Irish flushed and shook her head with a nervous giggle.
“No. I’m just waiting on my husband, Jeremy. He’s out in the field on his rotation and I’ve been waiting on him for dinner.” A small flush stole up her cheeks that made Meredith smile knowingly. A young toddler in the house and a newlywed’s happy blushes showed all the signs of domestic bliss they were intruding upon.
She pushed away her paranoia.
This was a safe place.
“Meredith, you must eat. The hour is growing late.”
“It won’t hurt us to wait for her husband to join us. What’s a few minutes, Charu?”
He grunted and eased himself onto the plush sofa, testing his weight on it. He sank into it with a grimace but did not utter a complaint. Meredith bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
She followed Iris back into the living room. Iris set the baby on the floor with her toys and gestured to the teapot.
“Would you like some tea? I have an extra cup. I’m afraid it has grown a bit cool, but I can heat it up again if you like.”
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a tea drinker, but thank you.”
Iris smiled shyly and nodded her head, her attention drifting back to the baby who’d pulled herself up onto the side of the coffee table and was currently plucking up her courage to step out into the middle of the room. Her tiny blonde pigtails bobbed as she jerked her head with concentration.
“Lily,” Iris called softly, holding out a plush teddy bear. The baby turned and grinned happily at her mother, flashing four lower teeth around her dribble. She crossed the small distance with wobbly steps and wrapped her arms around the little toy before dropping with a soft thump on her bottom.
That thump was echoed by a harder one as the front door swept open and a large man stepped in, his cheeks red from the wind and sun. The broad smile on his face immediately slipped when he caught sight of them. His eyes passed over her without interest but fastened on Charu with unmistakable fear that transformed into aggression.
The gatekeeper growled and sprung to his feet as Jeremy briefly stumbled back, his panicked gaze going to his wife and babe. Then it was if he grew, and he snarled viciously back at Charu. He didn’t attempt to flee, but eased himself around to his wife, pure menace on his face as Charu picked up his hammer.
“Wait!” Meredith cried. “What’s going on? Charu, stop!”
Charu gave her only the briefest glance, and she was surprised she got that much.
“He is not human. He is wulkwos.”
“That’s... that’s impossible! Look at them. He’s her husband!”
“An impostor. The wulkwos has taken him.”
Meredith looked fearfully at the couple, imploring them with her eyes to say something... anything ...to refute him. Iris shook her head helplessly, tears streaming down her face. Gathering her baby up into her arms, she leaned into her husband, who angled her safely behind him. Meredith met her eyes around his broad shoulder.
“Please,” Iris choked, her eyes darting between Meredith and Charu. “Please don’t hurt him.”
Meredith stared at her, appalled. “Wait, he’s a ravager and you’re protecting him?” Her eyes skittered away from Iris to glance at Charu. He aggressively faced up with the wulkwos. Things were going to get bad fast.
“It’s not like that!” Iris cried. “When Ischar came, he saved me from my husband, a man who’d been abusing me since the day we married. It was a godsend. He’s taken care of us, loved us,” her hand skated over her abdomen, “and we have another on the way. Please, I can’t let you take him from me.”
Charu curled his lip, his serpents wavering around him as the males circled and struck out at each other. Neither seemed eager for a full brawl in such close quarters. Ischar seemed to be purposefully steering the fight away from Iris.
Meredith had never seen a ravager protect anyone.
She didn’t know what surprised her more: watching the wulkwos protect a woman who claimed him as hers, or Charu keeping himself protectively between Meredith and his prey. She wondered if it were her imagination, or wishful thinking. He didn’t even seem to be looking at her, his entire focus solely on Ischar.
“Wulkwos do not know love. You are a child of Aites. What do you know of the hearts of the living world?” he challenged Ischar. “You will tell me where the lauchume is hiding and I will bring you for your judgment!”
