Chapter 19 Brux
brUX
Brux still couldn’t quite believe he had finally been able to shift.
Even as he followed Kiera into the home-dome—ducking his head automatically beneath the curved arch of the entryway though there was, in fact, plenty of room—some part of him was waiting for the change to unravel.
Waiting for his spine to bow and his hands to become paws again and his words to dissolve back into whines and barks and frustrated growls.
But no. He was still upright. Still on two legs. Still seeing the world from the height and angle of his humanoid form.
It felt…good. More than good, really–it felt right.
His body felt powerful and familiar in ways it hadn’t in so long he had nearly forgotten them.
He had hands again—real hands, not paws—with fingers that could flex and curl and grip.
He could feel the smooth floor of the home-dome under the soles of his feet.
Could feel the air of the room on his skin and the weight of his hair brushing his shoulders.
His hearing was still sharp, his nose still keen, but everything was balanced now—reason and instinct standing side by side instead of instinct drowning everything else.
At least…for the moment.
Because if he was honest, he did not feel entirely stable.
There was a strange trembling inside him–as though the shift had happened too fast and too violently and some part of him had not fully caught up. He felt as if one wrong move—one sharp emotion, one spike of grief, one moment of panic—might send him tumbling straight back into his primal form.
He didn’t want that. Not now–not when Kiera was here. Not when she kept looking at him with those wide dark eyes full of shock and curiosity and something else he didn’t quite dare to hope for or name.
She led him through the curving hallway into the living area of the home-dome—a warm, rounded room furnished with the strange, beautiful living furniture all Monstrum grew rather than built.
There was the low couch, woven from springy vines and covered in soft fabric, the little table with her mugs and datapads on it, and the glowing wall—sconce plants that gave off a gentle golden light.
The crystalline fire wall was turned down at this time of day, but the banked embers of blue and gold flames still glowed behind it.
Brux loved this room. He loved every room in her home, really, because all of them smelled like her.
But now, standing in it as a male instead of an animal, he became painfully aware of the fact that he was completely naked.
Kiera seemed aware of it too.
“Um…” Her gaze slid over him and then jerked back to his face, though not before he saw the faint flush rise in her light brown cheeks. It gave him a dangerous burst of hope—and an equally dangerous rush of arousal he had to fight hard to suppress.
Not now, he told himself sternly. Do not lose control right now.
She turned to him, clasping her hands together as though she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.
“Well,” she said, and then stopped.
Brux knew exactly how she felt–there was too much to say and no obvious place to begin. Finally, he did the only thing he could think of.
“Please forgive me, but can I hold you?” he asked.
Kiera blinked at him, a look of surprise coming over her lovely face.
“Uh, what?”
Brux felt heat climb his neck–Gods, he was already making a mess of this! He had only just regained the ability to speak and apparently the first thing he had done with it was sound crazy and desperate. But he couldn’t take the words back now.
“I’m so sorry,” he said quickly. “It’s just…I fear I might revert to my primal form without physical contact.”
At once her expression changed. The shock was still there–and the uncertainty–but now concern softened it.
“Oh. Of course,” she said, nodding. “You need to touch me because…it helps you somehow?”
He swallowed hard and tried again, groping for words with a tongue that felt clumsy after so long without them.
“Every time you touch me,” he said slowly, “You bring me further into the light of reason. When I’m close to you, my thoughts are clearer–my mind is stronger. But when I’m away from you…” He shook his head. “I slip backwards. Into the void.”
Kiera stared at him for a moment longer.
“Okay, I get it. She nodded and held out a hand to him. “Let’s sit on the couch,” she suggested.
Brux looked at it…then he looked at her. The gesture was kind. Sweet, even. But nowhere near enough.
He needed more than to just hold her hand.
He needed her warmth…her weight in his arms. He needed the press of her soft, curvy body against his to anchor him here in this form and remind him that he was no longer alone in the dark.
So he ignored the offered hand and gathered her up into his arms instead. Then he settled on the couch with her planted firmly on his lap.
Kiera gasped, her eyes going wide.
Brux had to suppress a groan of pure need. Although he had been wanting to hold her more than he had wanted anything in the world, now that he actually had her, the reality was almost too much to bear.
She was so warm and soft in his arms–so solid and real and curved in all the right places.
He remembered sleeping beside her and watching her in the pool and dreaming of what it would feel like to hold her like this as a male. It was a hundred–no a thousand times better–than he had ever imagined.
With a sigh of contentment, he settled back against the couch with one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees, and cradled her to his chest, as though he had every right in the world to hold her close.
Kiera made a startled little noise and one hand flew to his shoulder, but she didn’t ask him to put her down–she only stared at him.
Brux stared back. Up close, with her seated in his lap and the light from the wall—sconces gilding her creamy brown skin, she was so beautiful it nearly hurt.
“You’re really here,” he said softly, before he could stop himself.
Kiera smiled.
“Well…yes,” she said, sounding a little breathless. “So are you.”
A shaky laugh escaped him.
“Yes,” he murmured. “For now.”
He tightened his hold on her just slightly—not enough to frighten her, only enough to reassure himself that she was truly there. Her arms came up uncertainly, and then one of them settled around his neck.
