Chapter Eleven
Buck
“River’s coming, then?” I stared Rayne down, torn between slight annoyance and amusement. I’d only just gotten my mate, and the little devil of a god would seize any opportunity to be annoying…or steal Vida. I was torn between what I’d bet more on.
“And miss an opportunity to harass a new omega and steal Vida for a minute?” He coughed in a little spat of amusement. “He’s just got to finish with Brook before they leave.”
“Do I wanna know?” I raised an eyebrow and Cliff’s ruddy blush and the half conversation I heard gave me some explicit ideas. All par for the course where River was concerned.
“I don’t know, but I put money it wasn’t canast.” Rayne waved his phone before pocketing it.
“I have every idea. I’m not deaf.” Storm’s soured face made me blanch. “I heard something about him saying, ‘I’m Revere for the next ten minutes and it isn’t the British that are coming!’” Storm made air quotes with his fingers as Jacque gave me a second glance and wriggled, thumping his feet in the air as if to tell me I wasn’t allowed to hold Vida.
“Trade you?” I glanced over at Storm who, aided by Rayne, helped me swap out their little one for the anxious hare. In the process, he gave Vida a tentative sniff and bunny kiss.
Baby. His thoughts garbled the singular word through the static, which made me unreasonably happy. Vida seemed happy, too, giving a little squeal of some sort of positive emotion that made Storm’s features soften.
“Holy sh—oot,” Cliff said, stumbling on the swear. Rayne gave him a nod of gratefulness for the catch as Jacque rolled onto his back and held his flat feet in the air to relax. “That’s right. Baby.”
I laughed and offered to give Cliff his hare, but Jacque seemed more interested in getting down, and so he did, petering about in the grass to piddle and fertilize the earth. He did so politely, ducking behind a thatch of grass before popping out and cleaning his face with dainty paws.
As I scented the wind and the light musk of wolf hit my senses, it reminded me of my promise to protect Jacque. As if comprehending my desire, Jacque hopped toward me and stood on his hind legs, meeting my hand as I leaned down to pat his head. Upon him, I left my blessing, a mark of sorts that told predators of the land he had my protection, and all other creatures he was in my favor. And if so, a female were to show interest, she would understand that despite his differences , he was blessed. Not that I thought he’d find another hare to mate with, not in that part of the world. He might find a black-tailed jackrabbit or a snowshoe, both hares, but if my mate’s little guy produced a litter, I’d be highly amused. At the least, no wolf would touch him.
“Let’s all get cleaned up and head out. River travels slower than me or Storm.” Rayne waved his brother and me over, and I followed dutifully as Storm patted over his cradled baby’s behind. Rayne eyed the gesture and reached back. “Want me to handle the diaper, babe?”
“No, you’re exhausted. Go get cleaned up and ready. I know how you enjoy showers.” Storm’s endless smile for Rayne made my heart warm, knowing I’d know what that smile felt like one day. Hopefully, I’d catch myself staring at Cliff and my heart would swell and I’d give him that smile, too.
A haunting memory pecked at my senses, a bronze-skinned woman, barely even. Eyes like endless pools of the sacrificial pits and lips like raw liver. Memories my brother, Storm’s incarnation or predecessor, who lacked that smile, who stared at the frightened girl like prey. I wondered, not for the first time, if Storm carried anything of Thunder. If he carried those memories or that temper. If he did, he’d learned a great deal since. He’d learned kindness early this life, where I’d had to pick my teeth with bones and lick blood from my fingers while I slowly learned why it was that humans slept wrapped around one another, why my brother wept and wasted away when his mate died, and why when life blood spilled, the light in all the eyes around them dimmed a little more—even mine.
“Buck?” Cliff rested a solid hand on my shoulder, spooking me to jolt and nearly discorporate for a moment. A sensation, not unlike falling apart, brushed my skin as the sediment of my namesake threatened to have me crumble away like an hourglass. “Hey, back in one piece, man.”
I grabbed his hand and brought it to my cheek. The rough texture I kept my skin at times, the stubble so many found attractive, rasped against the callous of his palm. “I apologize. I get lost in time.”
“Well, you’ve got way more behind you than me.” His half smile pinched at the corner of his lips. “What’s going through that mysterious mind of yours?”
“Bad memories, good ones, old ones. But it’s in the past and I’ll make all new ones with you.” I tilted his palm to my lips and kissed, treasuring his scent with a deep inhale. “In our own time.”
The expression that crossed his face wasn’t one of confidence in my words, but slight hesitation. As if bidding the emotion away, he glanced from Jacque back to me and leaned in to lock our lips in a fleeting kiss.
“Hah! Gayyyyyy!” Rayne’s distant voice piped up from the kitchen window, making Cliff cringe, shoulders pinching.
