You Came for Me

You Came for Me
Oakley

Alpin steps into the water. He’s naked. Totally, completely naked. It doesn’t matter. His skin is scorched to a crisp, all shades of red, blue, and black. His arm hangs at an awkward angle from his left shoulder, useless. But in his right arm, he brandishes what I believe is an axe. 

I push upright, swaying as my body rejects the sudden movement. He slowly moves in my direction. I suppose if he were in better shape, I’d be dead by now at his hand, but neither of us are at our best, and that is in my favor. 

I brace myself on a tree, taking several painful, burning breaths. My legs refuse to cooperate, even staring death in the face. 

Alpin can’t speak, which I realize within seconds as his battered face catches a single beam of moonlight breaking through the smokey sky. His jaw is completely dislocated. His teeth are shattered–a bloody, uncanny mess. He went through hell. He deserved it. 

I take a step away from him, and my legs immediately buckle. I flail, but my hand slips from the tree, and I fall back on my ass with a crunch. My tailbone sings with pain, and my hiss of agony is the only sound for miles. Even the water is silent. Even the massive, airborne mass of black gracefully swooping out of the trees on the other side of the river is as silent as death. 

Ian’s beast doesn’t make a sound as he flies over the water and snatches Alpin out of midair. The fox never sees him coming. He doesn’t stand a chance. 

I close my eyes to prevent myself from watching Ian snap the man’s body in half like a toothpick. It’s a small mercy, I suppose. The splash of multiple body parts falling into the water jars me back to existence, and my body finally, finally, wakes up. 

I grunt with the effort of standing upright. My mind quivers, and a sick wave of nausea has me doubling over and hugging my knees. I let it pass, ignoring the soft brush of wind lifting my hair off my shoulders as something large and dangerous lands with a brief thud several yards behind me. 

The beast makes his move. His footsteps send a small vibration through the forest floor. His hot breath lifting the hair off the back of my neck sends shivers down my spine. 

But he doesn’t bite my head off. 

Even so, something strange happens to me, a small, furious snap deep in my chest. Like a dam breaking loose, every emotion I’ve ever felt, every sense of fear, loneliness, worry, and the knowledge that everything I thought I knew about the world was so wrong comes crashing down on me, heavier than anything I’ve ever felt. 

I slowly shrug him off, rolling my aching shoulder, and turn to face him. 

Ian stares down at me with his bright, glimmering green beast eyes, so different from his normal gaze. It’s predatory and curious, like one small move from me will have him going absolutely ballistic. 

But I’m beyond caring when I draw my hand back and slap him hard over his snout. 

He rears back, snorting in pain, and bares his massive teeth. 

“Don’t you dare!” I snarl, pointing an accusatory finger he could snap off in a single bite. “It must have been nice”—I choke on a sob—“being able to just fly away. I fell off a waterfall! My hands are burned!” I look down at my scorched, blistered palms. “How am I supposed to weave and knit, now, Ian?” My sobs tremble up and down my throat, blooming into my lungs, which contract. I can’t catch my breath, but it doesn’t matter. I double over again, bracing my hands on my knees. “I didn’t want this. I wanted… I wanted something equally as impossible, you know. Goddess, when you–I was such an idiot. I was exactly the kind of woman I used to detest, the kind who simped over a man, who got her hopes up. And now look at me, Ian!” 

I stand straight up, pointing at the deep gash running from my lip to my temple, still oozing blood with every word I say. “I let myself believe everything you were doing was just because you felt sorry for me. Because I hurt myself in your territory. Everyone thought you’d pay my bride price, and we’d marry. Everyone put all of their eggs in my basket, and I carried that burden for two weeks. Oh, my Goddess.” I burst into fresh tears. “I wasn’t prepared for this, okay? I liked my quiet life. I liked my garden. I liked the fiber shop and making fucking sweaters!” My guttural sob echoes through the forest. 

Ian just stares at me, utterly confused. 

“I let myself hope, just a little bit, that you wanted me,” I continue. “That you liked me, just a bit. Just enough that I had a shot because no one ever likes me. I’m plain. I’m boring. I’m not a warrior. I dress funny. I don’t have anything to offer, nothing exciting, nothing that sets me apart. And now, I’m here, with no way to defend myself, and I’m not ready.” My thoughts jumble and more sobs follow. “And you’re a prince! You’re a fucking prince!”

Ian takes a tentative step back and lowers onto his hunches, tilting his massive beast head to the side, his ears perked. 

“You never liked me, did you? It was just your stupid beast who wanted me, wasn’t it? You did this to me, you fucking–you fucking–you big, ugly monster! You’re stealing Ian, and you stole me. Just eat me, then. I hate you. I hate what you’ve done to us!”

The beast snorts a breath like he understands what I’m saying and finds it highly offensive. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” I counter, taking a deep, but shaky, breath. “Don’t you dare look at me like that.” 

The beast rises again and tries to move closer. He makes it within striking distance, and I snap, reel my arm back, and punch him soundly right in the nose with a closed fist. 

He snarls, throwing his head back, and he nearly swipes me with his talons when bringing his paw to his nose to shield it from another blow. 

“You deserved it!”

He snorts again, his eyes narrowed. 

I bend at the waist and pick up a very thin stick, nothing that can actually save my life or do even a lick of damage. I still hit him with it several times, and he lets me. 

