Chapter 20 Kojo
KOJO
The axe splits the log clean down the center, and both halves fall away from the block into the snow. I reach for the next piece and set it upright, adjusting my grip on the handle before bringing it down again. The rhythm is good. Simple.
Behind me, Kendra sits on the porch. I can feel her there without turning.
Alemayehu. My Bouda’s voice cuts through the rhythm of the axe. Did you hear Zaki before she left? Our mate. She has gotten aroused for us.
I bring the axe down harder than necessary. The log explodes into three pieces instead of two.
Do not pretend you did not notice, my Bouda continues, and there is a sound in his voice I have not heard in a very long time. He is laughing. I have dreamed of this, Alemayehu. Cubs of our own. Cubs I can teach to hunt, to track, to read the wind. Do you understand what she is offering us?
I understand. I understood the moment Zaki mentioned Kendra’s arousal on her way out the door with that look on her face, half amused and half disgusted that she had to be the one to say it. But understanding and acting are separated by a canyon I will not cross without permission.
I set another log on the block. My Bouda surges forward before I can swing, flooding my arms with his urgency, and the axe freezes mid-arc. My hands lock on the handle and a growl.
“What are you doing?” I mutter through clenched teeth.
Put the axe down, Alemayehu. Breathe in. Do you not smell it? She needs us.
The wind shifts, carrying her scent from the porch. Rain on dry earth, wild honey, and beneath it, something my body recognizes before my mind does. My ridge twitches once and I press it flat with effort.
“That may be so,” I say quietly, keeping my back to her so she cannot see my mouth moving, “but we have not been given permission.”
And it will be another century before we become a father. His voice drops, heavy with longing. We are the last. She is the only one who can give us what our kind needs to survive.
I groan and drive the axe into the block, leaving it there. He is not wrong. The math of our extinction is simple, and it haunts me. But I will not let desperation override respect. She is my queen. She will come to me when she is ready, and not one moment before.
I gather logs into my arms, enough for the night and the morning after. I turn toward the cabin and start walking, my bare feet pressing into the snow without complaint, and I stop at the bottom of the porch stairs when I see her.
She is shivering. Her arms are crossed over her chest and her breath fogs in front of her face, and she is sitting in the cold like she does not realize it could hurt her. I frown.
“My...” The word catches. I clear my throat, irritated at the stumble. She has asked me not to call her majesty. “Kendra. This weather is not suitable for you. Please come inside.”
She shrugs, unbothered. “I was born and raised in Michigan. I’m used to this kind of weather.
” She tilts her head back and looks up at the sky, where the clouds have thinned enough to show patches of pale grey.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to just sit on a porch and enjoy the fresh air. ”
She sighs, and I watch the fog of it leave her lips and dissolve. Something in her posture shifts, loosening.
“Being here makes me realize just how hard I’ve been working,” she says. “Like no real time to just enjoy life, you know?”
I nod because I do know. Three years running, hiding, scavenging through cities that were not mine.
Not once did I sit still long enough to feel the air on my face without calculating an escape route.
Wintermoon is the first place since the highlands where I have breathed without counting the seconds until the next threat.
I climb the stairs slowly, the wood groaning beneath my weight, and she watches me come. Her eyes track the logs in my arms first, then move to my chest, where the shirt is stretched thin enough to show the shape of what is beneath it. She does not look away.
Well, my Bouda observes, amused despite his earlier frustration. This mate of ours is different. She does not want to do the commanding. She wants to be commanded. You will have to push her, Alemayehu.
“I cannot do that,” I murmur.
Kendra tilts her head. “Can’t do what?”
I stop at the top of the stairs, arms full of wood, caught between my Bouda’s voice and hers. “I was speaking to my Bouda. Forgive me.”
Her lips curl at the edges. She leans forward in the chair, resting her elbows on her knees. “And what is your Bouda saying about me?”
She is playing with us, Alemayehu, my Bouda says, and his voice is urgent now, almost frantic. Play along. Say something charming. Do whatever you must so that I can have my cubs.