“I do love,” Ischar snapped. “I admit to my deed that I tore the life from the human and inserted myself in his place, but my being belongs to Iris and to our young.”
“You belong to the lauchume,” Charu challenged, his hair lifting with his serpents in his ire as Ischar evaded another blow as the hammer split the beautiful coffee table in half.
“No!” Ischar denied angrily, shoving away from the gatekeeper. “I severed my bond with the lauchume and formed a bond with my female. I belong to her alone.”
Charu bared his fangs and shook his head.
“What then will you do when you poison her and your ‘family?’ Will you accept the horror that you will lay upon her even as you mingle your flesh with hers?”
An angry flush stole up Ischar’s cheeks.
“I will not harm my mate and offspring,” he growled. “Aites has no true hold on one who loves. I love; therefore, I am no longer of Aites. I am no longer a walking plague on the mortal world. I only ask to be left in peace with my family.”
“Impossible,” Charu sneered, swinging his heavy hammer.
The world slowed down and Meredith watched in shock as Iris pushed her way out from behind her husband and threw herself between them. Ischar’s eyes widened and he let out a wail of fear as his arms clutched his mate, turning her from the fall of the hammer.
Meredith didn’t think. She acted instinctively. The lamp glowed at her, brightening through her mind as she rushed between Charu and the couple. She ducked forward and grabbed his arm. Power skated through her at the contact and the lamp flared impossibly bright, its light surrounding her for a moment before exploding outward.
Charu flew back, his heavy frame crashing through a wall into what appeared to be an empty nursery. He lay there for several moments amid the dust, and out of the corner of her eye Meredith saw Ischar prepare to attack. The power of the lamp still flaring within her veins, she turned to him and raised a hand threateningly as she shook her head.
“Back off, Ischar. Going at him isn’t going to get him to hear you.”
“Nothing will get the gatekeeper to hear me,” he replied dourly, but complied.
Meredith glanced back to see Charu push himself up from the rubble. His snakes, all but one—the largest—had slid back into him at the force of the explosion. He growled low and glared at Meredith. She shrugged, not entirely apologetic.
“Look, hear him out. He’s not acting like a normal wulkwos. Wouldn’t your lamp know the difference? It hasn’t changed once since we entered the house.”
Charu frowned at his lamp, a trace of doubt flickering over his face.
“Yes,” Ischar agreed hopefully. “Test me with the lamp. I beg you. Let me prove the character of my heart.”
Charu growled, his eyes glowing brighter with his ire. He gnashed his teeth, his claws protracting and retracting. Finally, he settled into a low disapproving rumble and glared at Ischar.
“Very well. Submit yourself to the lamp.”
Ischar stood straighter and nodded. He approached Charu with sure steps and held his palms out before the lamp in supplication. Charu, for the first time since they’d met, unstrapped the lamp from his belt and swung it around the wulkwos.
The light did not brighten with the angry flush of red that it carried before in the presence of wulkwos. Instead, its light dimmed to a familiar mellow glow, and a slow triumphant smile spread on Meredith’s face.
“The lamp is accepting his claim,” she murmured.
A confused, lost expression crossed Charu’s face.
“This is not po
ssible.”
“Apparently it is. Please, let it go. Love shouldn’t be destroyed if it has the opportunity to thrive.”
Red eyes narrowed thoughtfully on her and then closed as a ragged sigh expelled from his chest.
“I recognize the claim of the wulkwos Ischar as one beyond the claim of Aites.” His burning eyes fastened on Iris. “He belongs to this human now, for whatever future may lay before them.”
Ischar let out a gasp and crumbled before Charu, his head bowed. His wife fell beside him, Lily in her arms. He drew her into his grasp and they wept together in relief. He lifted his eyes, brightening with a sheen of soft rose light as darkness began to fall outside the windows.
“Thank you,” he rasped. “I yield to your will.”
Charu’s ears flattened and he inclined his head, his eyes drifting over to her.
“Feed the female.”