“I deserve that.” Cliff sighed and cast his gaze away, the mossy green of his eyes brightening with the onset of tears that he stubbornly wouldn’t shed. I liked the defiant determination in his eyes but not the taste of guilt in his scent.
I ran my fingers through his short hair and leaned in to nuzzle over his cheekbone and hum with interest. “And why would that be?”
Cliff tensed a little tighter as he clutched to Jacque. “I’ve ragged on him for years about liking guys and—I really shouldn’t have.”
When things clicked in my mind, I glanced over toward the house, catching a sappy-eyed Rayne staring at us with a half smile. He waved his fingers playfully.
“Rayne! Has my aspect hurt your soul with his words?” I called out and held my chin up.
Rayne’s nose wrinkled. “Pft, no. I’ve called him worse! Get over yourself.”
Turning my gaze back to Cliff, I smiled as he jumped at the sound of the window snapping shut. Rayne’s words, simply put, said all that needed said.
“Can you like, turn into a woman or something?” Cliff stared at the ground in disgust.
“Could. Don’t want to.” I stuck my hands in my pockets and rocked on my heels. “You wanna be a woman?”
Cliff clutched Jacque a little tighter, lips pursed into a flat line. “Not particularly. I mean, nothing against women but—”
“Same. I like this form. You like that form. We exist and we learn to love.” I reached up to give Jacque a scratch under his chin, receiving an affectionate lick in response.
An indignant little cluck broke my focus and we both glanced down at Pecker, who stood staring up at us with beady eyes. Want to mate? He did his proposition dance.
I sneered.
Shit! He squawked and took off running toward the coop.
Thought so. I huffed and Cliff shook his head a little.
“The chicken talks…and I think Jacque talks a little, sometimes, kinda, too,” Cliff said as Jacque turned his head and gave Cliff some of his warning teeth clicks, saying he wanted to be put down. With little hesitation, Cliff obliged. Sometimes it seemed as if Cliff needed Jacque more than the reverse. The hare was nothing more than an outlet for his own insecurities.
“And it will only get better from here. Wait until you hear what plants have to say, the stones, even the clouds in the sky speak if you listen.” Though, I rarely did.
He pondered it for a moment. I’d found Rayne’s mild curiosity endearing and fleeting, but Cliff’s eyes went wide. “Sedimentary stone must be so confused. Like, what is it, even? Is it a thousand voices all at once or a new unified one, as it’s a new stone.”
A soft bunny grunt of annoyance caught my attention, but his fascination with stone turned out to be genuine.
“It’s young and old. It carries the spirit of the old stones but the voice of the new. Cement and bricks are the big yikes ones. Their souls merge and they have no idea their identity.” I smiled and sadness flickered in his eyes, as if the changing of their shape made him sad.
“And asphalt is millions of stones set in the blood of the earth crying out all at once as a road?”
I swallowed hard. “No. A road dies. It becomes a boundary and a path of travel. It wastes away into nothing but something smothering the earth. Oil is a blessing and a curse. Not blood, but the poison is something it ekes to defend itself. Humans just learned to harness it.”
His lips pinched. “That’s so unbelievably sad.”
“It’s a cycle of life and death for all. Many things end before their maximum potential. I’m only glad I can listen occasionally, so no spirit dies unheard.” Big words, I knew. I listened occasionally but not much anymore. Cliff made me want to listen again. “You’ll learn in time. After all, we’ll have until the end of all things.”
The sadness in his eyes didn’t compound as much as it did simmer. “That’s a lot of things to watch die.”
“I suppose I’ve grown cold to it. Death isn’t permanent. It’s a transition. Perhaps spirits go where they need. I’m certain I’ve seen the old come new again.” I offered him my kindest smile that seemed to stir his mood from the angst.
“That’s a bright side.”
“Besides, if you’re that guilty, we can tell Rayne to have more babies. Lots of new life.” I waved my hand about dismissively.
He hesitated for a moment and gave me a half-cocked grin. “I wanted to make fun of him! How did I let him make me feel bad over the gay thing when he literally just had a baby…from there ?”
“Uhhh, let’s not make too much fun of him.” I rubbed the back of my neck and cleared my throat. “I mean, you may want children, too.”
“Yeah…I keep forgetting about that.” He pursed his lips uncomfortably. “Yeah…I wanna tell you flat out no . But like…it’s in my head. I want kids. I’ve got a pet rabbit, for fuck’s sake, and I baby him.”
“You’re not replacing Jacque.” I glanced at the hare and raised a brow. For Jacque’s part, he didn’t seem concerned.
“’Course not. I’m adding onto the family in my head. Like, giving him little siblings and shit.” Cliff waved his hand dismissively before ambling off toward the house, Jacque at his heels.