CHAPTER THREE #2
“Hey! There is too something to cry about! Our true-mate is cursed and all the people who would usually help us don’t even know it!” my bear chimed into my thoughts. “That’s a whole lot to cry about.”
“You should finish eating. I’m going to work from the theory of what you eat goes to your body because it’s not falling on the floor.
Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just strengthens this you but either way, I have a feeling you’re going to need your strength.
Plus, I have to call my carrier about this whole demon thing before he hears it from someone else. ”
Vallis kissed my forehead as he had before I got up to answer the phone earlier. Part of me wanted to turn my phone on silent and do nothing but kiss him for a while. Was kissing a waste of time when so much was on the line?
***
It turned out that Vallis didn’t think so. I came back into the kitchen after talking to my carrier on the phone to find all the breakfast dishes washed, dried, and put away. He’d wiped everything down and the floor had that recently mopped look.
“How’d he take it?” Vallis asked, leaning his back against the counter.
My eyes raked down his naked torso and everything inside me stood. For a moment, I lost track of who he was asking about? How did who take what? Was it me? Did he want to take me right here in the kitchen? This was the cleanest my kitchen had ever been. Hell, maybe the cleanest it ever would be.
“He’s not thrilled,” I admitted. “Not thrilled at all. He’s insisting that they’ll come down the day he arrives. I mean, I get it, but I sort of want to scream. I bet no one else’s parents are crowding in on them while they’re hosting someone for the holidays.”
“Er…. If I understand what you explained beforehand and what the envelope said, most of the hosts are alphas.”
“You’re going to choose to be a cave-alpha right now?” I asked, my eyebrows climbing up my forehead. “Right now?”
“What? I wouldn’t want you to meet this guy alone either. Sure, the company vetted him, but people make mistakes. Like for example, I thought Pami had a brain and a heart. I was fucking wrong.”
“Uh….” I said because if I knew where this woman was I’d rip her asunder and put an end to this whole messy thing.
I’d heard enough stories from my dad about how tyranny sneaks in and it’s best to eat its whole face early.
All its faces. The Raven Hollow Wolves hadn’t always been run by a tyrant and then they were and it lasted so long.
“I… I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” Vallis apologized a second later. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not that. I mean, shout away. I’m the only one who can hear you and you’re probably frustrated. Not to mention, you haven’t talked to anyone in years. I don’t expect you to fall seamlessly back into the world. Besides, we’re a different society. We’re lucky we speak the same language.”
“Most elves can speak your language. The Fallen Star are no different,” he shook his head.
“Seriously, no different. It’s one of the most common languages spoken because of how many of your dragons have gone to war against elven clans.
And yes, I am frustrated and want to shout and tear her apart but I can’t take that out on you.
I can’t become some angry animal or she wins.
I can’t let her win. Broug wouldn’t want her to act like this… ”
“Are you wanting to save her?” I asked, my eyebrows knitting together.
“Not exactly. I don’t…. This is going to sound horrible but I think the only way to save her is to send her off to be with her mate,” he said.
“Sounds reasonable to me,” I nodded because it did.
Grief wasn’t an excuse for cruelty but sometimes the only way to return someone to who they were before was to send them off after their true-mate.
Vallis stood up and I swallowed hard. I wanted to sprint across the kitchen and fling myself into his arms. I wanted to kiss him like he was oxygen and I was drowning.
I wanted to forget that the world was literally upside down and my shitty acting skills were going to be put to the test over the next few months more than ever before.
The Nightshade Bears were a tight-knit community and keeping secrets was hard and it wasn’t like we didn’t all show up at each other’s homes unexpected because it happened so often that it was expected.
At least, I wouldn’t have to put on an act at work.
That was one of the best perks of working for yourself.
You didn’t have to mask any emotions while you were on your own.
I could make animal form clothes while bitching up a storm if I wanted to.
The yarn and fabrics weren’t telling on me and I had the sneaking suspicion that my sewing machine had the mouth of a sailor by now anyway.
“Mate,” Vallis whispered the word, bringing me back into the moment. “I will figure this out.”
“We will figure this out,” I corrected him. “You obviously need help or you wouldn’t have spent so long knocking.”
He opened his mouth and shut it again. Everything inside me burnt hot and boiled over.
I sprinted across the room and leapt up so that Vallis had to catch me.
Seeing that he wasn’t solid, it was a risk, but one that was worth it when his big strong arms wrapped around me.
Our lips crashed together before my feet found the floor.
They were just as solid as his hard dick had been underneath me.
We kissed hard, our bodies crushed together in an embrace fueled by magic and need and something more primal than both.
We were alive and together for – now. Life begat life and our tongues danced between our mouths in celebration.
For a split second we were normal true-mates.
No Pami or invisibility. No Snow Demon or lying to my parents.
We were just us and oh my old bears on the mountain was he a good kisser.
His tongue swept around mine again and again.
His teeth scraped against my lip and I said a silent prayer to my ancestors that it empowered him to remain longer with me but even as I prayed, the flesh against me began to soften, becoming less solid.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Vallis said, pulling back from the kiss. “Really. It’s—Back…. As soon… can.”
Without Vallis’s strong arms to hold me up, I fell onto my kitchen floor. I caught myself on my hands and rolled over onto my back.
“I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry,” I said over and over to my bear but then I cried anyway because until he came back, I had no way of knowing he was alive.
After a few minutes, I pulled myself out of the sobbing mess I was and found my phone.
I sent Grandpa a text to see if he had any books on astral projection.
Then I spent the rest of the afternoon pouring through them on my kitchen floor.
Sure, he probably wouldn’t come back in the exact same spot, but it was the last spot Vallis held me and I liked to imagine that in his captivity he could still feel my presence when I was there.
I decided that while he was locked away sleeping that I would come up with a plan.
That would’ve been a lot easier if I could’ve asked Grandpa or Mori for help.
Still, needs must and I needed Vallis here with me full time.
Screw the stupid vow renewal of people I wasn’t good enough for.
Vallis wanted to be here and more than anything I wanted him here with me.