Chapter 22 Kojo #2
Meekah goes quiet. His tail stops swaying. He looks to me, and I nod once, confirming what he suspects.
“Are there others?” he asks.
“Zaki. She is in the spa with King Amir.”
His face saddens. He steps forward and places his large hand on my shoulder. “She wouldn’t listen,” he says. “She wouldn’t come here.”
“We stood for our land. Our culture. Our roots.” I hold his gaze. “It cost us everything.”
“I am sorry, Alemayehu.”
I bow my head and let the weight rest on me---the grief I have been carrying since the smell of frankincense mixed with my Matriarch’s blood on her own altar. Kendra moves closer, her shoulder pressing into my arm.
My Bouda remembers a different time. Many wet seasons ago, when I intercepted a hunt that strayed onto Bouda territory.
Meekah’s lionesses had chased an elk across the boundary line, and I met them at the ridge with my cackle ready.
The lionesses fell back. Meekah did not.
We circled each other for ten minutes, two primal predators measuring the distance between a territorial dispute and an alliance, and in the end we split the elk and ate on opposite sides of the same fire.
His pride brought water from the river. Our clan brought frankincense to burn.
We miss those days, my Bouda says.
“One day we will return to our mainland and claim what is ours,” Meekah says, releasing my shoulder.
“I pray to Mother Fate for that day.”
He looks at Kendra. “I have a human mate and cubs of my own. There is much for us to catch up on. Visit my pride.” His gaze shifts back to me. “Have you completed the ceremony for your matriarch?”
Kendra tilts her head. “What ceremony? We’ve been here only three days.”
“It is the customary feast for a new matriarch,” I explain. “But no. It is only me and Zaki. Zaki is planning to search for more Bouda.”
Meekah’s gaze lifts past my shoulder and his features shift.
I catch the scent a half second later---petrichor.
Zaki stands behind us in new clothing, a fitted top and draped fabric at the waist that carries the silhouette of her traditional garments.
The seamstress’s work. Her silver-ringed eyes are fixed on Meekah with a confidence that borders on challenge.
“Meekah of Zohar Pride,” she says. “You look older.”
His tail twitches. “And you look like you have been shopping.”
“The seamstress is talented. She understood what I needed without excessive questioning.” Zaki folds her arms. “Unlike the wolves here, who ask twelve questions before fetching a glass of water.”
“The wolves ask twelve questions because they need eleven of them to understand the first.” Meekah’s tail sweeps behind him. “Lions ask once and act.”
“And yet it took your pride six attempts to catch that elk on our border.” Zaki’s lip curls. “My brother intercepted it on his first.”
His jaw sets and for a moment the two of them stand three feet apart radiating energy. Then his tail lifts from its arc and drifts toward her, the tuft brushing against her cheek with a gentleness that does not match anything else about the man attached to it.
Zaki closes her eyes. Her arms fall to her sides, her shoulders drop, and the tension that has held her upright since the night our village burned drains out of her in a single exhale. A tear escapes and runs down her cheek, following the path Meekah’s tail just traced.
The market noise fades. I do not hear the vendors or the footsteps or the clang of the ironmonger three stalls over. I hear my sister’s silence, and it is louder than anything her cackle has ever produced.
“Oh, Zaki.” Meekah steps forward and wraps his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. She lets him. She stands inside his arms and lets herself be held, and her shoulders shake once.
Our sister is breaking, Alemayehu, my Bouda says, his voice cracked. I know, Bouda. I know.
I look at Kendra. Her eyes are wet and she is pressing her lips together. “Zaki---“ she starts, but Meekah catches it. He pulls back from Zaki in a movement that looks natural but is not, redirecting Kendra’s attention before the grief can take root.
Zaki clears her throat and wipes her face. She squares her shoulders. I have never seen her cry. My sister is one of the strongest women of our clan. If anyone should have broken by now, it should have been me.
“You must be strong for your queen,” Meekah says, his hand on Zaki’s shoulder. She sniffles.
“No, she doesn’t.” Kendra says it flat and certain.
Meekah looks at Kendra for a long moment. Then he turns back to Zaki. “Come to Zohar Pride. We will capture a fresh elk for you, and we can enjoy it over a fire. Talk about old times.”
Meekah is waiting for us to back him up, my Bouda says.
I nod and wrap my arm around Kendra’s waist, looking down at her. “Your items are in the market. We must take them to our cabin.”
She smiles at that. I can smell in her scent that she understands. This moment is for Zaki.
She walks over to Zaki and looks up at her. “See you tomorrow?”
