Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Eiden
W olf has just told Fawn bluntly that she is a complete hussy.
Her cheeks are bright pink, and her eyes go from Wolf to Seven, to Nox, to me.
“Nicely handled,” Nox drawls.
I glare at him and rise, daring him to interfere. He merely leans back on the couch and watches. Seven offers me the slightest incline of his head.
I’m not bold in my human form, but I will be for her. Jude has already indicated I could care for her, and she very much needs some gentle aftercare, not a damn wolf with all the finesse of a bull.
“I’ll take her to her nest,” I say.
Wolf kisses the top of her head and hands her over without a word.
My hands shake as I stride out of the lounge and into the nest.
A nest—made with love. A safe place that she can call her own and where we might tend her should she choose.
I stop at the doorway, overcome by emotion. The blind is open a small way, letting enough light in to add ambiance. I never felt the desire to make a nest, even though it is normal for male omegas to make them and to present them to their lovers for approval… or so I found out after I arrived here. “May I?”
She blinks up at me, confused before a smile breaks out on her face. “Oh, yes. Of course.”
I step inside and lower her to her feet. Then I slip off my shoes and set them in the closet space just inside the door. When I turn around, I find her standing on the edge of the sunken mattress. My eyes go straight to her pink bottom.
Gods. The memory of him putting her over his knee and spanking her, her twitching, the way the blush bloomed, and her tears when she finally released had me squirming in my seat and damn near panting. I understand the need to let go. Although Nox goes about it in more extreme ways with me, ones I very much need, the result is the same.
I felt every clap of Jude’s hand against her perfect flesh. Nox, likely sensing my inner conflict while watching, kept a tight hold on the back of my neck.
He didn’t need to. While my human omega side enjoyed the mastery—my stag applauded it.
I’m on edge and feeling extremely needy, so I elect to leave my pants on until I know what she wants from me.
The nest might have been beautiful once, but as Wolf pointed out, the blankets and silk sheets are covered in dozens of tiny hoof indents.
She had quite the game in here. I’d have loved to have seen her up to her mischief.
My amusement fades, and sharp pride takes its place. This is Fawn’s nest. Even in this disarray, it is the most amazing nest I have ever seen.
“Would you like to help me fix it?” she asks, glancing at me under her lashes. “It would help to distract me from what Wolf just said.” She lifts her nose in the air. “And shut the door, please. He assuredly does not have permission to enter my nest.”
I smirk at Jude’s expense. “Of course.”
We strip the nest of everything, and then she begins remaking it. I hold back, but she soon asks my opinion on placement and colors, and before I know it, I’m kneeling in the middle, fluffing a pillow and thinking how pretty Fawn’s hair will look spread across it.
My emotions bounce around all over the place, but the act of making the nest is cathartic. It represents the final disconnect between that other terrible place and where I am now.
Feeling her study, I turn to find her watching me with a smile.
“I like you in my nest,” she says. “You may enter whenever you choose.”
A heavy, stingy pressure builds at the back of my eyes. I have fallen for her a thousand times since we first met, but those words, her acceptance, have me falling all over again. “Time to clean up, little doe.”
The bathing room is much smaller than Seven’s but still holds a deep pool, which is big enough for our needs. I hesitate at the steps, intending to let her enter alone.
“Don’t even think about it,” she says.
I grin, strip down, and join her. Her scent drives me crazy, but I keep the touch light, returning her to the foot of her nest, clean, dry, and relatively untouched. My cock is disgusted with my restraint, but this feels special being with her in her nest, and I don’t want to rush it.
She takes my hand and leads me into the center, where we settle on our sides, facing one another.
“How long are you going to punish Wolf for?” I tease.
“Days,” she says. “Maybe weeks.”
He has really fucked up. Best, the male acquaint himself with groveling lest he misses out on rutting our doe in her nest. Fine, I can admit I’m intrigued by the wolf shifter. I love seeing him with Fawn. He is dominant in a rough, animalistic way, so different from Seven, who is civilized and carries his dominance like an air of entitlement, and Nox, who is more a calculated level of depraved.
