"But Ingrid won't let you?"
Blackthorn grunted and shook his head. "I'd never go against Ingrid, but she needs to wake up and listen to her pack. Some people are saying..." He blinked, fixing his eyes on Cyan with a glare again. "Never mind. We'll deal with it, just like always."
"Shouldn't you be sharing this Ingrid rather than me? Or doesn't anyone in your pack talk to each other?"
Blackthorn shoved the bow back into Cyan's hands with a snort. "Just go back to your archery." He turned and walked away stiffly, hot clouds of breath lingering in the air behind him as he went.
Cyan picked up his fallen arrow and strung it carefully back into place, struggling to regain his composure. Keeping a cool head while Blackthorn grilled him had stretched his patience almost to breaking point. Already this day had been a waste of energy trying to do the right thing.
Perhaps it was time to start listening to his animal impulses again after all.
* * * * *
April's heart thudded in her chest as she passed Blackthorn on her way back towards the camp. He called something to her, but she didn't respond, wondering in a panic how long he'd been there—and how much he'd seen.
Why had she kissed him. Why. What for. She'd only just started to come out of her miserable hole, and within an hour she'd done something stupid enough to send her plummeting right back down it. Why did he have to be so insistent with her? He'd pushed and pushed until something snapped and she just...
Was it a longing to feel normal again? To go back to the way things had been when Harper was still around, when she had someone she could confide in and take comfort from?
But she hadn't ever been able to tell Harper the things she'd shared with Cyan that night. And why was that? It wasn't because Cyan was special, or caring, or—
Well, maybe he was those things, but he didn't know her and she didn't know him, not in the same way she'd known Harper.
She wiped her eyes with the back of a hand as she hurried back in the direction of her cabin, trying to keep the shrillness out of her breath as she avoided the curious stares of her pack mates gathering in the meeting area.
Cyan was different, that was all. He'd been her port in a storm, and even the sharpest rocks could be a refuge when everything else in the world seemed like it was trying to drag you to the bottom of the ocean.
Still, that was no reason for her to have kissed him. This was exactly the sort of thing she would have done when she was younger, before she understood her place and her responsibilities, the sort of thing that had landed her in front of Ingrid for a stern telling off a dozen times as a child.
Only this was different. She wasn't a child any longer. She rubbed the heel of a hand into her eye hard as she wiped away the tears, fingernails digging into her palm in frustration. If anyone guessed at what she'd done, and with an outsider...
Her eyes wandered to the crooked wooden post with the leather halter dangling from it on the edge of the meeting area, and she shivered. That was the punishment for adults who broke the rules, not just a scolding from one of the elders. But Ingrid wouldn't really subject her to that, even if she did find out about Cyan, would she?
Would she?
April stumbled as she reached her cabin, leaning against the boards as she reeled with a wave of dizziness, suddenly desperate to be out of the cold as she fumbled with the door handle. As soon as she was inside she slammed the door shut and locked it, stuffing her final log of firewood into the embers in the hearth and collapsing on her bed.
Deep breaths. What was that niggle at the back of her mind? Her wolf? The one she'd been avoiding, according to Cyan? She screwed her eyes shut and squashed it down, groaning with frustration.
Had he wanted her to kiss him? Was that why he'd stayed around for so long?
Then why had he pushed her away?
He was older than her. He'd been to all sorts of places, met all sorts of people. He'd even had his own lover that he'd lost, hadn't he? She was probably just a silly, confused girl to him, throwing herself at the one person who'd been there to comfort her, like some desperate, needy...
Maybe this was why they weren't allowed to have relationships with anyone outside the pack. At least with Harper she'd known where she stood. She'd known what was expected of her, and what she meant to him. This was so much more difficult.
Relationships, she scoffed at herself. It was one night, and one kiss. Grow up, April. For once in your life just grow up. You need a mate, not... Him.
She sighed and rolled over on her back, staring up at the ceiling. But if you had the choice...
"Shut up, brain," she hissed, sitting up again to tug off her boots and throw them into a corner.
She was attracted to him. There, she'd admitted it. Attracted in a way she'd never felt with anyone from her own pack, not even Harper. They were her family, and she still looked at them through the same eyes she'd had as a child, before the idea of romance was something that even registered to her.
Fine. There was an attraction. Maybe if he'd responded to her kiss she'd have let it go further, like an idiot, but thankfully he hadn't. He'd pushed her away, and that was that. Now if he'd just stop pestering her with his questions...
She ran a hand over her eyes and slumped back against the covers, emotionally and physically exhausted despite only having woken up a couple of hours ago. Her arms ached from swinging the axe, and her heart ached from how Cyan had made her feel.
No more stupid impulses. No more thinking about things she couldn't have.
It was easier just to sleep. Sleep and forget, and pretend everything was back to normal again.
In April's dream she was chasing the ferals once more, her paws tramping through a slush of snow behind the rest of her pack as they hunted their quarry together. She was afraid, but Harper was there beside her, reassuring her that they were safe as long as they were with the others, safe as long as they stuck together.