Surprise flickers across my sister’s face, then softens into recognition. She bows her head. “Yes, Kendra.”
Meekah’s tail wraps around Zaki’s waist and they start walking. He leans toward her, his voice dropping. “Let me tell you how wonderful the Pridebound Games are this year compared to those wolf shifters. Absolutely pathetic. Their footwork alone is an embarrassment.”
Zaki lets out a sound that is almost a laugh. “The wolf shifters are clueless and undisciplined. They run off too much emotion. It is why they lose so easily.”
The sound of Zaki’s laugh reaches me from halfway across the market, and my Bouda and I both exhale.
I look at Kendra. She is smiling, watching them go. “I think I’m beginning to really like Wintermoon,” she says.
I smile at her. She turns and starts walking back to the store, and I follow. Inside, I grab the bags from the counter before her hands can reach them. She leans in and presses a kiss against my arm, and we walk out together.
At the SUV, I open the rear door and set her things on the seat. She climbs into the driver’s side and starts the engine. “Will you ride with me?”
I look at the vehicle. My body still remembers four days of pressing my back against a door just to feel air, and the thought of sitting inside another metal box makes me cringe. But I do not want her to feel rejected.
“I’m not commanding you, Kojo.” Her voice is easy, unbothered. “Would you rather run behind me instead?”
I nod, and the relief must show on my face because she grins. “Okay. I’ll watch you from the mirror.”
“I will follow behind you.” She rolls the window down as I close the door. The vehicle backs up, then pauses, and she leans toward the window. “Wait. Amir said you could run for hours.” She frowns slightly, turning it over. “You don’t get tired?”
I bow my head to her, and she mutters “annoying” at the gesture, but the grin breaks through.
“The Bouda can run sixty miles per hour for up to eight hours at a time. This is how we tire out our prey when we hunt. We chase them until they have nothing left.”
She stares at me. “That’s insane, Kojo.” She laughs, pulls out of the parking spot, and turns the vehicle onto the road.
I break into a run. My bare feet hit the wet road and my furnace compensates within a second, heat rolling off my skin in the evening air.
The SUV moves ahead at a pace that would be a sprint for a human and a warmup for a Bouda, and I settle into stride behind her.
She checks the mirror every fifteen seconds.
The spa building passes on my left. That facility reminds me of the congregating halls for the women in our village, my Bouda says. Our queen may use it for her meetings when the clan grows. Then, after a pause: This is a good time for her to meet me. She has been asking. She is ready, Alemayehu.
He is right.
The community lands come into view as the road curves between the pines.
The snow has melted from the paths but clings to the rooftops in patches, and the late afternoon light turns everything gold and gray.
I slow my pace and drift off the road into the treeline, watching her taillights through the trunks.
“Okay,” I say, and my voice comes out rough. “I am nervous. What if she---“
She cannot build trust if she cannot see all of us. She accepted the man. She has not yet accepted the beast.
I nod and surrender the reins. The shift takes me the way it always does, bones cracking, my body curving and compressing until it is no longer mine.
My Bouda stretches into his full form, his paws hitting the wet ground, the last patches of snow melting on contact.
The world restructures itself around a nose that can separate a hundred scents in a single breath.
Kendra pulls in front of the cabin and cuts the engine. She steps out quickly, looking around the clearing with the alertness she carries when she cannot see me. The pull. She feels my absence before she identifies it.
My Bouda lets out a low cackle, a signaling frequency, soft enough to travel without startling. She yelps. Her head turns toward the trees and her body stiffens, feet planted. The sky is going from gold to gray.
She does not run.
He steps out of the treeline slowly, one paw at a time, his ridge held flat against his back, the equivalent of empty hands, and lowers his body into a sitting position on the wet earth. She looks directly into his eyes.
“Kojo?” Her voice comes out quiet, and my Bouda dips his head in a slow nod. She steps toward him, her eyes alight with wonder, and crouches down with her hand extended, fingers trembling, reaching toward his snout but stopping short.
Call her to us, Alemayehu. My Bouda lowers his head and lets out a soft cackle, a frequency tuned to the mate bond itself. Kendra gasps as her body moves forward without her permission, startled that his voice could do that.
He lifts his head just enough for her fingertips to brush over his snout. The contact is electric. She drops to her knees and tears well in her eyes, and the expression on her face is a woman who has found something she did not know she was searching for.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispers, and my Bouda presses closer and drags his tongue across her chin. She laughs through the tears and wraps her arms around his neck, her face buried in his fur.
“I can’t believe you’re mine,” she says.
And she is ours.