11. Leora
Leora
Alban did not follow me back to his cabin, and Dorie gave me a suspicious sniff as I put together flapjacks in a large glass bowl.
“Is Alban our new Benefactor?” she asked in Wolfennite German.
My stomach dropped. “Nein! Why would you think that?”
“You smell a little like the Benefactors and helpmates who like each other now,” she said, blinking up at me.
My face went hot. Dorie’s nose could sniff out the Benefactors and helpmates who “liked” each other. But she didn’t know what that meant.
Couples who liked each other were the opposite of Joshua and me. They hugged, kissed, and even had marital relations despite the helpmate not having gone into heat yet.
Dorie could smell but didn’t understand that Alban had covered me with his scent.
The memory I’d been trying and failing to suppress since returning from the chicken coop made another loop around my head.
Alban’s heavy body collapsing on top of me, his lips swallowing my surprised gasp.
Kissing me! I’d realized with a start. He was kissing me!
I’d heard of but never actually saw—much less experienced—two people kissing. Did all males do it that way? Sex parts grinding into yours? One hand holding your thigh around his waist, the other kneading your breast over your shirt?
He was so much bigger than me, but his weight wasn’t the reason for my shortness of breath. Actually, it was, I supposed. The way he pushed his hips into mine had created an odd pressure between my legs. Odd, but not unpleasurable. Not unpleasurable at all.
Meanwhile, his lips had ravaged me. Not just my mouth but also my face and, strangely, my neck. He’d found a special place there that had sent sparks of energy all the way down to my …
“Maem? Why are you rubbing your neck?”
I didn’t realize I was touching the spot Alban had kissed until Dorie asked me about it.
I quickly dropped my hand and started pouring the flapjack mix on to the cast iron skillet I’d found sitting to the side of the wood-fire cookstove.
“We were in a close space together,” I told Dorie. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Dorie eyed me up and down with a cynical twist of her lips.
I swear she looked like Tara’s twin.
“Are you suuure you do not want to know the definition of this word, fuck?” My little sister’s voice wheedled me from the past. “It’s a good one!”
The kiss hadn’t been about genuine attraction, though.
“I have nae lay with a female in quite a while. Too long. It made me lose control. I shouldnae have …”
He hadn’t finished that explanation for the unexpected kiss, but I’d gotten the gist. It wasn’t me he’d wanted. Any female would have done. I just happened to be the one who’d enclosed herself in the chicken coop with him.
I once again suppressed the memory and turned back to the stove with a bitter taste in my mouth.
“I need to tend to these flapjacks,” I said to Dorie. Though, what I really needed was a way out of this uncomfortable conversation.
Thankfully, she backed away to the couch and let me cook. But she reappeared like a weed as soon as I finished making the meal.
“Should I go get Alban?” she asked, her voice eager. “Tell him to come inside?”
“Let’s just make him a plate.” I concentrated on plating everything, so I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye. “You can take it out to him and give him a nice thank you from the both of us. Then we’ll be on our way to Faoiltiarn.”
“Oh, Faoiltiarn.” Dorie’s voice no longer sounded eager. “How long will it take to get there?”
I realized and admitted at the same time, “I don’t know, actually. We’ll have to get reoriented. Do you still have the map?”
Dorie slumped her shoulders. “It fell into the river.”
My heart sank. But then she said, “You can see Faoiltiarn from here if you walk a little higher on the mountain. Alban showed me this morning. It is due north. Maybe we can use the sun to guide us?”
I frowned. “Maybe.”
I’d walked and biked nearly everywhere in Canada without ever getting lost. But the two parts of Canada where I’d lived didn’t have mountains, and I’d never used the sun to guide me anywhere.
“Are you able to get us the rest of the way without a map?” Dorie sounded as worried as I felt. “And you know the sun is about to set, right?”
“What? No, I didn’t know that.” I nearly dropped the clay plate I was putting together for Alban. “Why did you let me make breakfast?”
“Because it’s breakfast,” Dorie answered in English with zero remorse in her voice. “And I’m tired of stew!”
Fair enough, but I’d assumed because I’d woken up so refreshed and it wasn’t dark outside that it had to be early morning.
I cast a disbelieving eye to the grey sky beyond the kitchen window and also switched to English to ask, “Are you sure it’s late enough for the sun to be going down soon?”
“Alban says it’s always grey here unless it’s summer.
You have to pay attention to where the sun is peaking through the clouds in the sky to know what time it is.
” Dorie pointed toward the horizon of grey clouds outside the window.
“See, the sun is peaking through the clouds over there. That means it’s setting since this window faces west.”
I crooked my head at her. Since when did Dorie know how to determine North, South, East, and West? I couldn’t even do that, and I’d grown up much less sheltered than her.
“Maybe we can ask Alban for help to get there?” Dorie suggested off my stunned look. “Or go tomorrow?”
“No!” I snapped at her before I could stop myself. “We can’t spend another night here, and we’re not asking him for anything else. I’ll figure something out. Just …”
I handed her the plate of eggs, multi-grained bread, and thick slices of meat that turned out to be boar bacon. According to Dorie, Alban had hunted, butchered, and cured the animal all by himself a couple of weeks ago. “Just go out to the chicken coop and give him this, please.”
Dorie took the plate from me with an unsure look.
But before she could turn to go, Alban came crashing through the door. Like a bull returning from the outside pastures.
Don’t think about bulls, Leora!
Too late. Another memory of his hips rutting between my legs invaded my mind before I could stop it.
Our eyes met, and even though he wasn’t touching me, my body heated with the same strange sensations I felt when I was underneath him.
I couldn’t speak for all the memories flooding through my mind.
But only one memory counted, I reminded myself. “I have nae lay with a female in quite a while. Too long. It made me lose control. I shouldnae have …”
His long dry spell had made him kiss me. Not any real attraction.
Besides, it wasn’t like a huge, virile wolf who smelled like Alban would ever want a she-wolf like me. I could only imagine what I looked like with my sloppy double crown braids, dressed in his oversized clothes.
Joshua’s derisive comments about my appearance and weight throughout the years echoed in my head. That told me everything I needed to know about my current attractiveness level.
Anyway, Alban and I quickly looked away from each other at the same time. I could just imagine how embarrassed he was to have kissed me.
“Don’t think we’ve got enough stew left for all three of us. So, I wrung a chicken’s neck for supper. Get a pot, and we’ll make another stew,” he said, presumedly to Dorie.
I refused to lift my eyes from the floor, but I assumed he’d brought in a chicken I couldn’t see.
Opposing feelings of attraction and unworthiness tangled inside of me as Dorie answered Alban. “Maem already made breakfast for dinner. I’ve got your plate right here. But if you want, she’ll pluck and dress it for you after we eat.”
Stone silence from Alban. Awful, awful silence.
I opened my mouth with an offer to dress the bird while he and Dorie ate. It didn’t matter if my breakfast went uneaten and cold. I’d happily sacrifice a meal to relieve the awkward silence.
“Aye. Give me a few moments to wash up,” Alban said before I could extend my offer, though.
And that was how I ended up sharing breakfast. For dinner. With the male wolf who didn’t want us here and only kissed me because there was no one else around.