32. Aurelia
Chapter 32
“No, Urien!” Hadriel shouted. “You pencil-dicked sonuva donkey,” he muttered. “Stop manhandling that horse. He doesn’t like—“ He stormed up the line. “I swear to the gods’ balls, I am going to thump that kid. What in the bloody cleavage is he even doing? Urien, that horse is going to—well, there you go. Don’t you dare cry to me, you deserved to get bit!”
I watched with what I knew was a lopsided smile as Hadriel went after Urien. I loved watching his antics.
Weston walked beside me in wolf form, sparing a brief glance for Hadriel before looking back at the trees. A lot of the other powerful members of the pack were also in wolf form. They were taking no chances in case Alexander ambushed us on the road.
A shiver of fear rolled through me and I did my best to put the thought out of my mind. There was nothing I feared more than falling into his hands.
Dante walked behind me in human form with a simple strip of fabric around his waist in case he had to shift quickly. As Hadriel bustled away, Dante stepped up beside me and I decided to bring up what had been on my mind since last night.
“Dante, I’ve been meaning to ask you...” I slipped my hands into my pockets as nervousness fluttered in my belly.
“Don’t put your hands in your pockets when you walk,” he said in response, scanning the trees to the left. “If you trip, you’ll fall on your face and chip a tooth or something.”
“Okay, mother.” My smile grew and I pulled my hands from my pockets.
“If you fell, you’d probably conjure a knife out of thin air and stab me when I bent to help you. I’m not saying it for you, I’m saying it for me. I’m tired of you attacking me.”
I grimaced, the nervousness amplifying. “Gotcha. Sorry about that.” I hesitated, feeling sheepish and vulnerable and more than a little embarrassed. But this was important to me. “Did you mean what you said, though?”
He groaned. “Listen, Aurelia, you have to understand, we’ve been eating cheese for days. There is only so much cheese a guy can eat without asserting that he’s never going to eat cheese again. Did I mean it? At the time, yes. Is it a testament to your cooking that I don’t want to eat the cheese you and the cook keep pushing on us? Again, yes. Am I serious? Not totally. I’m sure in a month I will forget all about this and once again eat chee—are you laughing with me or at me?”
“No, it’s just... I didn’t hear your comment about cheese. That one I get. I’m tired of it, too, and I love cheese.”
“Right? See, Sixten told me I was bitching just to bitch, but it’s a lot, right?”
“It is. No, I mean, last night after I’d... stuck you with the knife. Did you mean it?”
“Why? What did I call you? I don’t remember—I’d just been stabbed, after all.”
I bit my lip, hesitating. I felt oddly vulnerable and even more embarrassed now. I shook my head. “Never mind.”
“At the time, I probably did mean it, yes. But it’s like the cheese—I’ll eventually get over it.”
I laughed, shaking my head harder now. He was such a goofy guy. I loved it. “No, it’s not...” I looked away, and then just blurted it out. “You said you thought we were friends.”
“Yeah. Well, you’d just stabbed me. It gives a guy mixed signals.”
“Right.” My heart sank a little, unsure what to make of that and deciding just to let it go. “I’d just wondered,” I murmured, my face probably flaming.
“Wait, what am I missing?” He reached out to grab my shoulder but Weston’s wolf issued a low warning growl. He jerked his hand away and raised them both in the air. “Not touching.”
I looked over at Weston’s wolf, my eyes widened at the strange flood of desire lighting me on fire. His possessive display of ownership turned me on.
“What am I missing?” Dante tried again. “You have a vibe. What’d I do?”
“No...” I waved my hand through the air. This was getting awkward. “It’s nothing. Never mind. I was just surprised to hear that you thought we were friends, that’s all.”
“Why?” He pointed to the side. “Don’t believe what Sixten tells you. I’m loyal as fuck, seriously. I didn’t even care that you tried to stab me. Not for long, anyway.” He paused. “Why, what’s wrong with me? I’m a cool guy. I’m funny. Aren’t I funny, Hadriel?”
Hadriel stood to the side, waiting for the procession to pass. “Wow, spiraling much, Dante?”
“Shut up.” Dante fell back a bit so Hadriel could regain his place.
“He’s funny because he’s too dumb to realize he’s the butt of the joke,” Hadriel said drolly.
“Suck a lemon, Hadriel,” Dante replied.
“Lick a porcupine, Dante.” Hadriel glanced back with a grin. “Haven’t you listened to her stories? She hasn’t ever had friends. People went out of their way to avoid her. It’s surprising to her that her captors would be friendly, let alone declare friendship.”