The contact sent a rush of light through him.
It wasn’t literal light, of course, but it felt that way.
As though some dark place inside him that had been hollow and cold for so long was being filled with warmth and clarity and life.
The primal part of him receded another step and the shakiness inside his shift eased.
He let out a long breath as relief flowed through him.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “This helps. Holding you–it really helps.”
Kiera studied his face.
“So it’s really true? Me touching you helps you stay…” She hesitated. “Stay…like this? Human? Or I guess, humanoid.”
Brux nodded.
“Yes. Lykans need the touch of their mate to call them back from the void.” He swallowed. “Without it, we begin to lose ourselves. First memory…then language…then reason. It all slips away.” His voice sounded hollow in his own ears.
Kiera frowned slightly.
“But you said ‘mate.’” She looked puzzled. “I’m not… I mean, we’re not…”
No, we’re not, Brux thought, though every part of him wished otherwise. He forced himself to answer carefully.
“A female doesn’t have to be fully Bonded to begin helping,” he said. “Closeness matters. Touch. Comfort. Care.” He looked down briefly, unable to keep the truth entirely out of his voice. “You have been saving me from the moment you took me from that cage.”
Kiera went very still in his lap and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then she said quietly, “Buck…”
“Brux,” he corrected automatically. “My name is Brux.”
She tried it out softly.
“Brux.”
The sound of his true name in her mouth almost undid him–he had not heard it spoken kindly in so long.
“Yes,” he said, his voice roughening. “Though if you prefer Buck…”
A faint smile touched her lips.
“No, no! Though I think I may need some time to retrain my brain.”
Brux found himself smiling back, though the expression felt strange on his face after so long in beast shape.
“You can call me anything you want,” he told her.
Her eyes flickered over him again—down his chest and shoulders and then lower before she caught herself and looked away and the flush in her cheeks deepened and her scent changed–becoming tinged with the rich notes of feminine desire.
Brux’s body tightened in immediate response, and he tried to stop it. Gods, not now–he couldn’t let his shafts get hard when he was holding her!
But how could he help it? Kiera was in his lap. She was warm and soft and curvy, and her scent was fucking addictive. One of her hands was resting on his shoulder and the other had curled, almost unconsciously, into the fur on his upper arm.
Everything about the moment was too much…and not enough.
He forced himself to focus.
“I didn’t mean to deceive you,” he said quietly. “When you found me, I could barely think. I knew only that you smelled right. That you felt right. I knew I needed you. And when you called me ‘Buck’ it sounded close enough to my true name for me to answer to it.”
Kiera nodded thoughtfully.
“That’s why you were howling,” she said slowly. “On the rescue ship. You smelled me and I smelled ‘right?’”
Brux nodded.
“Yes.” He didn’t add that she smelled like his mate–or one who could become his mate. He thought that might be giving away too much, too soon.
“And that’s why you grabbed my arm in your mouth,” Kiera continued.
He nodded again.
“I was trying to keep you from leaving me there. I had been sliding into the void–my primal self was taking over. Kiera, I needed you and I was so afraid you were going to leave me there.”
Her face went suddenly tender and she cupped his cheek in one soft little hand.
“Of course I couldn’t leave you there. I knew right away that you needed to come home with me.”
Brux exhaled in relief. She wasn’t afraid of him…and she felt it too. That electric connection between them…the warmth…the mutual need. It called to her too.
That mattered more than anything.
Still, the instability he had felt earlier had not vanished entirely.
It hovered at the edges of his consciousness like a storm waiting to break.
He could feel his animal instincts shifting and muttering beneath the surface, made restless by emotion and proximity and the impossible good fortune of having Kiera in his arms at last.
He lowered his voice.
“I’m sorry if I seem…overly needy. But I don’t think I should let go of you just yet.”
Kiera looked down at where she sat across his lap and then back up at his face. Something softened in her expression.
“That’s all right,” she said quietly. “I don’t really want you to let go either.”
The simple admission filled him with a fierce, aching gratitude. He bent his head and closed his eyes briefly, resting his forehead against hers.
Kiera’s breath hitched and Brux held very still, savoring the touch. With her this close, her scent wrapped around him like a living thing. Her body heat flowed into him. The darkness inside him retreated another step and his shift steadied.
Brux inhaled deeply, breathing her in, holding her close. Yes, this was what he needed. And perhaps—if the Goddess was kind—this was what Kiera needed too.
He opened his eyes again and looked at her.
“There’s so much I need to tell you,” he said softly.
Kiera nodded.
“I want to hear all of it,” she said. “And I have about a million questions.”
That made him laugh—a real laugh this time, low and rough and rusty from disuse.
“I’ll tell you anything you want,” he promised.
Kiera smiled and for a long moment they just looked into each other's eyes and the terror of the morning, the dead spooler…
the missing fences…the charging Vorn—all of it seemed to fall away.
It was just the two of them in the warm golden light of the home-dome, her in his lap, his arms around her, his mind clearer than it had been in longer than he could remember.
Brux knew it couldn’t last forever.
Not yet…not until he could convince her to Bond with him. And before he could ask that of her, she needed to know his past.
And so he held her close and prepared, at last, to tell her the truth.