Chapter 30 Kendra
KENDRA
TWO MONTHS LATER
Ipull the SUV onto the dirt road leading to the Bouda land, and the first thing I see is the framing.
Two months ago, this was just a clearing with a stream and three walls of old-growth forest. Now, timber posts rise from poured foundations, and cleared pathways weave between structures that are beginning to look like the bones of a real village.
Standing in the center of it all is a man: shirtless, axe in his grip, with sweat slicking his back and his ridge extended in the late afternoon sun.
I park and get out and he stops working the second he hears my door close, setting the axe down and crossing the distance to me with that unhurried stride that used to intimidate me and now makes me want to grab his face and kiss him in front of anyone who happens to be watching.The sun will be setting soon, and the ceremony starts in two hours and he looks like he is planning to work until midnight.
“Did you forget?” I ask him, and he shakes his head before I finish the sentence. “I will not be late, Kendra. I have been watching the sun.”
I walk past him and circle the site, studying the layout, how the structures are positioned around a central clearing that I realize is meant to be a gathering space, the paths that lead toward the stream, the larger foundation at the far end that I suspect is meant for us.
Levi’s influence is everywhere in the exactness of the joints and the straightness of the posts, but the design is all Kojo, the spacing between buildings wide enough for a Bouda in full shift to pass through without brushing the walls, the sightlines open, the whole layout built for a people who need to see the sky.
“I’m impressed.” I turn back to him and mean it. “You’ve done so much in two months.”
He smiles, but it’s different from the guarded looks he gave me in the early weeks. This one reaches his eyes and stays there, unhurried and warm. When I walk back to him, he pulls me close as his mouth finds mine. The kiss is easy and familiar, exactly what I needed after the long drive.
We have a rhythm now, a balance between his world and mine that neither of us has to force.
He still texts from that phone Amari gave him---slow messages with perfect punctuation that make me laugh every time.
On my end, I’ve learned the Bouda greeting.
The first time I performed the fist-to-chest bow, Zaki’s ridge went flat for three full seconds before she recovered.
I still smirk at the memory of how I thanked him for the laptop, bent over our bed with his hands gripping my hips hard enough to leave prints for two days.
He pulls back from the kiss and his nostrils flare and his arms tighten around me and I can feel the heat in his body spike — two months has not dimmed his response to me at all, if anything it has gotten worse.
“Do you need me?” he asks.
I slap his chest playfully and step back. “I have to go. Zaki will kill both of us if I’m late.”
“Something else is bothering you, my queen.” He says it without letting go of my hand, and I realize I stopped flinching at that title weeks ago. I rub the claim mark on my neck with my free hand.
“The bond isn’t complete.” I say it looking at his chest because looking at him while I admit this feels like too much.
“When will I claim you? I’ve been waiting for it to happen, for the pull to tell me it’s time, and it doesn’t come.
It doesn’t feel right taking the role as your queen without it. ”
He lifts my chin with one finger and his amber eyes hold mine and the tenderness in his features is so open I have to fight to hold his gaze. “My love for you is enough.”
The words land in me and I go still. I look up at him and my voice comes out smaller than I intend. “You love me?”
“Yes.” He takes my palm and presses it flat to his chest, right over the place where his heart beats, and I can feel it speeding up under my palm, the rhythm climbing from the contact. “I love you. It is not only the mate bond that pulls me to you, Kendra. It is also my love for you.”
II grab the front of his shirt with both hands and pull him down to me and the kiss is deeper this time, urgent and full and carrying everything I have been holding back for weeks.
Zaki’s cackle rips through the trees and splits the moment in half. She leaps from the canopy and lands barefoot on the cleared ground between two foundation posts, ridge fully spiked, silver-ringed eyes locked on both of us with open exasperation.
“You will not be late for the ceremony.” She hisses at Kojo and points toward the road.
“Go to the cabin. Get cleaned up. If I arrive at Zohar Pride and you are not there, I will drag you by your ridge.” She turns to me and points at the SUV.
“If you do not drive to Zohar Pride in the next ten minutes, I will carry you there myself.”
Kojo looks at me and I look at him and we both start laughing at the same time, and Zaki’s ridge twitches once before she turns and disappears back into the trees without another word.
