called something else.
I stepped out in the direction we needed to go, and Ivy followed, with Wulf trailing behind as we slipped beneath the leaves. I had come to the area because I was curious and because I thought the hunting might be better here since Vir’doth had been forced to reduce the wolf pack, not to find an omega, but it crossed my mind that I was giving up the perfect opportunity to claim one for myself. Ivy wasn’t close enough to her heat to bond, but I could keep her until she was.
But that wasn’t how things worked with humans, and for some reason, the thought of making her unhappy by forcing her to stay with me soured my stomach.
I still almost turned my steps toward the west, to lead her further from her village, but I remembered what my clanmate’s omegas had said. If I stressed Ivy before her heat came, her body might skip the cycle, and then I’d have to keep her trapped even longer.
I had walked a short distance from the cliffs before I glanced back and realized Ivy was struggling to keep up with my longer stride. She had to take two steps for every one of mine, and she was already beginning to puff from the exertion.
Slowing my pace, I kept an eye on her until I was sure she was more comfortable. I doubted she was familiar with trekking through the forest, and I didn’t want to wear her out, though at her pace, I knew we wouldn’t make it to her home before nightfall.
“So, tell me about your home. Is village not the right word for it?”
If we were going to be spending more than a day together, I needed her to relax, because I could still catch whiffs of the stench of stress from her when the wind shifted between the trees.
“Villages are smaller and a bit less…”
She seemed to search for the right word as I slowed more so I could walk beside her.
“Less organized, I think? I’m from a village on the other side of the mountains, but I live in the town of Barcole now.”
It was interesting that she had come across the mountains as I had.
“What made you come here?”
Her eyes dimmed, the cloying smell of sadness tickling my nose.