Then they crossed the bridge, and the avalanche fell again, but this time she couldn't tell whether anyone else fell with it. Her pack split and ran in a panic, the blizzard closing in around her as she chased after phantom wolves in the darkness, her chest tightening in desperation as she lost sight of them. The bridge was gone, and she was alone on the unfamiliar mountain slopes beyond the edge of their territory. The air tasted cold and crisp in her lungs, but her fear slowly gave way to exhilaration as she climbed new crags and darted in between new trees, feeling the snow slip and slide beneath her paws as she danced over it like a bird skimming the surface of a lake.
From time to time she caught sight of other wolves, the ferals, but they didn't frighten her any more. In fact, they seemed just as free as she was, dancing and howling bittersweet noises through the night as they wove across her path and bounded up behind her, sometimes close, sometimes miles away, but always she could see them standing out against the pristine white canvas of the mountain.
At long last she slowed to a halt, tired and content, curling up to rest in a snowy hollow with the rest of her new feral friends.
Then the eyes came out of the darkness, glowing and fierce as they approached, hemming her in on all sides. Her pack mates. Her family. She barked at them desperately, but they couldn't tell the difference between her and ferals they were hunting. She was just another enemy to them now. Their shining teeth parted in the moonlight as they snarled, Ingrid, Blackthorn, Harriet, Hazel...
April screwed her eyes shut, terrified, willing it to end, and when she opened them again she was gasping for breath on the covers of her bed, shaking and soaked in sweat as she jerked herself sharply awake.
She clutched a hand to her breast, struggling to slow her breathing as the last echoes of the dream retreated from her consciousness. She recoiled suddenly from a kink in her bedsheets, fancying for a moment that she saw the snarling shape of a wolf's jaws in the crumple of fabric, then paused, caught herself, and smoothed the kink out with a huff.
She'd fallen asleep in her warm out
door clothes, and combined with the heat of the fire she was now drenched in perspiration from head to toe, the atmosphere inside her cabin cloyingly warm. As she rubbed her eyes she realised that the fire had burned down to coals, and the stark morning light had already given way to blackness. She'd slept the entire day away.
On shaking legs she crossed over to the window and peered out through the shutters. The dying coals of the central fire were all she could make out in the dim moonlight. Everyone else seemed to have gone to bed already.
With a sigh she unbuttoned her jacket and took off her scarf, running a hand down her damp neck as she gave the empty fireplace a forlorn look. She'd left all of her freshly cut wood back by the chopping block in her hurry to leave, and she'd missed dinner as well.
Wide awake now, she resigned herself to venture out alone to finish the chores she'd abandoned earlier. At least she'd be able to get them done in peace and quiet now that everyone else was asleep.
Despite the emotional aftershocks of her dream, her head felt clearer than it had before she'd fallen asleep, and the impulsive moment she'd shared with Cyan no longer seemed quite so immediate. April sat down at her table with a sigh and rubbed her brow, pulling over a dirty wooden plate left over from breakfast and taking an apple from her fruit bowl.
"I hope you're having an easier time of it, Harper, wherever you are," she said, and took a bite of the fruit.
A hard lump of hail clacked against the wall of her cabin, and April groaned. "Not now. Don't make me go out to get wood in that weather."
A second impact rattled against the boards, and she frowned, glancing over at the back wall. That didn't sound like hail, and the back of her cabin was covered by a small porch curtained with sacking where she kept her firewood. There shouldn't have been anything rattling against that wall.
The noise came a third time, and she rose to her feet, picking up her jacket and curling her fingers around the door handle. Was there an animal out there, or was someone throwing pebbles at her wall? Perhaps some of the youngsters had snuck out and were fooling around back there. She stuffed her arms into her coat sleeves with a huff and opened the door, welcoming the cool air against her hot skin. They shouldn't be outside this late, especially not in the winter. She brushed back her hair and put on her best stern face, before stepping out into the night and skirting around the side of her cabin to catch the perpetrators.
When she rounded the corner there was nobody in sight, but a set of heavy footprints led through the snow to the entrance of her small porch, the sack covering drifting lightly in the breeze as it hung half-open. She lifted the short drape aside and peered in, squinting in the darkness of the enclosed space. A generous new stack of freshly cut logs had been piled up against the wall, along with the finer sticks of kindling she'd cut earlier.
"I didn't want to come to your front door." Cyan's deep voice came from behind her, and she turned around with a start to see his shadowy shape sitting on a second stack of logs on the other side of the narrow porch. His amber eyes glinted in the darkness as a shaft of moonlight fell across him through the curtain, and as he rose to his feet she backed away slightly, bumping into the logs behind her.
He hesitated. "Tell me to go and I will."
She swallowed hard, her breath quickening as he waited, then took another step towards her when she said nothing.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered at last, afraid that someone might hear them despite their secluded location.