The garment is too tight. I stand in a tent at the edge of Zohar Pride territory, twisting in the mirror, pulling at fabric that Jackie clearly designed for a woman who doesn’t eat Zaki’s portions at every meal.
The dress is beautiful, woven cotton dyed with deep indigo and ochre, draped across my shoulders and cinched at the waist in the style Zaki described to the seamstress in a three-hour session that nearly made Jackie cry.
But the cinch is cutting into my ribs and I can’t take a full breath.
“It does not matter,” Zaki says behind me, her hands working beads into my pinned hair. “My brother will tear it from your body tonight anyway.”
“Zaki.” I close my eyes and count to three, which is the maximum amount of patience I have left for this woman and her complete inability to leave my sex life alone.
She clicks the last bead into place. She is placing the old world in my hair, and the weight of that isn’t lost on me even if the dress is trying to suffocate me.
Zaki finishes and walks around to stand in front of me, and then she drops to one knee, ridge flattening, head bowing, and the gesture stops my breath more effectively than the dress ever could.
“What are you doing?” I ask, and she doesn’t lift her head.
“It is an honor to have you as my queen.” Her silver-ringed eyes are fixed on the ground. “Officially.” I tell her to get up but she doesn’t move.
“You must give me permission.” She doesn’t move, and I understand this isn’t a request but the ritual itself, the way it was done on the highland when the Matriarch blessed her warriors — the same gesture Kojo described to me in the quiet hours when he told me about the queen who touched his head and called him sister-son.
I reach down and smooth my palm over the crown of Zaki’s head, and the warrior rises with a grin that transforms her entire face.
“Now.” She straightens and her grin sharpens. “Let us go crown you so you can focus on your mating ritual. I do not know what is taking you so long to become pregnant. I will not leave this land until a cub is in your belly.”
“Zaki, I swear to god, would you please stay out of my sex life.” I fuss at her and she doesn’t even blink. “Just wait until you find your mate. I’m going to harass you so badly you’ll wish you never opened your mouth about my---“
She laughs, open and warm and rare enough that I stop mid-sentence to stare at her, and she grabs my arm and pulls me out of the tent and into the night.
The fire is enormous, sitting in the center of a clearing surrounded by Zohar Pride, lion shifters standing in a wide circle with their tails swaying in the warm air, golden eyes bright, the scent of roasting meat and pine smoke and earth filling the night.
Meekah stands at the front, barefoot and enormous, his mane loose, his tail sweeping behind him in the slow arcs that I have learned are his resting state.
Amaya is beside him, small and steady, her hand on his arm.
Kojo stands to the right of the fire in clean clothing, his ridge pressed flat out of respect.
I walk toward the fire and the crowd parts.
Zaki falls into step behind me and to my right, her ridge extended, her eyes sweeping the perimeter.
The lion shifters watch me pass and I feel every one of their gazes and I don’t drop my own.
When I reach the fire, Kojo and Zaki drop to one knee, their heads bowing low.
Meekah steps forward, his massive frame outlined by the fire behind him, and he raises his voice to the crowd.
“One thousand years ago, the Bouda shared a border with the lions of Zohar Pride.” His voice carries across the clearing and his tail punctuates each sentence like it has its own opinion about the pacing.
“Not easy neighbors. Clever, stubborn, refused to lose an argument even when they were wrong, which was often.” He waits out the murmur of laughter from his pride.
“But loyal. When the Great Lean Years came and my ancestors starved, the Bouda brought meat to our border and did not ask for payment. When poachers came for our cubs, they fought beside us and asked only for the right to eat first.” The humor drops from his voice.
“Humans who feared what they could not control destroyed the Bouda. Burned the village. Murdered the Matriarch. Scattered the bloodline to the wind.” He looks at Kojo and then at Zaki and his tail goes still.
“Two survived and carried the memory of an entire people across an ocean and into this forest, and they did not break. Tonight, we honor that survival by welcoming the Bouda queen.”
Zaki rises and steps forward to stand beside Meekah. “I present Kendra, mate of Alemayehu, chosen of Mother Fate, to the fire and the gathered.” Her silver-ringed eyes find mine across the flames. “She is our Matriarch. She is our queen.”