“Nothing but compliments,” I tell her.
She smirks. Her eyes narrow, and I can see she is not buying the lie. She knows what my Bouda is saying about her. She can probably feel it in the bond the same way I can feel her pulse quicken from three feet away.
I hold up the wood. “I am ready to start the fire for you, Kendra.”
“Okay.”
I wait. She does not move. She crosses one leg over the other and leans deeper into the chair, watching me with an expression I cannot read and do not trust. I stand there holding enough firewood to heat the cabin for two days and she sits there like the porch belongs to her, which, I remind myself, it does.
“Well,” she says, waving a hand toward the door, “you can go take care of that. I’ll be in in a little while.”
A sound rises in my throat that is dangerously close to a whimper. My Bouda snaps to attention. Say it, Alemayehu. Say what you want, or I will take over and carry her inside myself. You have three seconds.
“I want you to come inside with me.” The words come out rough, more command than request, and I regret them the moment they leave my mouth.
Kendra raises an eyebrow. She does not look offended. She looks pleased. “Are you asking me, or are you telling me?”
I do not know what to do with this question.
My Bouda is supposed to help me in moments like these, but he is laughing again, a low and unhelpful sound that rumbles through my ribs.
You do not know how to play the game, Alemayehu.
You are a hunter, not a suitor. But she is teaching you, and you are failing beautifully.
“I want you to come inside with me,” I say again, and this time I do not apologize for the authority in my voice. She asked for it. I am giving it.
Her smile widens. She stands from the chair. “Hmm. I like that. The authority in your tone.” She holds my gaze and says, “Alemayehu.”
My name in her mouth. She says it like she has been practicing the syllables, rolling them across her tongue to see how they taste, and the sound of it makes me suck in a breath so sharp that my ridge lifts an inch before I can press it down.
She walks toward me, close enough that I can feel the cold radiating off her skin. Her hand comes up and presses flat against my chest, right over the place where the bond burns hottest. My arms are full of firewood and I cannot touch her back and she knows it.
Then she opens the door and steps inside, leaving me on the porch with an armful of logs and a Bouda who will not stop laughing.
You see? he says. Was that so difficult?
I shake my head and follow her in, pulling the door shut against the cold.
* * *
Kendra is standing at the kitchen counter with Zaki, and the argument has already started. I set the logs by the fireplace and begin building the fire while their voices carry across the room.
“Chicken is protein, Zaki. Processed or not, it’s still food and I’m not letting you stop me from cooking a meal in my own kitchen.”
My sister’s ridge twitches. “That meat has been dead for weeks. It has been frozen, thawed, packaged in chemicals, and shipped across the country in a truck. It is not food. It is an insult to your body.”
Kendra ignores this. She pulls the leftover chicken from the refrigerator and sets it on the counter, then turns to Zaki with the look of a woman who has decided this is her hill.
“Alright. I’ll meet you halfway.” She points at my sister. “You prepare fruit, but I’m still eating my chicken. That’s the deal.”
Zaki holds the standoff for three full seconds before her jaw unclenches.
She turns to the refrigerator without another word and begins pulling out strawberries, slicing them with more force than the task requires.
The blade hits the cutting board like she is preparing for battle, which, knowing Zaki, she probably believes she is.
I arrange the kindling and light the fire, coaxing the flame until it catches and holds. By the time the fire is steady, Kendra has fixed her plate, and Zaki has assembled another bowl of fruit. They finish at the same moment, and Zaki begins setting the table.
Kendra walks past with her plate, crosses the room, and sits on the sofa. She sets the plate in her lap and picks up a piece of chicken with her fingers.
Zaki stares at the empty chair she just pulled out. Her ridge spikes once, the calcified blades extending a full inch before she forces them down. I keep my expression neutral, though my Bouda finds this endlessly entertaining.
“So,” Kendra says between bites, looking over at me. “What does a queen actually do for the Bouda clan? Like, what’s the job description?”
I rise from the fireplace and brush the ash from my hands. This is a question I have been waiting for, and I choose my words carefully---the answer matters more than she knows.