by Leeda Vada
In the following days, there would be as many versions of what happened next as there were attendees at the celebration.
A buzzing sound began emitting from the bag, the volume and frequency increasing over a matter of seconds. Acting with the speed of men fresh from the field of battle, several Warriors cleared the room, simultaneously alerting a security tech. In minutes, a small bomb robot secured the bag.
Removing it to an isolated part of the adjoining garden and after a quick scan, the robot signaled the device was benign. Not completely trusting the machine, Odin, still on site, approached the bag, weapon at the ready. Using his knife, he gingerly sliced open the bag.
“Oh, shit!” exclaimed the tech watching the screen that reflected what the robot saw. “It’s a vibrator. A hot pink one. And there are several of them, all different colors.”
No one said a word. The intensity of Odin’s rage overwhelmed the small space. As he turned and headed for the exit, he would not look at his daughter.
Calli was standing between her brothers in the crowd that had been evacuated a few minutes before. Word had quickly spread about the contents of the bag, and after the all clear, many of the curious had returned.
“They’re not mine!” Calli cried, trying to get her father’s attention. “Daddy, they are not mine!” she repeated. Odin kept walking.
Laura came up behind her and put a restraining hand on her arm. “Let it go, honey,” she said softly. “He can’t hear you right now.”
“But, mom. They’re not mine,” she pleaded, tears filling her eyes.
“We’ll talk later, sweetheart.”
“Mom, don’t you believe me?”
“Look honey. You are a young woman. You have a right to your private life,” Laura responded. “I’ve got to go after your father. I’ll see you at home later,” she said, then followed her husband.
The crowd parted as Calli began to walk then run across the lawn in the direction of the thick grove of trees that led to her family’s compound.
She failed to notice the quiet figure in the shadow of the willow trees.
Chapter Seven
As Calli ran, she felt a few drops of rain. Ditching her shoes, she took off at a brisk pace, welcoming the rain as it picked up. She wanted to get soaking wet, to feel the shock of the icy water on her skin, the sting of the wind as she accelerated through the trees.
As soon as Calli was deep into the forest, she shifted and sped through the trees—becoming a part of the thunder and lightning—letting the storm jettison some of the pain. Her howls blended with those of the gray wolves that flanked her.
The blinding sheets of rain pounding against her fur were soothing, the heaviness of the matted blanket on her back and along her legs made tangible the heaviness of her heart.
She could not tell whether the liquid running down her snout was rain or tears.
Saber, the alpha of the gray wolf pack that roamed the Lakota ranch, howled to acknowledge her approach. When she reached the pack’s main cave, she followed him inside.
Saber stretched out, blocking the entrance. Calli collapsed beside him. Resting her head on his flank, she curled into a fetal position and let the rise and fall of his chest work its magic.
#
When Laura arrived back at the ranch and found Calli missing, she guessed she had gone into the forest. After she had not returned by midnight, she called Canaan and asked him to find her and bring her home.
#
Calli did not know how long Canaan had been standing there before she felt his presence. She looked up. He was holding Nathan’s old plastic hooded raincoat. Calli saw her distress reflected in his eyes.
Canaan knelt and began stroking her pelt, making soothing noises to comfort her. Calli closed her eyes and shifted.
Canaan scooped her up, took the towel he had rolled inside the raincoat and vigorously began to rub her skin, warming her flesh and stirring feelings Calli had been trying to fight for the last two years.
As he ran the towel over her body, Canaan was careful not to make contact with her skin. He would not look into Calli’s eyes, afraid she would see the hunger reflected in them. It took all his strength not to pull her to his chest, not to lay her on the raincoat and use his body to warm her.
They had not spoken since he entered the cave, but the moans and whimpers that came from them both as his hands moved over her body were tearing him up inside.
“Touch me, Canaan,” she pleaded. “I need you to touch me.”
“No, Calli, not like this,” he responded, his voice hoarse and filled with distress. “I won’t take you like this.”