Heat infused my cheeks and I chewed my lip, the embarrassment washing over me in full force. I sounded desperate. And honestly, maybe I was. It was like having a glimpse into a life you’d only dreamed of and trying to wrestle it into reality. I hated being so obvious about it.
“Oh.” Dante puffed out his chest a little. “It’s not me, it’s her. Cool. I was starting to get a complex.”
Hadriel fully twisted now to stare at Dante for a beat, a dumbfounded look on his face, before shaking his head and facing front again. He then leaned my way like we were coconspirators and said, “If there is ever any doubt, it will always be him, my darling, never you. He’s just a big dumb animal.”
“I’m ignoring you,” Dante told Hadriel. “Yes, Aurelia, we’re friends. Or we will be when we don’t have this abduction thing between us, right? A bit awkward, that. ‘Well, how’d you guys meet? Oh, it was just a little kidnapping situation. She cleaved me with an axe and then I helped keep her imprisoned until she eventually won me over. We’ve been besties ever since.’”
“Do you need us for this, or are you happy talking to yourself for a while?” Hadriel asked him and I devolved into a fit of giggles. These guys were so entertaining when they bantered back and forth.
“This whole thing has been really strange, though, hasn’t it?” Dante mused, looking into the sparse trees along the road. “We did not end up with the person we expected. Not even a little bit. Then there’s the mate situation, which?—”
Hadriel turned and punched Dante in the chest.
“Ow, what the fu—” Dante’s eyes widened and his mouth snapped shut as I turned in confusion. Before I could ask what they were talking about, a familiar sensation washed over me. An expectant sort of sensation, with danger and fists and pain on the other end.
Alexander.
My hand drifted to Hadriel’s upper arm, gripping him hard and then pushing him to my other side so that I could hunch near the cart. It probably wasn’t the nicest thing I could do, but I couldn’t help it.
“No, love, you shouldn’t touch—what’s the matter?” Hadriel asked.
“He’s out there,” I whispered, looking through the trees. He wasn’t right there, though. He wasn’t even near, I’d bet anything on that fact—not near enough to attack this moment. The sensation I felt was a promise, a rendezvous with his fists set for a later date. “He’s out there somewhere. I feel it. He’s getting ready.”
“Who?” Hadriel asked.
“Alexander,” I said, holding onto the cart. My gaze found that of Weston’s wolf. “He’s going to come for me.”
To my great surprise and eternal gratitude, no one questioned me. I had a feeling it was because of the emberflies. Before last night, they’d been wary of my claims that the bugs were a warning system. Now they believed me, and they clearly also believed my sixth sense regarding danger and Alexander was just as telling.
Weston’s wolf looked back at Dante, probably communicating through his body language. They seemed to be able to decipher subtle variations in movement.
“Come back over here, Aurelia,” Dante said, motioning me over. “Try to act normal. Don’t raise suspicion. Is he close? Is he in hearing distance?”
“No. I don’t think so.” I licked my lips. “This feeling—it’s not based on proximity. Well, not totally, maybe? I always felt this... awareness before he’d show up to punish me. It’s a warning, but not just of the pain to come. He gets a sexual kind of high out of punishing people—at least he does when punishing me. It makes my skin crawl. It’s easily worse than the actual punishment. It’s like I could feel his anticipation. He’d be on the opposite side of the village from my cottage—quite a distance away—but I could always feel it, even when I didn’t know for sure a punishment was coming.”
“Why wouldn’t you know one was coming?” Dante asked, giving me more space now, probably so he could shift quickly if needed.
I lifted a shoulder, my emotions turbulent. “It didn’t happen often, but sometimes Granny would get word of my conduct in the village and punish me for it. Giving away food or supplies, taking a break when I should’ve been working, leaving work to watch the hunting pack gather and take off or come back...”
“Why would she care about you watching the hunting pack?”
“I always assumed it was because she thought I should’ve been working.”
“Or maybe she worried one of them might be strong enough to pull out your wolf,” Hadriel said lightly.
I studied him for a moment but wouldn’t allow myself to dwell on it. That was in the past. There was nothing I could do about it now but to bury the feelings until I had reached some semblance of safety. After that, I could rehash all the things that I knew would tear me apart.
“It’ll be fine,” I said softly, steeling my resolve, trying not to let the fear rule me. “Besides, when he came before, I wasn’t allowed to fight back. Now I am.”
“I’ll find you an axe,” Dante said, a grin spreading across his face. “See? Friendship.”