Chapter 11 A Fawn Calling for Her Beast
A FAWN CALLING FOR HER BEAST
Anonymous-
She screamed for him. The little fawn finally cried out for her beast. But he didn’t come fast enough, did he?
She’s crying, clutching a fallen branch like it’s a weapon—my sweet, brave girl.
I stay behind her for a moment, just long enough to watch the panic consume her. Every few steps, she glances over her shoulder. Some part of her knows I'm here, but she keeps running toward his voice.
Her pace starts to slow when the branch she’s holding cuts through her palm. I step into her path just as she stumbles, and her whole body freezes.
There it is, that silence, that split second of pure terror. I wish it didn’t have to be like this, but she has to learn she can’t wander through the words alone. If she knew who was under this mask, it would terrify her, which is why I can’t let her see me.
“Don’t,” she whispers. Voice shaking. “I’ll scream again.”
“You already did,” I murmur. “And he didn’t come.”
She runs from me. I knew she would.
I give her a head start as I glance down at my watch and count to ten. It’s not a fair chase. I barely have to jog before I catch her. One of my hands covers her mouth, “Shh, Lumi. It’s okay,” I whisper as she thrashes in my arms. “I’m just trying to keep you safe—to get you back home.”
I drop a kiss on top of her head. I don’t drug her right away. I want her to feel the care in my hands. I need her to see how gentle I can be when I know she’s safe.
She fights me like she believes she can win—it’s something I’ve always adored about her.
The needle slips in just as she swings toward me.
She crumples in my arms, and I hate the feeling.
I hate that it had to come to this. She’s lighter than I expected—too light.
She barely eats now that Anna’s gone. It’s one of the things I’ve vowed to fix once I have her.
The walk back to my car is longer than the chase, but I don’t mind. I’ve carried far heavier things in my life. The forest is quiet now that the beast’s roaring has stopped, but I know he’s still tearing the forest down in search of her. Even if he finds her, I’ll never allow him to keep her.
I lay her gently in the backseat, buckling her in like the precious cargo she is.
The drive to her apartment is muscle memory. I’ve made this trip a thousand times—watching her windows, checking her locks, making sure she’s safe when she doesn’t even know I’m there.
A soft murmur sounds behind me. I reach back and brush a strand of hair from her face. “Almost home, little dove,” I whisper.
I grab her spare key from beneath the chipped ceramic frog next to her welcome mat. I would have taken it by now, but she misplaces her keys at least twice a week, and I can’t have her stuck outside alone in this area.
She left the hall light on, which makes the path to her bedroom easier to navigate— though I could find it with my eyes closed.
We make a pit stop in the bathroom so I can clean the wound on her hand.
Once that’s taken care of, I take off her shoes and get her tucked into bed.
I set her boots in the closet next to the others so she can find them when she wakes up.
I want to stay and watch her sleep, but she needs rest.
I place three things on her nightstand before I leave: a single sheet of paper from her journal, perfectly folded; a cup of chamomile tea I made in her favorite mug, steeped just the way she likes it; and beneath it, one of my leather gloves, so she knows I was here. That I watched over her.
Maybe now she’ll understand that I was never the monster.
Andrik-
The trees part as I crash through them, ice blooming in my wake like veins branching across the earth.
Her scent was just here, and now it's gone—a clean, brutal severing, like she’s been yanked from this world.
My paws dig into the snow where her footsteps vanish, claws digging carefully to make sure she didn't fall underneath the churned-up snow. There are no signs of a struggle—no scream, no bloodstains. Just emptiness and a single boot print, slightly deeper than the rest, far too large to be Lumi’s.
I wasn’t fast enough.
She wasn’t safe with me.
I failed her.
“Ves’thra...ves’thra svarin ves, Sael?n!” (Please… please answer me, Soulbond.)
The wind shifts, and the whisper of a scent ghosts along it, unnatural and sharp—a sedative. The bastard drugged her.