Chapter 13
Charu watched the human meal ritual with interest. He lingered behind the table and observed the wulkwos seated next to his human mate, the small child between them. He still didn’t understand how such a thing was possible—that a wulkwos was able to ignore its natural urge to feed and sever bonds that had existed for a millennium. He was certain it had to be a trick, yet the lantern was always true. Still, he watched the male, alert for any sign that the wulkwos would surrender to its needs and attack.
Meredith sat on the other side of the table and frowned at him meaningfully. Charu glared back in irritation. He disliked that he was becoming more adept at reading her subtle signals. He did not wish for further avenues to be created in which she might try to sway him. This latest happenstance proved to him that she was a continual danger to his duty. He needed to purge her from his system. She expected him to sit among them and consume the meal offering.
He would not.
He bared his teeth at her, and her brow dropped with displeasure, color blooming on her cheekbones. She’d never dared to look upon him with such impudence, not before she’d absorbed some of the power of the lamp. No matter how much he’d tried to call it to return to the source within the lamp, it was ineffective. It was a small part of his lamp, barely even a lick of its flames, but it was no less powerful. The glow flickered over her skin, increasing in intensity with her mounting ire. It was damnably attractive and alluring. He couldn’t deny that he enjoyed her fire and the knowledge that a bit of his own was now burning within her.
His serpents extended out from him in numbers, sliding over the muscles of his belly and chest and he stepped forward, his entire body radiating hostility. She would learn her place. She would never again dare to challenge him. He watched, mesmerized, as sparks lit up in the darkness of her pupils, expanding and filling them more and more. The vibration of magic flowed off her.
She was so exquisite and passionate about everything. It had drawn him the longer he’d spent with her over the days they’d traveled together on the road. He looked down at her with renewed appreciation.
He sat down in the chair.
The meat that had been lifted from the grill sizzled in a platter, its juices popping. Pans of cooked vegetables were also removed and deposited in larger bowls on the table, along with bread. He started at the sound of a groan of pleasure coming from Meredith at his side.
She tore a hunk of the bread free and brought it to her lips. She inhaled deeply, clearly enjoying the scent of it, before passing it between her lips, where it disappeared into the recess of her mouth. Another groan issued from her and it shot straight through him. He twitched in discomfort.
“Bread! Where did you get bread? I haven’t had a break in weeks.”
Iris laughed softly and cut thick slabs of the bread, setting them on the plates, including the one in front of him. Charu regarded it skeptically, unclear of why something of a simple concoction of grain, yeast, sugar, and water could elicit such a reaction.
“There’s a lady in town who had her husband install one of those old-fashioned fire brick ovens before the ravagers came. Said he’d called it a waste of money. Now she turns out loaves of bread daily to feed our town. We got lucky on that ‘waste of money.’”
Cuts of meat followed the bread onto the plates, and these were followed by vegetables. He regarded the entire plate with disinterest, his eyes shifting to the more entertaining interactions around the table.
The wulkwos, Ischar, leaned over his plate and shoveled food into his mouth with enjoyment, his eyes landing more often than not on his mate to the right of him. Often, he handed food off his plate to the baby between them whenever she whimpered. Wulkwos did not have children. They did not breed in a biological sense any more than any other spirit did. Ischar shouldn’t be showing any interest in the child outside of a predator surveying its next meal. Yet he was exhibiting clear nurturing behavior during the meal ritual, offering his mate choice pieces of meat when wulkwos, even mated pairs, never shared their hunt.
The whole thing was disconcerting to Charu.
“How is that Ischar came here but no other ravagers?”
Meredith’s voice cut through his introspection, and his eyes focused in on the male in question. Ischar and Iris exchanged an uncomfortable look, but Ischar was the one who broke the silence. He set down his fork and regarded them solemnly.
“I came from the north with the mist. I was traveling alone as is the custom but found myself eventually moving in the same direction as many other of my kind. We were all being pulled in the same direction, to the call of the lauchume. We came upon many cities as we passed. Some stayed but most of us kept moving.”
