4
FALLING MOUNTAINS
Andrik-
I lace the locket over one of my antlers. The chain is cool against my skin, but the scent clinging to it—her scent—warms something I thought I was made without. I'm not sure why it's important—only that my body knows it is. “Veyrinth sael ves’torin,” I whisper. (Your scent quiets the storm.)
Something instinctual is screaming inside me that this fragile piece of metal matters more than anything I’ve ever held. I have no pockets or clothes. Only fur and the body the forest gave me. So I secure it high where no one can reach it but me.
The pendant sways as I shift my weight, and I find I like the sound the metal makes when it clinks softly against antler. It brings me a strange comfort I’ve never had before.
I don’t know why I was made like this, or why I was left deep in the marrow of these woods to rule over it. But standing here, watching her?—
I’m starting to think it has everything to do with the tiny human shouting at me.
Movement catches my eye. She’s getting up.
No.
Panic slams through my chest.
She can’t leave. She can’t?—
My body moves before my mind catches up. Muscles coiling, claws extending, everything inside begging for me to do something.
I could block her path—herd her toward my cabin, where I can keep her safe and close.
Kaemorin.The word pulses through me like a second heartbeat.
Keep her here. Keep her safe. Keep her mine.
The thoughts come too fast, swallowing reason whole. My claws dig into the ground. The beast inside me is screaming. I can barely control it.
Take her. Claim her. Don’t let her leave.
“No,” I snarl at myself, voice breaking. “Nai’thar veskae.” (Control yourself.) I force my claws to retract, and my body to still, even as every nerve burns with the need to move.
She’s not prey.
She’s not mine.
But gods help me?—
She has to stay.
The locket swings when I move, cold silver clicking against bone—a heartbeat that isn't mine. A sore reminder that she screamed for a monster, and wept into his blood like her soul was being torn in half. And still, every part of me rebels at the thought of letting her walk away. I tell myself it’s about the questions, but that’s a lie. The truth is much simpler.
I won’t survive being alone anymore now that I know she exists.
For so long,I have wondered why I was made incomplete. Forced to judge the wicked and protect the forest’s boundaries. I never dreamed the gods would allow me to have a mate, but then she stumbled into my forest, grief-stricken and alive, and something I thought I was created without melts in my chest.
She takes another step, her scent getting fainter as each footfall pulls her farther from me. My claws sink deeper until cracks spiderweb the ice beneath them.
If I let her go, I’ll never get another chance.
“Varkh!” The word rips desperately from my throat.
She freezes, her spine going rigid. Her head whips around, eyes blazing, though she still can’t see me.