Only both men are so much more than that.
Seven, the harbinger of Justice.
Nox, without artifice and refreshingly free of prejudice, and who is uncomplicated.
Jude, I am still learning about, but as the layers peel away, I like more and more what I see… Even if he does fuck up on occasion. Still, I feel compelled to throw him a line. “I’m a gentle omega. My stag is a blood-crazed maniac. He is also me.” I shrug. “Whatever you might be thinking about your inner side, at least you’re not a killer with a taste for blood.” My smile worms its way out.
She returns the smile, but then it fades. “What happened to you, Eiden? Why was your awakening so brutal? Why did you not shift for many years?”
My heart skips a sickly beat as my mind scrambles as to how we ended up here. I knew she would ask at some point. She is naturally curious and deeply empathetic. I told myself I was ready for whatever that might be, but the truth is, I am not.
“It’s okay,” she says, her eyes searching mine. “You don’t have to tell me, now or ever. I love you.”
Her words hit me like a sucker punch to the gut, momentarily robbing me of breath. The urge to shy away from the conversation needed is strong. I don’t have to tell her, now or ever. Nox said as much that very first night she arrived when he took me so far out of my head, I couldn’t remember who I was, let alone the fears that seized me.
No matter what Nox says, there is a part of me that feels forever unworthy, that continues to wait for this perfect world to crash down, for my precious joy to be ripped away.
“I love you too, Fawn. So much. And I want to tell you. You deserve to know about the man who professes to love you. All of him, even the dark parts.”
“I won’t stop loving you,” she says, confusion clouding her eyes. “You have a good heart, Eiden. I already know that.”
“I’m not good.” I turn my face away—the mood souring.
“Eiden—”
“I killed a man—my former herd leader.”
There, it’s out, the words sucking the air from the room. Her gasp is small but telling. I brace, waiting for her horror, for her to tell me she doesn't love me anymore now she knows I’m a killer.
For her to tell me to get out of her nest.
Her brows pull together. “How did it happen?”
I have opened the door. There is no way forward but to step through. “Not all male omegas are welcomed. Some see them as an affliction, a sign of weakness in the herd.”
Her small hand presses against my chest, right over my heart, giving me the strength to carry on.
“My mother died during my birth. She was well loved within our herd. I looked like her, or so I was told. When the time came and went when I should have shifted, my father’s love for me turned to disgust. I wasn’t like my brothers with their rough and tumble. I was gentle by nature.” I cannot keep the bitterness from my tone when I add, “Then my scent revealed me as an omega, and all my failings were laid at that door. The herd leader, a fearsome warrior of renown, despised our kind. What use was a male stag who would not shift? With our lands adjoining the bears, we were in constant skirmish with them. They didn’t want or need a useless mouth to feed. They needed warriors in the field.”
My heart beats too quickly.
Her eyes glisten. But I don’t deserve her pity.
“They were cruel to you?”
I nod. “The herd leader’s word is law.”
“Why didn’t you run away?”
“I tried. Fled, was captured, and brought back. Not only was I useless, but I was now a traitor. They used me for the lowest, menial chores. Not that I cared about that. But I was also beaten, mocked, and fed scraps tossed to the floor.” It was little wonder that my inner stag, once so gentle and confused, turned feral, but that is not an excuse. “Seven arrived with his royal guards when one such beating was occurring. Usually, I was kept well away from the hall during rare royal visits, but this was unplanned and surprised my herd leader. Seven demanded to know what it was about. The herd leader began feeding Seven lies about how I had attacked a girl, dragged my niece forward, who was the sweetest child, and claimed I had hurt her.” My heart is racing. Time does not dim the potency of the memory. “What happened next is hazy and disjointed. I remember Nox at Seven’s side. His expression thunderous, he strode over to me as Seven continued to question the herd leader. I thought he was going to end me. He didn’t. He called a nearby servant to bring me water. That act of compassion broke me. I didn’t even care about the lies being weaved on the other side of the hall. Maybe I would die or be exiled… My niece tried to speak—I knew she was going to defend me. She was only six and used to sneak me food. But before she could say more than a word, the herd leader grasped her roughly by the throat. Something snapped inside me. I charged, wretched and broken as I was, determined to save her. His son kicked me to the ground. Nox shifted, planted his antlers in his belly, and tossed him aside before he could kick me again. That’s when my stag rose to the surface. I don’t remember moving, just the rage… The herd leader lay dead. His blood was all over my antlers.”