Calli reached out, pulled the shirttails from his pants, then started for the buttons. Canaan seized her hands, pinning them against his chest.
“No, Calli,” Canaan growled. “You’re hurting. I won’t take advantage of you.”
Calli raised her head, her face filled with rage. She jerked her hands free, grabbed the inside of his collar, and ripped the front of the shirt.
She raked her nails down his chest, drawing blood and staining the pristine shirt.
“How dare you?” she shouted. “How dare you tell me no?” she cried as she balled her fists and began pummeling his chest.
Tears coursed down her cheeks, her body trembling with rage. “All my life you have told me no. Well not this time. I won’t accept it this time.”
Canaan stood silent as broken sobs wracked her body. “I won’t accept it this time.” He let her rail at him, expending some of the frustration and pain. Her torment eviscerated him, for he could do nothing to ease it. He didn’t dare. But he could be there with her, hoping his presence would eventually offer her some comfort.
After her sobs eased, he pulled her tight against his chest, and initiated strong, circular strokes over her back.
“Love me, Canaan,” she whispered. “Make it all go away. I can’t breathe with the pain.”
“I can’t, baby,” he groaned, pulling the raincoat up and around her, forcing her arms into its sleeves.
Canaan felt the shock of her palm against the side of his face.
“Not can’t, Canaan,” she charged, stepping back, her chest heaving, “won’t. You can screw every bitch on the planet. You can scare off any male that wants to date me. You can ruin my ability to love someone else. But you can’t love me yourself? You can’t touch me yourself? You can’t hold me yourself? What is that, Canaan? Explain that to me?”
“I am ten years older than you, Calli,” he began, running his fingers through his hair. “I am twenty-eight. You’re only eighteen,” he pleaded, gripping her shoulders through the raincoat.
“So, what?” she shouted in frustration. “I’m eighteen, Canaan. I am legally an adult. Girls have sex when they’re eighteen. Hell, before they’re eighteen.”
“Not with a twenty-eight-year old Canid Warrior who grew up with you like an older brother.”
“But you’re not my brother. What I feel for you is not what I feel for Nathan and Rand,” she spat back, “so don’t even try that line. Canaan, are you trying to say that you feel nothing more for me than you feel for Tamby or your Flames? That these feelings I’m having are a crush, like a young girl’s infatuation with a rock star or basketball player? That they’re no more than that?”
The look of devastation and loss on her tearstained face destroyed him. He couldn’t let her think that. He lifted her chin. “What I feel for you is not what I feel for my Flames,” he said softly. “It is so much more than that.”
“Then I don’t understand,” she said, her eyes wary, afraid to hope.
Releasing her, Canaan turned his back and took several steps to put some distance between them. She shouted, “Tell me!”
He turned.
“Etrus, Calli. I’m talking about Etrus. The uncontrollable feral lust between a wolf and his mate.”
“We’re too young for mating heat,” she exclaimed. It was clearly not the answer she expected.
“
You are, Calli,” Canaan said.
Gripping her shoulders again, he commanded her attention. “You are, Calli. But I am not. I have been in mating heat since you were sixteen.”
Calli’s eyes widened in shock. “I don’t understand. How could you have?”
“Because that’s when I realized that you were my mate,” he replied, then paused, allowing her a few minutes to absorb what he had said. “Now, do you understand why I can’t touch you?”
Calli was still in shock, aware of the pain and yearning reflected in his gaze. She struggled to focus on what he had said.
Of course, she had heard about mating heat, but that only happened to people of her parents’ generation. She did not know anyone who had actually experienced it. Grownups discussed the topic with their children when they became adults and were ready to find and claim their mates.
“Calli, listen to me,” Canaan said, shaking her to get her attention. “Don’t you understand? If I make skin contact with you, I will throw you into mating heat, a painful, unrelenting condition that will not ease until you conceive. Conceive, Calli. Pregnant at eighteen. Do you want to be a mother at eighteen? Not to be able to continue your education, pursue the military and medical careers you so desperately want?”
