Chapter Skye #2
“No, no, it’s alright.” It’s not alright, I can feel how not alright it is.
My purr rumbles through my chest, squeaky but there, and Teddy breathes out.
It’s like I can feel his anxiety lowering with every breath, his head resting on my shoulder as he embraces me, and my own hands drop to his thighs, a little unsure where to hold on.
Minutes pass, settling between us comfortably until Melody snorts.
Teddy picks up the reins, his other hand wrapping around my waist more firmly and giving me the front of the saddle to hold.
“That’s the pommel, keep your hands there, okay?”
“Will it hold me?”
“Baby, that’s where I attach the rope for the steers, it’ll hold you just fine.”
Gripping like my life depends on it, my purr steps up nervously, and Teddy urges her on with his heels.
I don’t expect her to be so bumpy, but it doesn’t take long before I settle into the rocking sway, just enjoying the quiet with my Beta as he takes me up into the woodlands behind the house.
There are trails out here, softened with pine needles and cleared of branches, and I wonder if one of the guys from the pack is out here making sure we have a nice, easy ride.
Relaxing into the saddle, I peer around, noticing how much of the wildlife seems unbothered by the horse.
Birds chirp away, a couple of rabbits watch us, noses twitching from the undergrowth, and my wolf seems content to just watch the world around us pass by.
We stop after a bit, and Teddy leans over my shoulder, breath hot against my ear.
It’s harder to listen to him than I’d like when my Omega instinctively wants to bare her neck for him…
But he’s serious, intent, and I don’t think he even knows how on edge he has me right now.
“There,” pointing between the trees, I’m squinting and struggling until something moves.
A flash of white, and I lock on; it’s a deer of some kind, maybe two.
A big buck with a crown of horns, his glossy coat shining and dark muzzle pointed right at us, “White-tails, pretty common around here. It’s what the shifters mainly hunt when they go out.
” Melody is watching too, her dark ears pricked in their direction, and we all hold our breath until the deer seem to think better of us and bound off.
“I see why you love this place so much,” I murmur to him, leaning back and letting his heat engulf me. Energy fizzes through him, humming like a plucked guitar, and Teddy seems… Happy. Happy like he’s found a piece of himself that he lost along with his leg.
Glancing down at me, he kisses my temple and turns us out of the trees.
We’ve traveled a little way uphill, and we’re looking out over the ranch now, further in the distance than I expected.
The other horses are grazing in the paddocks, and I can see one of the others sitting out on the swing in the garden, though I can't tell which big blond it is between Atlas and Clay. Braving letting go, I wave and giggle as they wave back at me. It hits me now how much I’m enjoying myself around here.
How strictly they’ve stuck to their rules and been patient with me.
Every day that passes here shrinks the voice in my head telling me to run, and I sleep a little easier each night.
Maybe I’m thinking too hard and need to just let my instincts guide me; they’re rarely wrong.
Sliding my hand back, I hit the metal of Teddy’s knee, feeling him stiffen before I wrap my fingers around his thigh instead, clinging with my other hand to the saddle.
“Did any of them tell you?” He whispers, buried against my hair as he turns us back for home, plodding along with Melody’s rolling walk. Shaking my head, I hold him tighter. I don’t want to shatter this moment, but I think… I think he needs to tell me this.
“Would you believe it was a total freak accident? I was taking Bella out,” Bella’s my favorite horse of his, she's got the most beautiful golden palomino coat and looks like a Barbie horse. “Repairing the fences out along the edge down near the Center. It’s so damn stupid, really. She tripped. Wasn’t watching her feet, and I was too busy trying to text the guys to let them know about a wolf I’d seen close to the activity center…
Went ass over head and landed in the broken barbed wire fence.
Got tangled up, and Bella spooked at it when I hauled myself up.
Bolted and dragged me, still attached to the wire.
The wire went taut, and I hit the dirt. Don’t remember much until I opened my eyes and Lucas was there, panicked, trying to put me back together.
” His entire body shudders, but it feels like he’s let a weight go, lighter against me, before he continues, “Nearly died, I’d been out there a while, bleeding out.
My leg was… When the tension caught in the wire, it practically sawed it off.
I was out with one of those fancy smart watches with the GPS, but nobody thought to check it until Bell went crashing back into the barn back home. Now I’m a leg lighter.”
It's meant to be a joke, I think, but it falls flat. I haven’t seen the mass of scars on his leg yet, but he's rolling up the khaki pantshe’s wearing, passed all the fancy mechanical bits, up to where it cups the stump of his thigh, just above his knee.
It’s… Difficult to look at. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, gulping as I twist to get a better look.
Pink and angry, the scars look like slashes against the paler skin here, running up all the way to his hip, branching out.
Gods, the terror he must have felt, the pain, even now.
Cupping his jaw, I pull him to my mouth, the salt of both our tears shared between us as I pour all the promises in the world into this kiss, and purr some more.