by Carol Davis
“That sounds good,” he said.
“It was.”
Then her expression turned wistful, and he let her return to talking about the things she’d seen. The Grand Canyon. Disneyland. The world’s largest ball of string. All of it mysterious and puzzling.
In between their conversations, they gathered food and prepared meals together. She found other kinds of berries and collected them happily, then found a different type of mushroom that she said tasted much better.
He told her bits and pieces about his family and the other residents of the settlement. What it was like to live on an island where needs were simple, where their food supply depended on rainfall and sunlight, where a bitter cold winter could mean life or death.
She didn’t ask why they didn’t move to the mainland.
On impulse, she cut small pieces from two of his potatoes—the parts where eyes had sprouted—and planted them near the cabin. She’d done that as a child, she said, and had been thrilled when new potatoes actually grew.
“I can’t plant a garden where I live,” she told him. “I miss doing it. My mom and I always had a garden.”
“Perhaps you should live somewhere else,” he suggested.
“I wish—” she started.
“Do you like to wish, Abby?”
She’d said it a number of times: “I wish.” It made him create a wish of his own, that he could have the ability to give her whatever she wanted. A garden. Loud music that she could sing along with.
That he could bring her mother back from the world of the dead.
But she shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said firmly. “Everything’s good. Don’t listen to me being silly.”
Whenever the urge struck them, they kissed and caressed, pulled off their clothes and stood naked in the sunlight and the moonlight, and on the afternoon of Abby’s third day on the island, in the rain. Stroking water off each other was a new experience, feeling warm skin under cool liquid; the stroking turned to licking, and Abby laughed as she sank to her knees and drew his throbbing cock into her mouth. That was another new experience, having rain cascade down over his body as Abby sucked and licked him and ran her hands up and down the backs of his legs and caressed his sac. He challenged himself to remain standing… and lost. The rain had turned the dirt of the clearing to mud, and by the time they had finished with each other, they were both nearly covered with sticky muck.
Rather than run off to clean herself, Abby began to dance in the rain, toes digging into the mud, arms swooping through the air. She looked like a happy child, Aaron thought, maybe happier than she had been in years.
He loved her, he realized.
Somehow, during a time of deprivation, the gods had brought him something rare and wonderful, something he’d never even imagined. He watched her dance with a heart so full it felt like it would explode out of his chest, so full he could barely breathe.
It happened sometimes, he’d been told: a connection this sudden and complete. Sometimes the bonding took months, or years; with other couples the bond was cemented within a matter of days. Aaron couldn’t remember that having happened during his lifetime, and supposed that was because most of the members of the pack had known each other from the day they were born. But it had happened.
It was happening now.
With every step he took, every breath he pulled into his lungs, he was more and more sure that he and Abby were meant to become a pair. Why else would she have come here? Why else would he have been the one to find her?
Coincidence, common sense told him. An accident.
But this felt like no accident.
He brought a towel out from the cabin and, when she had finally slowed down her dancing, used it to sponge the mud off her skin. She closed her eyes a little as he did it and looked as content as a baby in her mother’s arms, drowsy and sated. When the mud was gone he gave her the towel and purred softly deep down inside as she bathed him. Then they left the rain and went inside, and he put together a small fire in the fireplace so they could sit on the blanket and get warm.
They dozed there for a while, woke and made love again, slowly and gently.
They ate what little food was in the house, crawled into bed and slept in each other’s arms. When they woke again the rain had slowed to a barely audible shower, something that sounded like a constant whisper against the roof.
The next day dawned bright and clear, and grew warmer as the morning went on. As they puttered around the cabin, and Abby spent time rearranging the mysterious collection of things in her gigantic yellow bag, Aaron felt an overwhelming urge to show her more of the island, to introduce her to more and more of the things he enjoyed. The place he had in mind was one of his favorites, and because it was so far from the settlement, it didn’t generally attract the rest of the pack. That made it perfect, especially on such a sunny day.
“Come with me,” he told her.
Fifteen minutes of walking took them to the stream that spilled down out of the hills. The spot he’d chosen was a wide, deep pool that sat in the sunlight most of the day and was usually warmer than anywhere else. Certainly warm enough for her to bathe in, at this time of year, and it was a beautiful place, surrounded by wildflowers and long grass. He’d come here a couple of times in the days since his Separation period had begun, to do exactly what he was meant to do: think about his life, his future, the future of the pack.
You couldn’t sit here for any length of time, he thought, and still be tempted by anything available on the mainland.
Stop, the voice of good sense warned him.
Stop? He couldn’t stop. He’d already had visions, long, detailed daydreams of Abby choosing to live here, with him. Of their making a home together.
There was a faint breeze blowing, enough to catch Abby’s long hair and send it floating around her shoulders. Even in her rumpled dress, wrinkled from being wadded up inside her bag, she was lovely, lush and pink. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do more than watch her bathe.
