Chapter 16
Sixteen
Fawn was dipping her waterskin into a small mountain stream when she heard it:
A twig snapping. The only noise in the otherwise tranquil morning.
Fawn sat up, looking around warily. She wasn’t far from the cave. If Errol had found them, Zax would be able to smell them… right? She still wasn’t sure how far his range went.
She stood cautiously, tucking her waterskin into her pocket. She took a step toward the cave, only for another cracking sound to echo around the mountain.
Fawn broke into a run. Her ankle twinged, but she ignored it. She was so close to the cave. If she could just reach Zax—
A huge shape rushed her from behind. Before Fawn could even scream, she was shoved into the ground, her back colliding hard with the mossy stones.
“Sorry,” Zax blurted, his eye glowing hugely as he stared down at her in shock. “You were not meant to run! You know how I get when people run.”
Fawn laughed, relieved. She was shaking with adrenaline, still panting from her brief run after resting with her foot up for so long. “And you should have said something! I thought I was getting snuck up on.”
“You looked so beautiful,” Zax said. “I got distracted.”
Fawn laughed again. He was still on top of her, though the pressure had lessened.
She squirmed underneath him, knowing she should ask after his wounds, or whether he had tracked any of the men who were following them, or how far they were from his brother.
But there was a fluttery heat invading her stomach.
How many times had she imagined this very scenario, her fear and desire tangling together until she couldn’t pry them apart?
She rubbed her legs together unconsciously. Zax’s purple eye widened again, and she knew he could smell her growing arousal.
“Fawn?” Zax said.
Fawn considered. If anyone did try to sneak up on them, Zax’s nose would give them ample warning.
Plus, he had mentioned these mountains were hard to navigate.
Plus, they would be so nervous about encountering the dark magics everyone whispered about when they spoke of this mountain—surely that would slow their search.
“Do it,” Fawn said quickly. “Take me just like we talked about. Just don’t rip my dress, they’re hard to come by around here.”
Zax stared at her in disbelief. Then he growled so deeply that it sent a thrill down Fawn’s spine. He kissed her, pinning her hard against the mossy ground.
“Tell me—” Fawn cut off with a gasp as he kissed her again. She let herself get lost in the kiss for a second—she had taught him well—and then pulled him back by his broken horn. “Tell me more about how you would chase me through the forest.”
“I wish you did have claws,” Zax said in a rush. “And fangs, like you dream of. You could fight back. Not a true fight. A play fight, like my brothers did with me when I was young.”
It wasn’t what she was expecting. But she felt that same glorious rush she had felt in the cave when she had spoken of wanting claws and fangs, a silly fantasy that she had never thought much about until Zax came along.
“Yes,” she said, grinding up against him and feeling his cocks swell under his loincloth. “Oh, yes. I’d—I’d fight.”
She imagined it as he growled against her neck: playful, lively fighting.
She had never fought before Zax. The first time might have been when she tried to stab him after he ate her husband.
And then against the Circle when they held her back.
The idea of a play fight—the same way that this was playing, all the excitement and none of the danger—made something light up inside of her.
She thought she would never play again after she grew up, but here she was, playing make-believe and loving it.
“I would fight back,” she said, her mind full of imagined satisfaction at the idea of swinging at him with all her strength: blood pumping, breath hitching, feeling so bright and alive as he pinned her.
“But you would overpower me,” she continued. “Even if I clawed you. Even if I bit. You would still hold me down.”
“Always,” Zax said.
He gathered her wrists and held them above her head. Then he pushed her dress up, squeezing her thigh. Only her good leg, even though her ankle was almost healed now. Fawn loved how attentive he was.
She let herself enjoy the weight of him on top of her. Then she struggled against him, just to feel him press her down harder.
“Would you let me win?” she asked. “If I asked?”
Zax rubbed his cocks against her thigh. “I would do anything if you asked.”
“Say it again.”
“I would do anything,” Zax repeated obediently, his voice ragged as he lifted her good leg and positioned his lower cock against her hole. “Anything.”
With that, he pressed in. It ached, her hole stretching to take the width. But after several tentative presses, his pointed cockhead slipped inside.
“Fawn,” Zax groaned, rocking into her until he was as fully seated as he could get, his upper cock rubbing purposefully against her swollen clit. “My love. My fleeing doe. My sweet, rageful wife.”
He made her come like that, muffling her cry with his kisses. And he came shortly after, his grip trembling around her wrists. He panted against her hair, and Fawn felt a hazy excitement as she waited to take his second cock.
But as he was positioning his upper cock against her, he froze, his head snapping up. “Someone is near.”
After they hastily smoothed down their clothes, they crept toward the noise.
“It is just one,” Zax whispered. “The woman. She is humming.”
Fawn frowned. They really brought Chastity with them? Why? She wouldn’t have volunteered, and she doubted they would let her come. Then again, maybe the big, strong men needed someone to do their laundry and cook their food on their hunt.
Fawn kept walking until she could hear it: slow, familiar humming.
It was a song from her childhood, one she herself had hummed while she did chores.
For most of her life, she thought it was a tune that everyone hummed.
Then she ventured into the world, and no one outside her town had ever heard of it.
Fawn crouched behind a wall of rocks with Zax looming behind her, his head ducked so he fit behind it. Then Fawn peeked out.
