21

A R Y A

➳

I furrowed my brows as I looked around the dense forest. We were neither at our night camp nor on the Moonwater Pack site. "Why didn't you port us to your estate?"

"We're not far from it, just a few hours."

He didn't say more about it. I swung my bow over my back and pulled my cloak tighter. "What happened to Devon?"

'I found him next to the Ayrun River. Unconscious and close to dying. But no wolves to be seen far and wide, only their tracks, which ended in front of the river.” His naked, blood-smeared upper body shimmered slightly in the dawn while he watched me silently with burning eyes. "And when I didn't find you at the camp, I followed your scent."

I clasped my hands behind my back and resisted the urge to tap my feet nervously. I avoided his gaze. “How can you be so sure it wasn't Daemon? After all, they were definitely wolves.” The marks and claw tears that had torn the flesh of countless victims were evidence enough.

'I've picked up their scent. And not a single rogue in Daemon's pack bore any resemblance to it - they all smelled like Daemon himself. Whichever wolf committed those atrocities, none were under Daemon's command."

“You said several werewolves have disappeared and are missing. What about the gis?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him rubbing the shadow of his beard. "I don't know anything about that."

Which wasn't surprising. Why should the chiefs of our tribes trust a werewolf with reports of their affairs?

I clutched my hands in the wool of my cloak. Echinda would first suck the victims' blood to gain strength, only to then kidnap more werewolves and gis and bind them to her. She wanted full control. And control meant power. If the legends were correct, then Echinda would not rest until all beings of Semeera and Anifeira were in her hands. "Do you think there will be a war?"

He nodded calmly. 'If we don't stop it. Yes."

He was honest, didn't hide or embellish anything from me. So I pushed my pride aside. I looked at the gray clouds in front of my mouth as I exhaled deeply. "What's your plan?"

“I will summon Aramis. He should help us, and maybe he can consult Gaia and Luna. In the meantime, we will try to prevent more being kidnapped and figure out how to break the blood covenant without harming the innocent.”

I couldn't add anything more, I would have gone straight ahead. "That's a good plan." I buttoned up my cloak, fiddled with it unnecessarily for a while, until finally I couldn't think of anything else to do or what topic to bring up to avoid the real thing. So I raised my head.

Automatically my eyes went to the dark red smeared blood on his bare skin and I clenched my shaking hands into fists. "I summoned you." My voice was a mere whisper, and I would have been ashamed if the fear for him wasn't still deep in my limbs. "When you didn't answer me..." I shook my head like a wet dog, as if to banish the horrific images from my mind. "And then I saw the blood..." I looked away from him. 'I thought... I thought you were in danger. I just kept hearing your last words...' My voice broke and I covered my mouth with my hand as I looked up at him. Tears burned my eyes. "And I was so cruel to you." I couldn't hold the sobs either that shook my body, as well as the tears that ran indignantly down my cheeks. "“Vosheea ehsa!” I'm so sorry!"

His eyes sparkled as dark as the depths of the sea as he said hoarsely and harshly, "Come here."

Cloak fluttering, I flew straight into his outstretched arms and threw myself around his neck. I kept muttering, "“Vosheea ehsa, vosheea ehsa”."

His arms wrapped tightly around me as he whispered in my ear, "There's nothing to apologize for." He kissed the cup of my ear. “I told you that no matter what you decide, I will always be there for you. Nothing will ever change that.”

I just sobbed more, hugging him so hard I almost felt like crawling into him. I wished for nothing more than to be able to find protection and security in these arms forever. "I do not want to leave you."

He was panting and his arms were holding me so tight it was hard to breathe. "Then don't do it."

I leaned back to look him in the eye. That beautiful, masculine face that I would do anything for. But... "My father..."

"What are the chances that you will become the chief of your tribe now?"

My fingers traced his chin and I closed my eyes. I knew the answer, always had known it. My father's instruction had been clear and distinct; marry or leave. Yet my heart was filled with a small hope. A hope in which my father saw my potential. "Not big. Not big at all. If I don't marry, I'll be banished."

"You must decide who you vote for, Arya."

There was only one choice for Arya, the First Arrow of Retani, but I had discovered that I was much more than a warrior.

“Always there for you, Arya. Always.”

I closed my hands around his face and rested my forehead against his. My heart had already decided. "You. I choose you.”

He closed his eyes briefly and breathed in hissing, when he then opened them and conquered my mouth with a fiery kiss - and I didn't resist it anymore, I let myself in for it. All of my hard-built walls and barriers that were supposed to protect me from his spells crumbled as he kissed me so passionately and hard that it tipped my toes. I felt his bare chest vibrate as he growled loudly and I instinctively pressed myself even closer to him when something hit my heart so hard it took my breath away. “What in Gaia's will?”