She looked at the water for a while, then tipped her head back and let the sunlight fall on her face and throat.
“The water is warm,” he told her.
“Is it?”
She was playing at being skeptical, teasing him with her voice and her eyes. He’d brought the blanket with him, thinking they could put it to the same use that they had back at the cabin. He put it down on a rock and went to her, gathered her close to him and kissed her tenderly.
In the part of him that was both here and in another place entirely, his wolf danced and spun, howling with joy. He couldn’t remember that part of him ever having been so full of delight, not even after a successful hunt and a full belly. This was something new, something precious. Smiling, he caressed the back of her neck, wound the soft silk of her hair around his fingers, pressed his body to hers.
She seemed a little hesitant at first (though whether it was of shedding her clothes here in a place that was more exposed, or bathing in what might actually be cold water, or both, he couldn’t decide) but then stripped off her dress and undergarments and tossed them aside. She strode quickly into the water, obviously believing that it was cold despite what he’d told her; then, when she discovered it was warm, kept going until she reached the middle of the pool, where she crouched down and began to scoop water up over her shoulders.
“It feels so good!” she called to him.
“I told you it would.”
“Are you coming in?”
“In a minute.”
“But it feels so good. Come in. Come on!”
He thought of her on the day he’d found her, huddled sobbing in his arms. He’d thought that day that she would rest for a little while, then insist on being taken back to the mainland immediately—even if it meant he had to conjure a fully fueled and seaworthy boat out of thin air—rather than remain here on the island. Instead, she was free-spirited, laughing, content.
Could this last?
Even if it was
the bond he was feeling, could this possibly last? Would she turn her back on her home, her fellow humans, her entire life?
Feeling more hesitant than he had since he’d found her, he reached down to unfasten his jeans and shirt. He took them off quickly, then strode into the water until he was arm’s reach from Abby.
When he crouched down, she splashed him.
He was startled at first, but wasted no time in splashing her back. The pool was large enough for them to scramble around, trying to evade each other while trying to deliver the biggest splash, both of them laughing and stumbling and falling more than once, losing their footing in the soft, slippery silt at the bottom. When they were finally out of breath they collapsed into the water, still laughing. Abby’s hair was soaked and plastered to her head in a comical way, and Aaron thought he’d like nothing more than to comb it out with his fingers, strand by strand, while the water lapped up against her bare skin.
“Thank you for this,” she said after a minute.
“I’m afraid I can’t take credit. This has been here since long before I was born.”
She shook her head. “For bringing me here. For… being here. The other day–” She cut herself off and shook her head again. “It was an awful day. I really acted stupid when I got here. I never should have gone off alone to begin with, and then I didn’t know where I was going. I’m like the stereotypical ditz.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Aaron said.
“A fool.”
“I don’t think you’re a fool.”
“I made some pretty bad choices. I should have… I was running. Trying to get away from someone. I let that override my common sense.”
“But it brought you here.”
She looked around, serious and thoughtful, then reached up to smooth some of her hair back off her forehead to stop it from trailing water down her face. “I don’t know what to think about all of this. It’s nothing I normally do. I mean, there are people who go on vacation just so they can hook up with somebody. No strings, you know? Just have fun for a few days and then forget it ever happened. But that’s not me. At least, it didn’t used to be me.”
“Are you going to forget this ever happened?”
Even asking the question made Aaron’s heart ache. The thought of losing her created a pain unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
She took so long to reply that he thought his heart would shrivel and die.
“I don’t want to,” she murmured.
He moved her so that she was straddling him, her legs wrapped around his hips, and held her close to his chest. She circled her arms around him, head resting on his shoulder, her skin both warm and cool where it touched his. Her tangled hair was cool against his cheek, and acting on impulse he touched his tongue to it—then thought of licking all the water from her body, bathing her that way, the way he had in the rain.
Like a wolf. Like the wild part of him.
“You should take your bath,” he said abruptly, and slipped away from her, trying not to notice the look of disappointment on her face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked with a tremor in her voice.
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you moving away?”
He had no good answer for that. Of course, the answer he did have was the right one, the sensible one, but it was also the most painful one—and judging by the look on her face, it was one she wouldn’t like very much.
“I want to watch you bathe,” he said.
“But–”
Even before she had spoken, he’d begun to understand that she saw this as an escape from her real life, the life that had made her so unhappy. She was thinking of this as a paradise, one that involved nothing more complicated than puttering around the cabin and repeated bouts of lovemaking. She had no real idea what she was committing herself to by being with him, and he had no idea how to tell her. He was sure she was partially blinded by the strength of the bond, if that was what this was, and would likely agree to anything he proposed—but he couldn’t do that to her, regardless of how strongly he felt about her.
He had to tell her the truth. All of it.
Unless he could manage not to.