“But women have careers after they have babies, Canaan. Don’t be so chauvinistic,” she admonished him.
“You’re not hearing me, Calli!” he shouted. “Think of all the things you still want to do in your life, the places you want to go and careers you want to try out. You want to be a Warrior and go on rescue missions, to study at health clinics all over the country. You can’t do those things with a mate and a baby,” he insisted. “You have to be in close physical proximity to your mate. Etrus will not allow the partners to be apart for any extended amount of time,” he clarified. “You are not ready for that kind of life,” he said firmly, clasping her shoulders, locking her gaze to his. “I won’t subject you to that, Calli. I won’t.”
“What about me, Canaan?” she pleaded. “What about what I want? Do I have a say, or do you get to decide for both of us?”
“You’re too young to make that kind of a decision. You were too young at sixteen, and you’re not ready now. So yes, I get to make that decision for both of us.”
“No, Canaan. You don’t,” she countered, stepping out of his arms. Taking a few steps back, she placed her hands on her hips. “Nobody makes life decisions for me.” Scorn and derision had replaced the sting of rejection. “You’re a damn coward, Canaan.” She stalked the cave, spitting hurt and pain as she went. “The great Prince Canaan, every Canid child’s hero, every mother’s wish for her daughter, the role model for all young Canid, male and female. What a joke. Tell me how long I’m supposed to wait? Two years? Five? Ten? At age thirty, will I be old enough?” she asked, the sarcasm biting. “Oh, I know! Maybe after you’ve fucked every bitch in Bakari. Yes, that’s when. Right? Is that when I will be ready?” her anguish stabbing him at each word.
Canaan stood silently, bleeding inside as he felt her struggling with the reality of their situation.
Her pain screamed at him. Still, he could not touch her. He knew that once he did, he would not be able to stop.
The beast would not let him. The lust he had held at bay for the past two years would destroy them both.
Calli’s pacing slowed until she stood akimbo, staring up into the opening at the center of the cave ceiling. A shudder ran the length of her frame.
Canaan was wary. She turned to face him, the look in her eyes not boding well for his health.
“So, let me get this right,” she said, crossing to the side. “I don’t get to have any sex until you decide that I am old enough?”
Canaan blanked his countenance. “That’s the way it has to be.”
“Go to hell, Canaan Powhatan,” she said, flinging the words over her shoulder as she exited the cave, leaving a very aroused Canid prince in her wake.
Chapter Eight
After several hours tossing and turning, Calli walked to her dresser and threw on her pink thermal jogging suit, left a note on the door for her parents in case they woke up while she was out, and made the short walk to the Alexander suite.
Though the rain had stopped, a heavy mist shrouded everything. Vesta and Erol lived in the Alpha House when they were in residence at Bakari. This was the case with each set of in-laws who had their own wing with individual entrances.
Calli called Vesta’s cell as soon as she cleared her porch.
“Vesta, you said I could call anytime,” Calli whispered.
“Of course,” Vesta responded, shushing Erol, who was murmuring in the background. “Meet me at the patio side entrance.”
Calli walked faster before she lost her nerve. She had tried handling this by herself, but she felt as if she were coming apart. She just wanted to scream and howl—to do something, anything—to lessen the wracking misery tracking through her veins.
Reaching the patio door, she saw Vesta waiting for her in the darkened room, the only light reflected from the lamppost on the edge of the deck.
Opening the door and inviting Calli inside, Vesta pulled her into her arms. Calli let her head fall onto Vesta’s chest, sobbing, her tears soaking her confidante’s robe.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Vesta comforted her, slowly stroking Calli’s back. “It’s going to be okay.”
Calli held on for dear life. Though Vesta was a close friend of her mother’s, she and Calli had developed a special closeness over the years. Though she did not have the gift of shifting as Calli did, she possessed DNA of the rare bailey white wolf, as did Calli.
