She listened to the fire crackle and spit, trying to calm her mind of all the questions and emotions that filled her after everything that had happened, and everything that lay ahead.
She found her eyes drawn to Ty as he sat stoically across the fire, and part of her wondered…did he know why she’d really done it? Why she’d chosen to leave with him? Because yes, part of her had done it to restore Gaia’s balance, and to right the wrongs of the past by breaking the bond. But another large part of her had done it for him. Just to be with him. Did he know that?
As she finally drifted off to sleep, she was filled with the certainty that no matter what came next, no matter what she had to endure in the Underworld, or with her own Coven, that if she could just be with him, then it would all be worth it in the end.
Chapter Two
Ty
Thenextday,Tyawoke with the dawn. It was later than he intended, and he groaned as he opened his eyes to see the sunlight filtering through the trees. His entire body felt stiff and rigid, including his…
Memory flooded him. He’d been having a dream that Ena was riding him, her tits bouncing in his hands as she rocked into him, and now his cock was hard as stone.
Looking around, he turned to find the woman of his dreams peacefully sitting by the fire, stoking it with a long branch.
She was certainly a sight to wake up to. Her dark-brown hair glowed in the early-morning light, and the cold, crisp air made the pale, creamy skin on her cheeks and the tip of her nose slightly pink.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Ena greeted as she looked towards him, seeing that he was awake.
He grunted in response, it being the only sound he could muster as the blood flowed back into his brain.
Ena laughed. A sensual, delicate thing that made his heart race.
“What?” he asked, sitting up and giving her a small smile in return. Did he amuse her somehow? He hoped so. He wanted to hear that sound again.
“Nothing. You’re just extremely grumpy when you wake up,” she said, teasing.
He grunted in acknowledgment, on purpose this time. She laughed again, and he felt like he’d won a prize.
Standing up, he scratched at his unruly beard. It was getting too long and he needed to trim it, but it’d been weeks since he’d been in a position to do so. Just one more thing he was eager to do when they finally arrived at their destination.
Seeing that Ena had turned her attention back to the fire, Ty strode off into the woods to take a piss behind a tree, his body finally starting to wake up.
He’d spent most of last night thinking about what had happened with the Canus Elk, and what it meant for them. Only in the wee hours of the morning had he finally, reluctantly, woken up Ena to take over on watch so he could sleep. He would’ve let her sleep the whole night if he could’ve, but he knew he needed to be alert as they rode today, given how close they were to the entrance to the Underworld.
Clearly, he’d been more tired than he’d thought, because it seemed like no time at all had passed before the sun woke him up. He wasn’t mad about it, though—waking up to see Ena by the fire was… Well, for the first time in nine years, he actually felt like his reality might be better.
Or at least, he hoped it would be soon. They’d been traveling so hard and fast the last week—his only focus on getting them both as far away from Occidens as possible—that there’d been zero time for anything else.
He was pretty sure they’d done it, though—he’d been using hisvenatorconstantly, watching and listening for any signs of pursuit, but all had been quiet. He hoped that by the time the witches had figured out they were gone, they’d gotten enough of a head start to make catching up to them impossible.
But still, he couldn’t let his guard down—not yet. And especially not with whatever new threats on the horizon the Canus Elk portended.
Returning to their fire, Ty watched as Ena began her now-familiar morning routine. After building up the fire with the logs and branches Ty had broken for her last night, she shook out her cloak, picking off large hunks of moss and sticks, before finger-combing her hair and re-braiding it.
He’d never admit it, but he often found himself mesmerized just watching her move. Like she was some elusive, rare animal he still couldn’t believe was his, and it was completely new territory for him.
He’d never been this…familiar with anyone besides Steig and Turner before. Certainly not a woman. He couldn’t even recall the amount of times he’d watched Steig and his wife Lara over the years and yearned to have that kind of intimacy with someone. But he’d assumed he would never be able to, and so after a while, it had gotten so painful to think about that he squashed the idea of ever having that with anyone entirely from his head.
But now here they were, living in a sort of unspoken harmony.
Averting his eyes before she could catch him watching her, Ty rummaged through his pack and pulled out their last hunk of stale bread and an extremely beat-up apple. Breaking the former in two, he handed one half to Ena, along with the apple.
“Don’t you want to split this too?” she asked as she took the apple from his hand.
“No, I’ll be alright,” he said.
“Are you sure? You’re bigger than me. You should probably have it,” she said, trying to hand it back to him.
