I pressed one hand between her horns, pulling on my strength to ease her pain. Dark lines crisscrossed up my arm, but abruptly disappeared.
I stared at the goat. She was still, no breath ghosting over her lips. Not believing my eyes, I strained to listen.
Only one heartbeat. Tiny and weak.
One of her babies had died, its mother’s strength too spent to push it out into the world, but its twin was alive.
Steeling myself against what I had to do, I extended my claws.
I hadn’t considered my bloodied state until Aster flicked on the lamp and screamed.
I blinked down at the mingled bodily fluids smeared across my skin and clothes.
Aster rushed around the sofa. ‘Callum, what happened? Are you okay?’
Over the layers of horrifying smells, Aster’s scent broke through. More than ever before, I wanted to bury myself in it. I could hide in the bracket of his arms and not face any of the horrors lingering in my mind or the responsibilities calling to me.
‘I’m fine.’ My heartbeat skipped, but I ignored it. ‘There was a difficult birth.’
Aster’s nose scrunched, like when I expressed what he considered to be the wrong opinion about one of his TV shows. Thankfully, he didn’t argue with my self-assessment. ‘Birth?’
I eased my arms apart to show him the kid cradled to my chest. ‘I need to give him to you so that I can get back out there.’
With Aster around, I didn’t have to make a choice between this new life and the goats bleating in pitiful distress across the mountains.
Aster’s face scrunched even more. ‘You can give me the teeny baby goat, but you can’t go out again.’
‘I have to.’ I walked over to the kitchen sink and grabbed a rag to wipe the worst of the blood and gore from the kid’s soft grey fur. ‘I can hear goats out there who need help.’
I noticed my slip-up as the words tumbled from my mouth. Aster used his hip to ease me out of the way and took my place cleaning the goat standing in the sink.
‘I know you think you’re an epic wild man who’s at one with the mountains, but you can’t possibly hear the goats.’ Aster ran hot water to clean the rag and continued wiping the trembling kid. ‘You need to stay here and take care of yourself.’
This wasn’t the time to reveal my true nature. Aster didn’t need to know I could literally hear scared goats calling out right now. He just needed to listen and let me leave.
‘I need to go.’ I strode over to my boots.
‘Callum, stop.’
Aster’s hand on my arm wasn’t enough to restrain me. I could tear away from his grip and be out of the cabin before he could make any other attempts to stop me.
I needed to get back to work, but I turned to face him at his insistent tugging.
He reached up to cup one side of my face, his other hand clutching the damp kid to his chest.
‘Callum, I need you to listen to me because I have your best interests at heart and I’m not sure you do.’ Aster’s earnest face tilted up towards mine. ‘I hear that you want to go back out and, if you really need to, you can do that. But before you look after any other goats, you need to look after yourself.’
‘But—’
‘Two things are non-negotiable,’ he said over my feeble protest. ‘You need to shower and change, and then you need to eat.’
I stared into Aster’s eyes. A deep brown, surrounded by impossibly long lashes. There was no point in arguing.I’d come to the cabin to deposit the kid, but maybe I’d wanted this too. Someone here would care for me, would take one look at the mess I was in and demand I care for myself.
After I muttered instructions for sterilising bottles and making up formula, Aster chivvied me away for a shower. The water felt heavenly across my abused muscles and, for the first time since Aster said he wanted to know me, I didn’t get an erection while I washed. How to dampen my libido: snowstorms resulting in an exhausting day filled with goats’ screams and gore.
‘I’ve heated up stew,’ Aster called while I dressed in the bedroom.
I pulled on layers and stumbled out to the main room. Mechanically, I swallowed mouthfuls of meat and vegetables while Aster fed the kid beside me on the sofa.