Ischar closed his eyes and a shudder ran through him as if caught in the memory, as his true being moved beneath the human shell he inhabited. He opened his eyes again and they glowed with the uncontainable height of his emotion.
“I still remember the screams of the people as we passed through this town. Their cries as my brethren attacked and tore into any person who was unfortunate enough to be caught in the mists. I hungered and knew nothing but the same clawing hunger that has always existed within me to feed when humans are near, but I couldn’t bear it. In Aites, we don’t hurt anyone, and yet here it was like a madness had been unleashed among us.”
Iris reached over the table and gripped her mate’s hand, a show of solidarity that Charu found curious. It was clearly born from human sentimentality and in that one gesture he could see the mark of their strong bond. Human love was stronger than he’d given it credit.
Ischar took a deep breath and let it out, his skin still pulsing with the need to change.
“I refused to kill anyone, up until the moment I saw my Iris and saw the terrible things her mate was doing to her. When I heard her cry, I couldn’t stop myself from reacting. I enjoyed tearing into him. And when his body lay on the ground, his life bleeding out of him, and I saw Iris and the way she looked at me unafraid but with gratitude in her eyes... I didn’t hesitate to take his place. She kept me safe and hidden, and I chased away any wulkwos who came near this town. She became mine, and her daughter became mine.”
His face hardened. “I will destroy anything that tries to harm my family.”
Ischar’s body twisted and became translucent revealing the creature curled within him. The long, narrow muzzle filled with sharp fangs snarled at him from a vaguely lupine head, though it was segmented with curved horns running up the bridge of his muzzle to the top of his head. Four long horns curved from his brow and a long mane of fur trailed down his length, though the rest of his torso was serpentine save for the fur running down his back and filling out again around his long tail. Dangerous claws flexed and Meredith drew in a sharp gasp before he solidified into his normal human state. His eyes still glowed, however, from beneath his human brow.
Charu felt a measure of respect for the male. He did not understand the feeling he spoke of, but he did understand protecting what was his to protect, and carrying that out with the full strength of one’s will. He found it an unexpected and admirable tra
it in a wulkwos.
He watched Ischar pick up his fork again, but then the male’s eyes slid to him and his plate, a frown on his face.
“You will not partake of a meal with us, gatekeeper?”
Charu glanced down at his plate with a grimace.
“I do not require fleshly sustenance.”
The male’s eyes narrowed.
“You insult my mate if you do not eat. She has given to you. It is proper to receive what is given.”
“Ischar, it’s okay,” Iris mumbled, her face flushing brightly.
He shook his head harshly. “I will not bear insult to you.”
Charu felt a brush of warmth that radiated off Meredith as she leaned to the side and whispered at him, her voice carrying a hint of anger. Instead of infuriating he found it strangely captivating, despite his best efforts to temper his reaction.
“For fuck’s sake, please just eat the food,” she hissed.
He wanted to snap his fangs at her, and demand she remove her attention from him, but instead he found himself reaching forward and grasping the delicate metal fork. He stabbed it into a chunk of meat, certain that it would break off in his hand before he got it anywhere near his mouth.
Surprisingly, the fork held together and he closed his mouth around the end, pulling the tender meat away with his teeth. A burst of flavor slipped over his tongue that the likes of which he’d never experienced.
He had breathed in the sacrificial smokes and drunk the sacrificial wines in great quantity that were offered to him, but never had he eaten before. It was both a crude bodily experience and yet one that felt near sublime as he imagined the gods themselves enjoyed with their great tables of offerings. He stared down the food on his plate with uncertainty whether it should be something that he desired.
Ischar laughed and ate another larger bite of food before he leaned in to speak, his voice pitched low so that the conversation be between them alone. Charu met his mischievous smile with a hard frown, but the male did not let that deter him.
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