Chapter 6 #2
“Or something,” Bennie nodded. “I know Raziel isn’t going to say anything until he’s good and ready. So, it doesn’t do any good to dwell on it.”
“Want me to bite him?” I teased.
“Not particularly. He’d probably let you by with it, but we wouldn’t find out what was going on,” Bennie laughed, opening his car door and then rounding the car to open mine.
Stepping out of the car into the quiet garage massaged something inside my brain.
Sure, it smelled like a big truck in here, but that was sort of comforting.
Back home, most people drove vehicles capable of making the journey down off the mountain and back up again.
The walls of the garage were lined with various tools and shelves full of odds and ends.
A big fridge sat off in a corner surrounded by camping chairs as if the fridge acted as a gathering point at some point in the not so distant past. Bennie grabbed my bag from the trunk where Raziel had put it.
I reached out for it, but he flashed me a sheepish smile that said there was no way in hell he was letting me carry it.
With almost anyone else, I’d have put up a fuss, but it was sort of nice that he wanted to show off for me. Not that the bag was that heavy.
“Did you bring every book you own instead of clothes?” he laughed as we walked from the garage into the kitchen.
“I brought a few outfits and I have money. Had money even before Raziel shoved his at me,” I shrugged.
“Clothes are easier to get on without. Reading though… I mean, I have the ereader and the tablet, but they’re not as cozy.
Sometimes you just want to be cozied up with a physical book. Plus, I only brought my favorites and…”
“Mate, I wasn’t complaining,” Bennie said, stopping my ramble. “I’d carry all your books on my back on foot across the continent if that was the only way to get them here for you. Lucky for us, there are cars, trains, and of course drone delivery and moving services.”
“If we decide to stay here, my family will bring my stuff when they come for our mating feast,” I said. “Hemlock Mountain has a big Temple of Frost too.”
“I’ve visited there. I’m open to traveling,” he said.
I opened my mouth and shut it again. I didn’t have anything to say about traveling. I’d never really done much of it.
Bennie set my bag down on a kitchen chair and we looked around.
On the table, was a huge basket of non-perishable finger food snacks.
Such baskets were commonplace during the matingmoon period where newly met true-mates might forget to eat if they had to order out or cook.
The fridge and pantry were stocked too. Several restaurant menus were held to the fridge by magnets with gift cards taped to them.
“It’s almost like he thinks he’s your sire,” I laughed.
“And I’m older than him,” Bennie laughed.
“This is just how he is. I mean, I bought his truck for his last birthday. So maybe, it’s how we are.
I bought the truck because he was always hauling stuff around and his SUV just wasn’t holding up to the jobs he tried to do and he refused to buy a new one.
After its last repair he donated it to the temple and they use it as back up public transportation when needed. I think its happier there.”
“Yep. That’s why Raziel stuffed us with money. It was tossed around every which way here,” my wolf chimed into my thoughts.
Sure, I hadn’t come broke. Revenue the Sanctuary made was divided per person and since I didn’t spend it on much I was set for a while but I couldn’t imagine just giving my house away or buying someone a very expensive truck for their birthday. I was comfortable but this was different.
“Don’t worry about money,” Bennie said as if he could already read my thoughts. “Really. Don’t. Don’t worry about money or food or anything. If there’s something you need, we’ll get it.”
You could take the wolf out of the Sanctuary but not the Sanctuary out of the wolf. So I had to ask.
“What if I wasn’t me?” I asked and Bennie blinked bemused. “Like what if I was just a stranger who showed up with nothing?”
“Uh… I’d take you to the temple if you were trying to start over because I always get lost in the official offices downtown.
Plus, the temple is more equipped to deal with daily needs than I am.
I mean, that’s an open-ended question because there are a lot of reasons shifters end up here.
But if what you’re really asking is would someone not mated to the son of the leader of the local Temple of Frost get the same treatment, yeah, they would.
They might not get Raziel’s house but as a whole we really do try to abide by the Tenets of Frost. The last one says to be kind to strangers where you can. ”
I spent a lot of time thinking about things like the Tenets of Frost. Would he have included more or been more precise if he knew shifters would reference them even now?
“Have I bored you yet?” Bennie laughed.
“No,” I said and told him what I was thinking about.
And that was how we ended up devouring a snack basket and spending most of the afternoon talking about the Tenets of Frost, the Charge of the Healer, the Call of Juda, and many other ancient texts that were still used and referenced in modern days as instruction manuals about how to act.
At the end of the day there were many worse things to use as your guiding light.
I didn’t strictly follow any of them. I was Sanctuary raised and believed in pulling my weight and asking for help when I couldn’t.
That was the foundation of everything. All lifeforms were connected in that game of give and take.
It was when someone didn’t give or take appropriately that everything fell apart.
Late afternoon found us shifted and curled up together for a nap in the slanting sunshine.
Raziel must’ve liked to sun his dragon, because there was a boulder placed in the perfect spot and since neither of us were nearly as large as he must’ve been in his dragon form, there was more than enough room for us to curl up together.
I was glad Raziel had planned some time for me to settle in before the itinerary started up.
It was the scent of blood that woke me up as the sun dipped low on the horizon.
A freshly hunted deer lay nearby. Bennie was back in his tiger form, squatted down examining his own bite marks on the back of the creature’s neck.
It was a big-ish buck. An eight pointer.
And the poor dead thing smelled delicious.
“I wasn’t sure if you preferred raw or butchered prey,” he said. “It was a pretty clean kill as far as hunting deer goes. We could probably keep the pelt if you wanted.”
I lumbered down, not bothering to shift back yet.
I stretched this way and that before burying my muzzle in the throat of the deer where a lot of blood had pooled.
Bennie had taken the buck out in classic tiger form with a clean neck break from his massive bite.
It smelled good enough to dig into raw but there was something bonding about cleaning and dressing a deer with another person. So, I shifted back and we set to work.
With a fully stocked house some shifters might not have hunted at all, but I appreciated Bennie wanting to show off his hunting prowess before we exchanged our claiming vows.
If I was anything like the rest of my family, we’d probably have at least twins on our first try.
The value of money might fluctuate but hunting skills are for eternity or at least as long as you’re able-bodied.
Plus, I wasn’t about to complain about a fresh kill.
While Bennie started cooking some of the meat on the blacktop I headed into the house and made up some sides.
I roasted some potatoes and cooked up carrots and green beans.
I also grabbed a blanket and a package of buttery-smelling rolls before heading back outside.
The fresh meat was extra juicy and satisfied the wolf who lived inside me. Every huffy sound of pleasure that escaped my mouth as I ate was my wolf whispering ‘Yes, yes. This one could feed our puppies.’
After we finished eating, I washed up the few dishes we had used while Bennie finished up with the kill.
I watched him out the back window as I washed and dried the dishes.
He was gorgeous, moving just as gracefully as a man as he did when he was a tiger.
My mind drifted and I daydreamed about him hunting with my normal hunting party.
The deer would probably see us coming but they wouldn’t expect a tiger to be there too.
The prey would practically fall over. Maybe we could even go after a moose.
I’d only eaten moose a few times in my life.
Usually when one of them broke a leg but they were good eating.