Chapter 14 #2
The jibblet gave a startled bleat, lost its grip, and slid down the curved roof in a flailing blur of stripes and indignant squeals, where Kiera caught it in a big net.
“There!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “See? Teamwork!”
Brux had endured another enthusiastic round of praise and petting, though privately he had begun to suspect that Kiera found it far too amusing to watch him do things no self—respecting Lykan warrior ought to be asked to do.
Still…he would do almost anything she asked—anything, to please her.
There were quieter moments too, though…afternoons when the wind moved through the chiming trees and Kiera walked with him through the sanctuary, checking notes on her wrist—screen and talking softly as they went.
Sometimes she sat in the shade of one of the cinnamon—trunked trees and ate her midday meal while Brux sprawled beside her with his head in her lap. Sometimes she read aloud to him from a datapad, telling him facts about one species or another.
He found himself deeply interested in her work–she really loved animals. But even more than that, he adored the sound of her voice and so he listened as though she were revealing the deepest secrets of the universe. Just being near her was enough to make him happy.
And every night they went to the bathing pool.
Brux had quickly learned that Kiera liked to soak in the warm water at the end of the day, often after checking the sanctuary one final time and making sure all the nocturnal enclosures were secure.
She would undress without self—consciousness around him now—why should she have any, when in her mind he was only a very devoted animal companion?
—and slip into the water with a sigh of relief.
Then Brux had to endure the exquisite torture of watching his mate with too little fur and too much beautiful naked skin moving through the warm pool like some kind of goddess.
He tried to be discreet, but he often failed.
The first time she caught him staring openly at her breasts as she washed herself, she had laughed and tapped him lightly on the nose.
“What?” she had asked him, smiling. “Never seen a naked woman before?”
No, Brux had thought instantly. Not one like you. Not one who made his body ache and his heart pound and both his shafts begin to harden with painful urgency.
Worse still were the pleasure blooms.
Kiera didn’t use them every night, thank the Goddess. But she used them often enough that Buck had become half mad with watching and wanting her.
The first time he had seen them had nearly driven him out of his mind—those broad crimson blossoms fastening themselves to her nipples and clit, and the long, waxy blossom sliding into her wet heat while she moaned and arched beneath the trailing branches by the far ledge of the pool.
The second time, he had barked then, trying to drive the offending plant away from her, but it didn’t work. Kiera just laughed breathlessly and told him to mind his business.
Since then, he had tried very hard to maintain some dignity.
So now, when Kiera drifted into the deeper end of the pool where the pleasure blooms grew, Brux generally turned his head aside and pretended to be deeply interested in some rock or moss or decorative plant while his body betrayed him in the most humiliating fashion.
Because no matter how he tried to ignore it, her scent told him everything. He could smell the rise of her desire and the slick, rich sweetness of her arousal.
But even if his nose had told him nothing, his sensitive Monstrum hearing would have supplied the details of what was going on. He heard the breathless little moans she tried not to make. And when he dared to look, he saw the way her body loosened and heated and opened as the blooms tended to her.
Every time, his shafts would slide out of their sheaths and harden until walking became difficult afterward. Every time, he had to hide his face and tell himself sternly that she was not his yet and he must wait.
But that was becoming harder and harder to do. Because with every passing day, Brux felt more and more like himself.
His thoughts were nearly fully restored now. His memories too—though some remained fragmented and painful, especially those involving his lost home and his first mate.
Words came easily in his mind. Reason had returned. Even the old warrior instincts were waking again, sharper and more disciplined than the simple protective animal impulses he had known in the first days after Kiera rescued him.
So why, in the Goddess’s name, could he still not shift to his humanoid form? He should have been able to by now, Brux thought. A Lykan did not simply regain his mind and remain trapped forever in his beast form. Not unless something was wrong.
And something was clearly wrong–Brux could feel it.
Every night, lying beneath the covers with Kiera pressed close against him, he reached inward toward that place where the change began.
He tried to call up his bipedal form. Tried to summon hands instead of paws, speech instead of barks and chuffs–he tried to retrieve the body he needed in order to stand before her as a male and claim her properly.
But every time, something held him back.
It wasn’t weakness and it wasn’t lack of contact—Kiera touched him constantly.
It wasn’t lack of affection either. He had no doubt she cared for him deeply, even if she did not yet know what he was.