I’m shaking just in the telling. The blood and the rage are still like an aftertaste on my tongue, one I can never purge.
Her hand cups my cheek, drawing me to look at her. I don’t want to, but I must face the consequences of what I did.
“The herd leader,” she says, her eyes searching mine. “He was your father?”
Surely, I should feel something: shame, regret, and even remorse. That I feel none of those things is a sign I am beyond redemption. “He was.”
Fawn
My heart breaks hearing his story.
It breaks more because he is waiting for me to reject him. As if I cannot see how terrible it must have been for him, how desperate, alone, wounded, and hopeless he must have felt for his stag to finally rise and end the misery.
“I love you. I love your stag. He was your protector when you had none.” He goes to speak, but I do not want to hear all his reasons why I should not love him anymore. “Your father was wicked, and your brothers were no better. You cannot help your nature. That they changed your stag breaks my heart. I do not think badly of you, only of those who did you wrong. You are here now.” I keep my hand on his jaw, holding him when he tries to turn away. “Your father was hurting your niece, who was kind to you, trying to defend you. I’m glad your stag rose. Seven and Nox saw what you did, and they loved you anyway, maybe even because of what you did. Why would you think I would be any different? If the king of all the herds loves you, how could I not?”
He doesn’t have an answer.
My smile is gentle. “I love you, Eiden. My doe is gentle, and she also loves your stag. There is no part of you we do not. If your father could not find it in his heart to love you as you are, he should have let you go. While I disagree with that outcome, what he did was so much worse: keeping you close so he could abuse you over and over again. Bringing his herd and your brothers into his web of misery. He is a monster, and I am not sorry he is gone.”
I kiss his lips hard. He resists briefly before I feel him let go. His arms come around me, holding me close. I press my cheek against his chest, comforted by the steady beat of his heart.
“What happened to your former herd? And your sweet niece?”
“Alora is all grown up now and lives in a herd on the other side of the portal with her mate and two children.” I hear the smile in his voice. “She had quite the crush on Nox after he came to my defense. As for the herd, Seven disbanded it. Their lands were amalgamated into surrounding herds.”
“And your brothers?”
“Exiled,” he says.
“Good. It is no less than they deserve. And as for Alora. It must have been a terrifying place to live and to watch all that cruelty. She was very brave. I already love her well that she helped you as she did.”
Eiden
Her acceptance slays me, as does her love. I hoped, but I also feared for the worst. Nox and Seven are warriors with many years of experience, which has hardened them. They are not the same as a sweet doe.
“When did you realize you loved Nox?” she asks with a smile, her sorrow fading.
“Instantly,” I admit, dryly. “He cornered my wild, terrified stag and brought him down through sheer force of will. He was so fierce and commanding, but he also had a steadiness that made you safe to let go… It doesn’t hurt that he is handsome… and thinks people who suffer from prejudices are idiots of the highest order… He also does not treat me like I am broken.”
“My doe likes him.”
I raise a brow. “Only likes?”
“Fine. She is obsessed with him… I also like that he does not treat you like you are broken. I mean, I can see you enjoy it when he… ah… what is edging, exactly?”
I groan. How did we go from my sorrowful tale and thinking she would leave me to talking about Nox and edging?
I don’t know, and I don’t care. My past still holds me prisoner, even though I thought I’d escaped it. I never really can. There will be times when my insecurities will rise, but I will learn to get through them. As Nox has often told me, neither my father nor my brothers deserve to take up space in my thoughts or heart.
Today, I am in a nest with my Fawn. I want to join with her, claim her, and become one with her in the most basic ways.
In short, I want to fuck her right here in her nest.