Laura did not want her non-Canid status to inhibit the development of her children in any way, so she encouraged Calli to spend time with Vesta. Her hope was that by exposing her daughter to a kindred spirit, Calli would feel more of a connection to the pack.
Vesta was happy to oblige.
She waited patiently as Calli’s sobs slowed.
“Better?”
“Yes,” Calli replied, sitting up. “I didn’t know who else to turn to.”
“What’s wrong, Calli?” Vesta asked, reaching for the box of tissues on the side table.
Pulling a handful of tissues from the box, Calli stood and walked toward the closed patio door, hugging herself, standing with her back to Vesta.
“Take your time, honey.”
Calli stood quietly for a few moments. “It’s Canaan.”
“Canaan?” Vesta said, surprised. “What do you mean, it’s Canaan?”
“I’m Canaan’s mate.”
The clock hand moving in short, staccato jerks was the only sound in the room.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. And Canaan verified it tonight,” Calli answered. She was too ashamed to face Vesta, so she didn’t turn around.
“But I don’t understand,” Vesta persisted. She got up and crossed to the other side of the room, being careful not to come too close to her young friend, afraid of spooking her. It was clear that Calli was right on the edge.
“Canaan says he’s known for a long time, a few years after I began puberty,” Calli said, her arms a vice holding her tighter.
She continued as if narrating a novel.
“Dr. Arjani tested our blood, and she found a match. She has been treating Canaan with various hormones since he was twenty-five to help stave off the symptoms. They seemed to work as long as Canaan stayed away from me. He told me that is why he stopped babysitting us, and stopped training and coaching me, stopped having any physical contact with me in any way. He stopped attending many family and community functions where he would be near me. And since our families are so close, that pretty much covered all of them.”
Moaning, Calli doubled over and fell to her knees.
Vesta rushed to her, pulling her head to her chest until the sounds of distress quieted.
“Now, about this mating thing. How long have you believed you are Canaan’s mate?”
�
��I have always loved Canaan, but I knew he did not see me as a prospective sex partner because of my age. As long as he came by to see me and showed me special attention with the coaching and things, I was happy. Everyone knew I was special to him, and that made me proud. He would not let anyone bully me or take advantage of me in any way. He brought me special gifts when he came home from college or from rescue missions or other adventures with Duncan and Dad. And when he got back, he would always come to visit me, and I would shift, and we would run with the wolves together,” Calli said.
“So, when did that change?” Vesta asked.
Frowning, Calli hesitated.
“Around the time I started my period,” she replied. “That’s when he stopped being around me. He never did anything with me after that,” she recalled. “He would still send me birthday cards and messages via Dakota and Mom or Dad, but he never gave them to me himself. No phone calls. Nothing.”
Extricating herself from Vesta’s arms, Calli began to pace around the den, “I didn’t understand what I had done to make him angry with me. Then he came home last Christmas with one of his girlfriends, and she told us that they were engaged.” Calli’s voice strained. She hugged her body again. “I felt as if someone had socked me in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to run and scream. Canaan was mine. No other woman had a right to be his fiancé. Even then, the thought of being his mate did not cross my mind. I was content with my dreams of being his lover. I knew from masturbation class that fantasizing about someone you admired to relieve sexual tension was okay. I just wanted him to hold me, to touch me the way he did in my dreams. Whenever other boys would kiss me or try to go further, I would push them way. Their touch was gross. They weren’t being rough or meaning to hurt me, but their touch was painful anyway. But something in me knew that wouldn’t be true with Canaan’s touch. I knew that nothing he did to me would ever hurt me,” she ended, sighing and sitting yoga-style on the floor, resting her back against the loveseat. “Tonight, when he found me with the wolves, I begged him to hold me, to touch me, just a little to help make the pain go away,” Calli continued, closing her eyes.