Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Sylvik
“I’m telling you, there are no wedding traditions!” Brakor growled, crossing his ankles on top of my coffee table. “You just announce you’re Mated in front of the clan, and then we have a big party.”
I refrained from jotting down this unhelpful bit of advice, especially since his brother was shaking his head.
“Each couple was different. Our uncle found that pretty human—remember? She had long red hair and liked flowers.” Korrad planted his elbows on his knees and leaned forward earnestly.
“So he collected a bunch of bulbs for her to plant, and made an arch from willow branches and wove flowers through it.”
“I can’t believe you remember that,” grumbled his brother.
I wrote down Willow arch with flowers on my tablet because it sounded good to me. Maybe there were winter-blooming flowers we could tie into the hunter-green-and-white-and-silver color scheme? I made another note to ask Brooke.
At the unexpected meeting at the Diner the other day, I was impressed by the scope of her experience and vision. Maybe she hadn’t organized things the way I would have—I refrained from gushing about how helpful a simple spreadsheet could be—but it was clear she knew what she was doing.
The longer we talked about her plans for the wedding, the more confident she became, and that made me smile.
When she confessed that her sister had just dumped most of the decisions on her lap and given her the go-ahead to make creative choices on her behalf, I’d reached over and placed two fingers on the back of her hand.
“Then it will be a beautiful wedding, Brooke,” I’d said, and she’d blushed happily.
I could claim that had been my intention, but really it was just because my Kteer had demanded I touch her again. I’d managed to sit across from her all that time, her scent teasing my tongue, and I’d been desperate to touch her.
From the way she’d held her breath, and from the tantalizing scent of her arousal I’d occasionally been able to catch…Brooke hadn’t minded my presumption.
“Sylvik?”
Garrak’s prompt caused me to shake my head, pushing the memories aside and focusing on this impromptu meeting, here in my living room. I plastered an attentive look on my face and turned to our leader, the male who I thought of as an older brother, even if we weren’t exactly related by blood.
He was indulgently smirking at me from where he leaned against the archway to the kitchen.
My house was the first of the batch Abydos had planned for us and his construction company—which Brakor and Korrad now worked for—was building, and featured a modern, open floor plan.
Since Garrak had been rummaging in the kitchen—likely stealing my deli meats—a moment ago, I had to assume he’d been listening in.
So I pretended that I’d been taking notes on our friends’ bickering, and not daydreaming of tasting Brooke. “Yes?”
Garrak’s smirk deepened, and I suspected he wasn’t fooled. “I don’t remember any wedding ceremonies, but I’ll call some guys from back home.” Back home would be Alaska. “If you want.”
I took the time to consider. “Abydos’s clan is from the Rockies, so Korrad’s memories would be more helpful.”
My almost-brother nodded, then lifted his hand to his mouth—he had raided my meat drawer!—to take a bite. “Then stick with plants,” he said around the meat. “You know that shit is sacred to us, and Abydos in particular keeps a special place for nature.”
I scowled at how brazenly he was munching on my summer sausage. “I told Brooke that already, but I think we could definitely lean into it, especially with the color scheme she’s planning.”
Garrak opened his mouth, but a new voice interrupted him. “Uncle Sylvik, I finished.”
Grateful for the distraction, I bounced up from my seat and turned to face my youngest guest. Jay was Korrad’s eleven-year-old son, and he held his offering—a chain made from strips of white printer paper—in both hands.
“That’s wonderful, Jay,” I told him gratefully, nodding toward the small tree I’d potted and sat on the low credenza before the front window. “Will you help me hang it up?”
The boy was normally quiet—he didn’t get that from his father—so now he just nodded once and followed me toward the tree. “Where’d you learn how to do this?” I asked gently, taking one end of the chain.
“I saw it online.” He was intent on positioning the rest of the chain just so, and I didn’t interfere.
“We had a tree at school last year, but we didn’t make a paper chain for it.
” Dark eyes flicked toward me for just a moment as his voice dropped.
“Do you think they decorate trees at Eastshore Elementary?”
I glanced at Korrad, who didn’t speak, but watched his son with quiet pride. I suppose I was as close to an expert on Eastshore Isle as we’d get in this group.
“Um…I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
You’ve seen all the decorations up all over town, right?
” The boy nodded without speaking, intent on his task.