Xenos shuddered beneath me, tearing himself from my mouth and roaring loudly.

"What happened?" My heart was pounding and blood was pounding in my ears as my whole body tingled.

Then he swiveled his gaze down to me and looked at me with eyes as bright blue as the stars in the sky themselves. Raw, strong possessiveness flared up in them. He bit my lip. "You belong to Me. You are my mate.'

"Mate?" I breathed, groping my way to the word. Twisted and turned it, unable to believe the wonder of it. Mate, soulmate, the other half one was destined to seek. I dared the thought of being connected to him. Tears clouded my vision as I whispered again, "We're mates?"

"Yes." His face darkened. "And you can no longer defend yourself against it, the bond exists."

I would have lied if I said I wasn't afraid. “Aee”, I was scared. Fear of what it meant to be bound to him forever. Fear of what my future would bring to me - “us”. But I would have been lying too if I hadn't said joy wasn't making my heart laugh at that very moment. A joy that overshadowed the fear by a long way. Xenos was my mate. No other woman would come along and lay claim to a life with him. “He was mine. completely me”. A teasing smile curled my lips and I looked up at him with a flirtatious wink. "Then you should probably call me your queen from now on."

He didn't say anything for a moment, just stared at me and I thought I'd said something wrong when he suddenly lifted me up and spun me around. Before I could stop it, a girlish squeal escaped my lips. "For Gaia's sake, what are you doing?"

His face beamed with joy like I had never seen before. He grinned up at me boyishly, and I laughed at his wolfish, possessive demeanor as he said, "You're mine!"

He slowly lowered me down to him, put me on the floor and then cupped my face with both his hands. Then he kissed my face—my eyelids, my forehead, my nose, the corners of my mouth. I giggled under his kisses until I understood what he was muttering between them. "I found you. I finally found you.” A long, deep kiss on my lips. "From the beginning. I knew it from the start. You're the one."

My breath hitched as he picked me up and pulled me into a tight hug. I automatically wrapped my legs around his waist, wrapped my arms around him and buried my head in his neck. We were mates, bonded forever. I had taken the step into the gorge, and a bridge had risen out of nowhere beneath me. But she could still fall, I could still sink down. "Promise me one thing."

"Whatever you want."

I felt the single throbbing thread between us as I whispered, "Don't let me fall. Just don't drop me."

His arms pressed me close to him and I felt his claws on my hips as he promised fervently, "“Never”."

➳

➳

The ever-brighter light of the big sun shone gently over the earth and thus also illuminated the rock faces high in the north. The woman jumped back as the bright light reached the cave mouth high up in the stone wall and grimaced.

Cursed should be the big golden sphere that always decided to rise again and ring in the day. She hated the sun. she hated them.

She snaked nimbly deeper into the dark, cold cave passages, following the sound of scales on rough rock. Her son hadn't kept her company last night, nor is he now. But that didn't matter, he had a job to do.

She continued to wind her way down the gloomy corridors, the stone walls damp and wet, until she turned right and headed for the altar. She didn't need a light to make out the precise outline of the stone table, or the copper goblet placed on it - her reptilian eyes saw much better in the dark than in the daytime.

She ignored the clinking of chains in the background, or the many shouts and screams - pathetic fools, all of them. Arriving at the altar, her bony, pale hand, whose fine scales shone with every movement, clawed at the hilt of the small, but extremely sharp blade and she cut her palm. Black blood trickled from the wound as she clenched her fist tightly over the copper goblet. As soon as it was full enough, she turned around, the goblet firmly in hand.

"Well, who wants to be first?" she asked dryly, looking at the dozens of creatures in front of her whose joints were adorned with silver shackles and held her captive. Some of them yelled dirty insults at her, others threatened her with untold torment, and some even cried. she sighed. Once she got them right and crawled deep into her soul, she would stamp out that weak behavior, she promised herself.

"Well then, I guess I'll decide." With that, she led the way to the first chained man, and her black, sharp claws dug into his chin. "Drink," she commanded, before pressing the goblet to his lips and forcing his mouth open. After several dismal attempts to fight back, he let her in and the black liquid flowed into his mouth. Well smiled. "Very good," she whispered, her eyes gleaming with anticipation as the gi warrior staggered against the stone wall and his eyes rolled back.

And when he later looked at her blankly, like all the other chained people in the cell deep underground, her smile got bigger. Several dozen souls were chained to hers. And that was just the beginning. For her beloved “Dijun” would bring her someone who would sacrifice a whole country to her. He would bring her the king. And with