It was Chastity. She was washing a pair of breeches in the shallow mountain stream. Her severe face was pinched, stressed even as she hummed. There was a reason why Fawn had been so bewildered to see her smile when she tried to comfort her a few days ago.
Fawn turned back to Zax. Stay here, she mouthed.
Zax cocked his head, uncomprehending.
Fawn pointed at the ground. Pointed at him. Raised her brows.
Zax huffed. But he settled against the ground, his tail lashing and his eye keen. If anything came for her, he would protect her. Fawn knew it in her bones.
She stepped out from behind the rocks. “What are you doing here, Chastity?”
Chastity gasped and whirled, the damp breeches slapping into her skirts. She didn’t look down at them, annoyed, as Fawn expected. She only stared at Fawn, her thin lips sealing into the disapproving expression Fawn had gotten so much of since she married Chastity’s darling eldest son.
“I think the proper question,” Chastity hissed, “Is what are you doing here? Errol said you went voluntarily. Pah! I don’t believe it. Men and their bruised egos. There must be another reason. For you are a sensible woman, Fawn. A sweet woman.”
“I am still those things,” said Fawn, although she doubted it.
A sensible woman wouldn’t beg a Skullstalker to chase her through the woods and pin her like prey.
A sweet woman wouldn’t fantasize about growing claws so she could rip her dead husband’s face to shreds.
But Fawn didn’t care much if she was those things anymore.
What had being a sensible, sweet woman ever gotten her?
A husband who berated her for raising her voice.
She would take being mad and bitter any day.
“I just don’t want to be in a cage my whole life,” Fawn continued. “Surely you must understand.”
“Cage?” Chastity wrung out the breeches she had been washing, still doing chores even in the middle of an argument. “What are you talking about, Fawn? You ran off with a—”
Fawn cut her off. “You know what your sons are like. You hear how they spoke to me. As if I am not my own person but an extension of them, built to smile and make their lives easier. You have been that to them, too! And to everyone in that suffocating town we grew up in. Surely you understand that I would rather be with someone who understands me, who thinks my desires are as important as their own!”
“I have never heard such nonsense,” Chastity said, hushed. She stared at Fawn, her gaunt face twisting with disgust. “Say it’s true, then. Say you have run off with that monster that ate my Renly!”
“I have,” Fawn hissed. “And I will be with him for the rest of your miserable life, and long after your bones are forgotten in the ground!”
Chastity stared at her in horrified silence. Fawn imagined Zax behind the wall of rocks she had left him behind, trying desperately to stop his fuzzy tail from thumping.
“You…” Chastity swallowed, averting her eyes. “You’ve been fooled. There is no other explanation why any woman would possibly want this.”
“I see clearer than ever,” Fawn said icily.
“I am not some child to be manipulated, old woman. And neither are you! You can leave. You can do something else, anything else. Do not go back to that town and be a servant to those men around you. Deferring to them like your thoughts couldn’t possibly be as big as theirs. Leave this place, leave them!”
Her voice kept rising. But she couldn’t help it. Everything she had kept hidden from herself was spilling out, ugly and raw in the mountain air. She had never liked Chastity and her harsh, judging eyes, but she deserved better. Every woman did.
Chastity shook her head, clutching her dripping breeches. “I don’t know what has happened to you! But I-I will pray for you, Fawn. I will pray that you come to your senses, and you return to what is good and decent!”
“Fuck decent,” Fawn said desperately, ignoring the old woman’s scandalized gasp. “Chastity—”
Chastity whirled, and Fawn’s heart sank as she realized what was about to happen.
“SHE’S HERE,” Chastity shrieked. “HERE, SHE’S OVER HERE!”
Fawn swore again. She turned to the wall of rocks behind her, but Zax had already emerged, speeding toward her.
Chastity’s shrieks turned to wordless screams of terror. She stumbled back, slipping in the stream and landing on her ass. There she struggled, desperately trying to scrabble backward, all the while screaming with her terrified eyes fixed on Zax, as if certain she was about to be eaten.
Zax scooped Fawn up. She was already reaching for him, her hands settling easily around his neck.
From far away came the distant sound of men shouting—three of them. Either Errol had convinced the uncertain hunter to venture into the forbidden mountain after all, or he had hired someone else.
Zax ran. The sound of screaming faded, replaced instead by the rough noise of Zax panting in Fawn’s ear as he clutched her close.
He ran for several minutes before finally letting her down. He made a pained noise as he did so, gripping his bandaged side as soon as he was able.
Fawn pushed away her regret long enough to touch the cool skin just above his bandages. “Are you okay? If I missed a petal—”
“You did not,” Zax said. “There is no irritation. It simply aches. But it will heal soon enough.” He touched her cheek. “How are you?”
Fawn sighed. They would have to circle back to the cave and grab their supplies before they continued.
“Fawn,” Zax said. He looked down at her ankle worriedly.
“I’m fine,” Fawn assured him. She rotated her foot. The ankle was still tender, but she would be fine unless she pushed herself too hard. Or, say, stepped oddly on this rocky mountain range.
“I am,” Fawn said as he continued to peer at her in worry. “I just…”
She trailed off. She didn’t know how to explain it.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Chastity’s fearful expression.
Her complete, unwavering belief in the life she had led, and that it was the only way she could have lived.
Once, Fawn believed the same thing. But now she knew otherwise, and she was so deeply saddened about all the girls back in her village.
“I’ll explain later,” Fawn said. “Let’s go get our pack. Then we’ll find your brother.”