I lower my snout to the ground and inhale deeply. A thread of her, pulling me forward like a tether through the dark.
I devour the distance in fifteen minutes of dead-sprinting. I shift in and out of form—hooves pounding earth, claws scraping pavement, bones splitting and reforming as I tear through the last of the trees and into the stale, reeking concrete of the city.
Her scent pulls me to a brick building.
The air is foul, stripping the magic from my fur and muffling the true whispers of the world. Every step on this pavement is a denial of what I am.
I am exposed and dangerously far from my domain, but she is here, so my domain can burn.
The door isn’t locked and opens easily under a slight push. The second I cross the threshold, wrongness floods my senses, thick as oil—no movement or sound, just a crushing, unnatural quiet and a chemical scent clinging to the walls.
I move down the hall, and every nerve blazes louder with each step I take. The last door on the left is cracked open, and a small shape lies on the bed. I step closer.
It’s her
She’s tucked in like a child; her stillness is unsettling. She’s still clothed, her hands limp at her sides, head turned toward the window—seeking a rescue that didn’t come fast enough.
“Lumi,” I breathe, but she doesn’t answer. “Veyr’kai thalún, sael?n—etra’kai ves, kael’varin ar’veskaeI.” (Please, keep her heart beating–I will be your pawn forever.)
I sink down beside her bed, my massive shoulders crowding her space. My claws curl into her sheets, anchoring myself to this moment. Her skin is ice-pale, her breathing a wisp of smoke.
“Thrae’vren ves...mail’miron ves aek’kai. Kael’thorin ves’kai—veyl?n thar ves’mirae. Thal’kai ves skar... sael?n, ael’morin ves’kae narh-valen.” (Do not take her from me… I beg you with everything I am. Let my life pay the price… Soulbond, I am yours until death and beyond.)
Something inside me fractures, a soundless, final break. Then her lips twitch, a small desperate tremor, and a whisper escapes, quiet as breath on frozen glass: “Andrik...”
“Kael-resha...” The word falls from my lips. (Thank you.) “Veyr’thalin ves saevrin... kael-resha,” I whisper—to the forest that bound me, to the gods who judged me, to whatever ancient thing listens to beasts like me. “Thank you... for letting her stay.” (Sacred blood, find mercy. I honor you.)
I press my hand to her cheek. She leans into it—barely. Like a leaf turning toward the sun.
She is here.
She is alive.
The sheer relief threatens to drown the anger, but someone took her from me. Past the forest, past my wards, past me.
The chemicals may have masked her scent, but I still failed. I couldn’t protect her.
My eyes scan over her body, searching for the wound I smelled in the woods. Her hand is neatly bandaged. He cleaned her wound?
A familiar scent drifts by—chamomile. I turn and see a mug on the nightstand. Next to it lies a folded piece of paper. I snatch it so quickly that the paper crumples in my palm. Three words written in what I know is her blood:
I could have.
I realize what the words mean as soon as I read them. He didn’t want her dead; he wanted me to know that he had access to do whatever he wanted to her.
I brush her hair back, gently. My voice is thick with unshed ice. “I’m here now. You’re safe. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. Veyr’kael ves skrae’thrin... Sael?n. Thal’kai ves’karan ael’vesh rae’nai.” (Let the gods judge me as they will, soulbond. You deserve a mate greater than I am.)
I glance at the tea he made for her. “If she wants warmth,” I murmur, taking the mug into my hands. “It will come from me—not from a male too pathetic to show his face.”
I hurl it across the room. Glass shatters against the floor, but she doesn't budge.
I notice the leather glove still lying on the table near where the mug sat; her scent is all over it.
He left it for me.
A message: I touched her. I could have taken her. I didn’t, but I can.
He wants me to chase him, but will not leave my Sael?n.
I lean down, forehead against hers, breath shaking as I whisper a promise into her skin: “Velorin...kaemorin.”