If he could be truly disciplined, he might be able to lie, might be able to go the rest of his life without shifting. It would mean denying his wolf to the point that the animal might become frantic and desperate, but perhaps he could steal off during the night now and then to spend a little time in his other-earth form while Abby slept. He didn’t like the idea of purposely lying to her, but it could be done… if that would keep her here.
Out here, alone. Living in the cabin.
The cabin had always been used as shelter during the Separation, but he could volunteer to build another one, some distance away, for that purpose. He could furnish this one more completely, build an outhouse, plant the garden she wanted so badly. He’d be criticized for wanting to live so far from the rest of the pack, for keeping Abby away from them, but given enough time, the others would come around to his way of thinking. Grudgingly, maybe, but…
No.
If Abby was going to live here, she’d need to be part of the community. They both would. There was no sense in isolating themselves, particularly later on, when the time came for children to be born.
That idea was so overwhelming that Aaron buried his face in his hands.
When he looked up—he guessed it was a full minute later, or more—Abby was still looking at him unhappily, frowning.
You have to tell her.
Whose voice that was, he didn’t know, but it was right. He couldn’t delay any longer. He needed to give Abby the chance to break the bond while it was still fresh, if that was what she wanted to do. She might be lost in their attraction to each other, but she was still capable of thinking, of making a decision. Of being shocked back into good sense. He had to give her that chance.
For now, he needed to put some distance between them. He’d let her bathe, and then they’d return to the cabin. He’d tell her there that there was no way they could be together, that the others who lived on this island would reject her outright and that he needed to reject her too.
Trying his best to remain strong, he walked up out of the pool, water sheeting off his skin, knowing that he’d ruined this perfect idyll for both of them.
He’d only gotten a couple of steps beyond the bank of the stream when he realized that it was already ruined, that Abby hadn’t been frowning at him.
Aaron stopped in his tracks, heart thundering in his chest, his mind skittering like a panicked bird.
His brother was standing near the blanket Aaron had left on the ground, arms folded over his chest, an expression as dark as a thundercloud on his face.
“Explain,” Luca commanded.
Seven
For a moment Abby was frozen in place, so stunned by the sudden appearance of this other man that she had no idea what to do. Then, because the stranger’s attention was on Aaron and not her, she scrunched down in the water so it would cover her breasts and crossed her arms over them.
Of course there were other people on the island. Aaron had told her there were, that he had family here. It was inevitable that someone would find them together sooner or later.
The water stopped feeling warm and soothing, in spite of the bright summer sunshine. Now it felt cold, something she longed to escape from.
The two men stood facing each other, fists clenched. The stranger was obviously angry—not to the point that he would attack Aaron, Abby hoped, but he practically had steam coming out of his ears.
“Who is this?” the stranger demanded, and jabbed a finger at Abby.
She sank a little lower into the water.
“I owe you no explanations,” Aaron said. “You aren’t in the circle of elders. If I owe answers to anyone at all—and I don’t believe I do—it’s to them. Don’t pretend you can bully me into anything. You’re no higher in the process than I am, not while Father is alive. You have no s
ay.”
“She’s not one of the pack.”
“Go back to the settlement, Luca. Leave us alone.”
“So you can ignore the rules of the Separation? And—and–” The stranger, Luca, sputtered, so enraged he was nearly incoherent. Then he took a couple of breaths that made his chest heave and calmed down enough to go on talking. When he did, he spoke quietly, in a deep, earthy rumble. “How can you do this? Aaron, where is your common sense?”
“The same place Jonathan’s was.”
That made Luca’s eyes shoot open wide. “You’re going to use Jonathan as a touchstone?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because–” Again, Luca stopped talking. He stalked in a circle, pulling at his hair with both hands, head down, muttering to himself. He went on stomping across the dirt as he grumbled, “If Father were here right now–”
“He’s not,” Aaron said.
Luca’s head snapped up. This time he strode right up to Aaron. Abby expected Aaron to defend himself, or to back away, but he didn’t. He seemed very willing to stand there, not giving up an inch of ground, but not confronting his accuser, either.
Abby realized something suddenly. They’re brothers.
This was the brother Aaron had mentioned.
Their resemblance was strong: the same dark hair, the same eyes. Luca was a little taller than Aaron, but they had the same general build, slim and muscular. They spoke to each other in low tones, their voices dropping low enough that Abby couldn’t make out words at all. For the moment, they were entirely focused on each other.
She took advantage of that to scramble out of the water and grab the blanket Aaron had brought along. She wrapped it swiftly around herself like a sari, then moved away from the two men, wondering if she ought to go back to the cabin.
“You know I can’t,” Luca said.
“Is your obligation to them, or to our family?” Aaron asked, and added pointedly, “Brother?”
Luca glowered at him.
“Well?” Aaron pressed.
“I’ll get you a boat. You need to take her… anywhere. Away from here. Before this becomes so complicated you can’t undo it.” When Aaron didn’t respond, Luca said, “You need to undo this, Aaron. Never mind that you’ve completely ignored the rules and purpose of the Separation–”