No, the block was deeper than that–stronger.
Something in his mind resisted the shift every time it began. Something knotted tight with grief and guilt.
Though Brux tried not to look at it directly, he knew what it was–his first mate.
The memory of her death had returned slowly and in pieces over the week—her laughter first, then the warmth of her body, then flashes of blood and fear and the impossible horror of Darklings pouring through the broken defenses of their world like living nightmares.
He remembered the way she had screamed his name. Remembered trying to reach her. Remembered failing.
And after that…nothing but the long descent into emptiness.
He had already had a mate, and the Goddess granted only one.
So what did it mean that Kiera had pulled him back from the void? What did it mean that she smelled so right? That her touch healed his mind? That every instinct in him screamed that she was his?
Sometimes, lying awake in the darkness with her sleeping at his side, Brux wondered if he was somehow committing blasphemy simply by wanting her.
But then she would sigh in her sleep and press her lush, warm body against him, and all such thoughts would scatter like frightened birds. Because whatever the Goddess intended–whatever rules his people had once believed in–one thing was undeniable…he loved Kiera.
He wanted her with an urgency that was physical and emotional and soul—deep all at once. He wanted to curl around her and protect her…wanted to hear her laugh…wanted her scent in his lungs and her hand in his fur and her soft body under his.
He wanted to wake with her every morning and sleep with her every night. Wanted to mount her and knot her and Bond her and spend the rest of his life making certain she never had reason to fear loneliness ever again.
Because that was another thing he had discovered over the course of the week–Kiera was lonely.
Oh, she hid it well. She was competent and cheerful and busy from dawn until dark.
But Brux could scent it on her in quiet moments—when she sat alone at the little table in her home-dome eating her evening meal…
when she looked too long at the pictures hanging in the curved hallway…
when she spoke to the animals or to the work—bots just to hear another voice answer back.
There was an emptiness in her life that called to something deep inside him.
He wanted desperately to fill it…wanted to be the one she turned to…wanted to prove that she would never be alone again as long as he lived.
But to do that, he needed his other form.
He needed hands to hold her and words to tell her what she meant to him and a body capable of claiming her fully. His beast shape was useful—swift and strong and ideal for herding runaway theebles or chasing escaped snufflers—but it was not enough.
It was not the shape in which he could Bond her.
And every night, when Kiera drifted in the bathing pool and the pleasure blooms stroked and licked and took care of needs, he ached to satisfy himself, Brux’s impatience only grew.
That should be me, he thought every time, chest tight with frustrated longing as he watched her throw back her head and moan.
My mouth tasting her. My hands cupping her beautiful brown breasts.
My shafts filling her tight little pussy and ass.
My knot tying the two of us together until the Soul—Bond forms that keeps us together forever.
But still he couldn’t shift.
One night, after Kiera had finally fallen asleep beneath the covers with her face tucked into his ruff and one soft arm around his neck, Brux lay awake for a long time, staring into the darkness.
The living mattress shifted faintly beneath them, the woven vines adjusting subtly to support their bodies.
Outside, one of the night creatures gave a distant mournful cry, and the chiming trees whispered in the breeze.
The home-dome was warm and dim and safe, full of Kiera’s scent and the quiet sound of her breathing.
Brux lowered his muzzle to the top of her head and inhaled deeply.
So good…so right.
So maddeningly close and yet still not fully his.
He closed his eyes and tried once more to reach for the shift. For an instant—just an instant—he felt it. It was like a surge inside him–a tightening in his spine and shoulders. There was a flicker of possibility that made hope leap in his chest.
Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
Brux let out a sound of frustration low in his throat.
Why? he thought fiercely. What in the Seven Hells is stopping me?
Kiera stirred at the sound and made a sleepy little murmur, tightening her arm around his neck.
At once his anger melted, replaced immediately by love and devotion.
He licked the top of her head once, gently, and settled himself more protectively around her.
Whatever was wrong, he would solve it–he had to.
Because he couldn’t stay like this forever—not when the female who held his heart in her soft human hands slept only inches away. Not when every day with her restored more of his mind…and every night with her tested his self—control to the breaking point.
Brux closed his eyes and forced himself to be still.
Soon, he promised himself. Somehow, some way—soon.
He only had to hold on a little longer and then he would Bond his new mate to him forever and never let her go.