"I think you know." He sighed, leaning in close, too close to leave any doubt in her mind. "You shouldn't have kissed me earlier."
"I know," she said quietly. Her hands trembled as they reached towards him, hesitating for a moment, then he took them, gripping firmly with strong fingers as he passaged her palms with his calloused thumbs, a wistful exhalation of breath leaving his lips.
"And I should know better than this."
"Me too," she said. Her body was as tense as a bowstring, her inner thoughts screaming at her to pull away, but something held her back. It was like an itch she'd started to scratch, and now that she'd begun it was harder than ever to stop. She shouldn't have kissed him earlier.
He stepped forward, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him, their eyes meeting, searching, questioning. Then his lips descended on hers, tight and eager, drawing the breath from her body in a sigh of pleasure as she closed her eyes and gave in to the sensation, the same blessed, mindless relief she'd felt the last time they were together. It spread through her body like warm water, ignoring her concerns, pushing aside her doubts. Her hands writhed in his grasp, twisting around until her fingers interlaced with his. The warmth of his mouth was a sharp contrast to the coldness of his hands, her hot body burning against his cool skin. He pried his right palm from her grasp and cupped her cheek, rough fingers sliding around the back of her neck as he held her in the ravenous kiss, their lips and tongues working against one another in a soft, wet, warm rhythm.
"What if someone sees us?" April gasped when they finally pulled apart, her gaze flitting anxiously to the thin sack covering standing between them and the outside world. The back of her cabin only looked out on a handful of pine trees and the rocky mountain face, but she couldn't shake the feeling that someone might look in at any moment.
"There's nobody out there, not tonight, anyway." His eyes moved down the front of her neck, following the curve of her breasts beneath her top. He slid his fingers around to the front of her neck, trailing the tips down her slender throat until they reached the hollow of her collarbone, teasing the hem of her top. "Unless you mean some other time."
"There can't be another time," April said breathlessly, her skin tingling as his fingertips rubbed gently up and down her glistening neck.
Cyan sighed in frustration. "No, there shouldn't be." He kissed her again, and this time it was her turn to grip the back of his neck as she tugged him in, oblivious to the growing chill of the night air.
Just a few moments ago she'd been ready to pick herself back up again, and now this.
Could she blame him? Could she blame herself? Whose fault was it that things had suddenly gone this far?
She clung on until her mouth ached and her belly was burning with desire, the hair-thin strings of saliva connecting their lips glistening for a brief second in the moonlight as she finally pulled away.
"Part of me does want someone, Cyan," she whispered desperately, her cheeks flushed with colour. "I— I don't know. I can't say if it's even you I want, I just... you're..."
"I'm not one of them, I know."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be," he growled. "All of this is stupid, there isn't even any reason—"
She yanked him down for another kiss before he could finish, her palms roaming over the coarse stubble of his chin, fingers raking through his hair as she let the passionate, impulsive urge inside her take control again.
What was she doing. She hadn't felt this way in years; almost sick with worry at how drastically she was flaunting the rules of her pack, yet desperately exhilarated by the freedom of it at the same time.
Free. That was how she hadn't felt. Selfish. Silly. But free. She wanted Cyan, and that was all that mattered in the solitude of the dark porch behind her cabin. There were no voices from her pack telling her what to do, no concerned eyes watching over her, and no responsibilities dragging her down. For all she knew this could be the worst mistake of her life—and a large part of her very much suspected it—but it was her mistake to make.
She kissed Cyan again and again, and for the first time in weeks she found herself smiling in between kisses, forgetting all the bad that had happened, all the worry, her heart fluttering like an excited teenager as she indulged in the taste and the touch and passionate aura of her enticing companion.
At long last they paused, their desires taking a moment to breathe along with their bodies, and April traced her fingertips down Cyan's cheek, feeling the faint claw-mark scars that were invisible to
her in the darkness.
"Who gave you these?" She whispered in between breaths.
Cyan remained silent for a moment, his broad chest heaving before he spoke. "The last person I kissed."
"Was she bad?"
"One of us was."
"I want to hear about it. I want to hear the rest of that story you started telling me before."
Cyan grunted, caressing her neck again almost wistfully. "Maybe one day."
"One day? How long are you going to be here?"
"I'm not sure any more. Until I have a reason to leave."
"If they ever find out about this, you'll have to." April's brow furrowed with concern, and she gripped the collar of his jacket tighter. "They'll hurt you, and maybe me too."
Cyan took a deep breath, leaning forward to inhale the scent of her hair as he rubbed her shoulder. "Are you still going to let them mate you with someone?"
"I have to."
"I'm not going to change your mind about this, am I?"
She shook her head, then leaned forward to bury her face in his chest, content with just the closeness of his body for now. "There's no other way. Perhaps we can just... be stupid together for a while longer."
Cyan put his arms around her, the top of her head resting beneath his chin as they hugged. "What's one more mistake, hmm?"
# # #
To be continued in Part Four, coming soon.
# # #
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Broken Moon: Part 3 Page 3