“We are not mates. We can’t be. I cannot be mated to a monster! I haven’t done anything wrong! I’m a good girl. I honor the Goddess and my family!” I hit him over the head, and he grunts but keeps his head bowed and takes every blow. “I actually liked Ian! I wanted him to choose me. I hoped for it! I thought I was finally being chosen!” I whip him over the head again, and apparently, he’s had enough. 

His soft, guttural growl isn’t menacing because I’ve heard far worse from him. He does, however, knock the stick out of my hand and grab me by the shirt in a gentle bite. I’m immediately airborne, the collar of the shirt digging into my neck as he swipes me up and carries me away from the water. I beat him over the snout with my fists until he puts me down several yards away. The second my feet touch the forest floor, and I thrust to push away, he swipes his paw under me, forcing me down onto my ass, and then he curls his body around mine, locking me against the earth. 

His heat penetrates my body to the bones. He adjusts our position so I’m firmly engulfed by him and tucked comfortably against his side. He keeps his paw pressed to my belly to stop me from being able to sit up, and then….

“Gross! Stop right now!” I shout, but he licks my face again, and again, while I groan and snarl expletives. The cut on my face burns like fire but tingles madly until the pain ebbs away. I can feel my heartbeat along the gash, slow and rhythmic. 

“That’s disgusting,” I grunt, elbowing him in the neck, but his answer comes in the form of his massive jaw resting on my forehead and a low, rumbling, almost relaxed breath that makes his body vibrate from the tip of his nose to his tail, which is draped over me like a blanket. 

I try to fight it, but sleep washes over me like a tidal wave, dragging me into a stupor so dead my entire body goes blissfully numb, and my eyelids flutter. 

I linger on the edge of sleep for a long time. My body rests while my mind slowly pours over my situation until I lose focus entirely, and the forest comes back to life around us. Birdsong ushers in the faint, smoky morning sun, but Ian remains in his beast form, even when first light filters through the trees. 

His sharp flinch brings me back to full lucidity. I remain perfectly still for several seconds until it happens again, more aggressive this time, and the beast strains again in what I realize is a shift taking place. 

His beast form begins to change, to fade, in a far less aggressive manner than last night, when I watched him be pulled apart limb by limb. He simply slips back into his human form, but slowly. The paw on my stomach fades to fingers tinged black that curl into my shirt. His fur changes to skin painted in swirls of pulsating black, like the magic inside of him doesn’t want to let go. 

“Ian?”

His breath comes in shallow, pained puffs that lift my hair. His cheek is pressed against my forehead, one of his long legs pinned over both of mine. 

“It’s okay. We’re okay,” I whisper and lift my one free arm to try to touch him, but his hand leaves my belly and grabs my wrist. He lifts his head to look down at me, and his eyes are still beast-like, bright and animalistic. “I’m here. We’re fine,” I whisper, my voice trembling. “We’re okay.”

His teeth are still sharpened to fine points, but he looks like himself again, just… oozing the magic that’s ruining both of our lives. 

“You ate Alpin. Do you remember that?”

He snarls at the mention of the now dead fox but continues pinning my wrist above my head. I have an odd sense of knowing, making my heart flutter and quicken. What if he shifts again? What if the beast is taking hold and now has the power to just take him, to take what’s left of the Ian beneath?

“Look at me,” I beg. 

He does. I’m out of my mind and driven by instinct when I lift my head as best I can and brush my lips against his. It’s not a kiss. Not really. I suppose I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been kissed before.

“Look at me,” I whisper against his mouth, and I open my eyes. 

His eyes are closed. His expression is relaxed. 

“I’m here. You didn’t hurt me. None of these wounds are because of you. You came for me. I knew you would. Everything I said last night, I–I’m scared. I don’t know what to do.”

He presses his mouth to mine and takes the words from my tongue with a sweeping, deep kiss that renders my rational mind absolutely useless. 

He groans into the kiss. At first, it’s too much. Too hard, too sloppy. We miss several times, our teeth clashing, and his body, still thrumming with his beast energy, pressing too heavily into mine. I break away, breathless, whining soft assurances, reminding him who he is. “It’s us. It’s Oakley and Ian. We’re here. We got out. You came for me. I knew you’d come for me.”

He presses his lips to mine again, and this time, it’s what I hoped it would be when I let myself believe he might be the one to choose me. It's the kind of kiss we’d share after the priestess blesses our union at the Harvest Festival. 

He sweeps his tongue over my lower lip in a silent command to open up to him, and I do. Of course, I do. It's tender and beautiful. 

I’ll never forget it. 

But our bodies have a mind of their own, and the heavy, liquid feeling in my chest swells so sharply I feel suddenly heated to the point that I lose my grip on reality, of proprietary, of every warning and lesson I’ve been forced to listen to about boys my entire life. 

His hand leaves my wrist and curls around the back of my neck, drawing me closer to him. I tangle my fingers in his hair, drawing him down to meet me. Heat courses between us, and I chase an aching kind of friction that makes my thoughts swim and melt away. 

He whispers my name against my jaw, then kisses lower, tugging the collar of my shirt to give him access to my skin.

But then he stops and goes perfectly still. He breaks from the kiss and looks up, his gaze locked somewhere in the forest around us, and his eyes fade from beast-like and bright back to that deep blue. 

A twig snaps, and three sets of footsteps ring out. 

“Oh, gross,” an unfamiliar voice chuckles before breaking into a cackling laugh.