“And after everything Sakkara has said about how they celebrate here, I’ll bet they do.
His Mate is a teacher at your new school.
Are you excited to begin there in the new year? ”
From the way Jay frowned slightly—although perhaps it was in concentration as he placed the last of the chain—I wondered if maybe he wasn’t.
Korrad and his brother had visited Eastshore at Thanksgiving—Kap’paral—and decided then to move, although they’d waited until the end of the semester to pull Jay from school.
I placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It isn’t easy to move to a new place. You’re very brave.”
To my surprise, Jay glanced over at Garrak, who was in the middle of a muttered conversation with Brakor. “D’malk said we would have a better life here. I believe him.”
Chief.
Even young Jay looked to Garrak to lead us.
Well, after the way he’d looked out for us all these years, the way he’d saved so many of our brothers—Korrad and Brakor had been among those trapped by that landslide on that horrible day—it was no wonder we all still thought of him as D’malk.
And if Garrak thought moving here to Eastshore was best for us, then we believed him.
I squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “You’re right,” I whispered, and he glanced at me just briefly, his gaze solemn and trusting. And I vowed that I’d do everything I could to ensure Jay never regretted this move.
“Hey, Sylvik,” Brakor’s feet suddenly hit the ground. “They do the Solstice Circle around here?”
I glanced at Garrak, but he shrugged. “None of our people celebrated the solstice, but Brakor says it was a major ceremony before they crossed over.”
Korrad was nodding. “You hang vakkalt berries in the trees, if you can’t find any naturally occurring, and everyone in the clan stands beneath them to receive a blessing.”
“Health. Vitality,” his brother grunted.
“Since the berries are present in the winter, it symbolizes life overcoming death, new beginnings at the darkest part of the year. Et cetera,” Korrad added with a shrug.
Jay had squeezed up next to his father’s armchair. “I don’t remember it.”
“Yeah, well, we haven’t done it since we crossed over, T’man,” his father reminded him, settling his arm around the boy’s waist. “Before you were born.”
Brakor was finishing off his beer. “Would be a good place to start it up again.” He gestured toward the back of the house with the bottle. “Lots of wildness out there. We could even do the Hunt after.”
His brother scoffed. “None of us have Mates.”
“No.” Did Brakor look more bitter than usual at that reminder? “But Aswan does. Akhmim. Tarkhan. Abydos.” The males who’d left Colorado ahead of us. “Others.”
I finally raised my finger to interrupt. “What’s the Hunt?”
It was Garrak who answered. “Oh, we had that. Mated males chase their females through the snow.”
“Gets your blood pumping,” Korrad explained. “The females run, the males chase.”
“And if the males can pin their Mates beneath the vakkalt—” Brakor glanced at his nephew and bit down on the words, but he raised a brow at me, likely hoping he didn’t need to finish his sentence.
“New life, et cetera,” Korrad repeated dryly.
And I realized my heart was beating faster than usual, as my Kteer hummed in my chest.
Hunt Mate catch claim taste kiss hunt!
It wasn’t until I heard the creaking of metal that I realized I was gripping my tablet hard enough to damage the thing, and I forced myself to exhale, to bury my Kteer’s incessant demands. I was stronger than it, after all.
But fuck me, I liked the sound of this Solstice Hunt.
I liked the thought of Brooke in the Solstice Hunt.
The talk—planning—had continued to swirl around me, and now I forced my attention back to where it belonged. Away from the thought of Brooke pinned beneath me in the snow as the full moon shone overhead.
It doesn’t snow on Eastshore Isle.
Honestly, I don’t think my Kteer cared about—
“Think you could make it happen, Sylvik?” Korrad’s question broke through my obsessing. “If Sakkara doesn’t already have something planned.”
“Uh…” I pretended interest in the blank screen of my tablet. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
“I’ll ask him,” Garrak rumbled, pushing away from his place leaning against the wall. “We could do it here, where we held Kap’paral.”
“I’ll host,” I croaked, then forced myself to take a deep breath and fucking focus. “I mean, I have that big back patio, we can do the Solstice Circle and bonfire there.”
“And the Hunt in the woods behind,” Brakor added with a wicked smirk, unusual to see from the normally grumpy male. Who exactly did he have in mind to hunt that night?
Not Brooke. She’s mine.