Chapter 37 Jessa
I rested my head on Tovis’ shoulder and stared into the fire. It had taken hours to deal with the aftermath of the battle. The fighting had lasted less than thirty minutes, but the damage done...
Five turochs had died. Tine, the young male who’d been guarding the stairs to the roof among them.
I felt sick when I’d heard it. I couldn’t have picked Tine out of a crowd, but he’d given his life to protect me and the other humans.
The enormity of coming face to face with his sacrifice drove home just how committed this group was to each other.
In comparison to the five lost turochs, we’d counted fifty-two dead sytos and three more had been taken prisoner. The fight had torn through the tents, and spilled onto the parking lot, leaving blood stains on the asphalt and destroying all the seating and cooking that had been set up.
I’d helped the humans tend to the wounded and clean up the parking lot. We’d burned most the ruined chairs and supplies, and done our best to lay out comfortable spots for the wounded males to recover.
Hunting for fresh meat had been out of the question and Penny had spent hours making giant batches of soup from the canned supplies to feed everyone, while the camp buried their dead and dragged the sytos far enough away we didn’t have to look at them or smell them until a mass grave could be dug.
I looked up at Tovis, his face was swollen and scattered with cuts and bruises.
He was holding himself awkwardly, and I’d heard him tell someone he thought he had broken ribs, but every time I tried to get off him, he’d pull me back despite the pained expression he made when he moved.
I’d finally decided that cuddling him was doing less damage than fighting it.
“Are you alright?” he asked quietly. I reached up and stroked a finger down his long fuzzy ear. It twitched and I stroked it again. If I thought about it, he was so very strange looking compared to a human, but it no longer mattered to me. Long ears, horns, flicking tail, I loved every part of him.
“I am,” I said, feeling vaguely guilty about it. People had died today, a lot of people, but I felt oddly at peace. Despite the danger of today, I felt like I’d been dropped into a puzzle, clicking into place like I was always meant to fit in the space.
“Good.” He nuzzled my temple, breath escaping him on a long sigh.
“Are you okay?” I asked, thinking of the turochs he’d helped bury, and the injuries littering his body.
“I am alive, and I have my mate sitting on my cock,” he teased.
I let myself laugh, because I knew it mattered to him. No matter what the situation, Tovis wanted to make me smile.
“Do you think they’ll come back?” I asked, resting my head under his jaw and winding my arms around his thick neck. I’d never felt safer or more loved than I did in that moment.
“Maybe,” he sighed, fingers tracing idle circles on my hip as we both stared at the dancing flames. “Adak will question the prisoners tomorrow, form a plan. I don’t want to think of it tonight.”
“What do you want to do?”
He hummed, the sound buzzing in his chest. “I want to hold my mate, reassure myself she’s alive. I want to sleep, and wake up to Sal snoring.”
“Sounds nice,” I murmured. Across the fire, Aeko and Hope sat on the dirt, Hope tucked into Aeko’s chest, his legs on either side of her as he rubbed his face against hers, their blond hair tangled together until you couldn’t tell where one being ended and the other began.
Taz and Dargo had disappeared as soon as we stopped cleaning up for the night. From the way they’d been groping each other, I had a feeling they were reconnecting in a much more energetic way than the rest of us.
“Will it always be like this?” I asked.
“Dangerous?”
I shook my head. “I’m starting to understand that risk is a part of life, not the end of it. I mean us, this closeness. Will we get tired of each other? Or will we always want to just sit and be close.”
He was quiet for a moment, but it felt contemplative instead of wary. A few minutes later he kissed my head.
“Not just like this,” he whispered, as if his words were just for me. “Not so new or urgent. But in five years we’ll have stories we can laugh about, memories to share. In ten years, we’ll have children who’ll ask how we met, we’ll tell them about our pasts and learn each other in new ways.”
“In thirty years?” I asked, liking the picture he was painting.
He laughed. “In thirty years I’ll convince you to let me gentle your feet and boast of my prowess to the young males.”
I giggled so hard I woke Sal up from his sprawl on my lap. He let out a sleepy honk and rolled onto his back, fat belly heaving as he fell back asleep.
“Forget thirty years,” I said, looking at the baby who’d double in size in just a week. “We’re going to have to figure out what to do with Sal once he’s too big to pick up.”
“Your war beast,” Tovis said fondly, reaching over to tickle one of Sal’s front feet until it twitched. “He came and found me, led me to you.”
“He did?” I looked up in surprise. “He’s so little, he could have gotten crushed in all the fighting.”
“Little, but protective. I wouldn’t have known you were in danger without him.”
“He called the boars,” I murmured, seeing Sal through new eyes. “How many lives did he save today?”
“Impossible to know. But the boars ended the fight before we could have.”
“Taz wants me to turn him into a guard dog,” I said. “He’s just a baby, but who knows how much he could help keep us safe when he’s grown.”
“You were wise to save him,” Tovis said.
“I didn’t do it because I’m smart,” I answered wryly. “I did it because I’m a softy.”
“I told you, I love your softness,” Tovis whispered in my ear, pressing a kiss to my neck. “Your kindness has saved lives more than once.”
“I love you,” I whispered as he trailed more kisses down my neck. There was no demand in his touch, we were both too tired to take things further. So, I rested against my mate and soaked in his touch and his murmurs of praise and affection as the fire burned low.