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“Many reasons,” he offers vaguely.

Which pricks my wolf’s attention further. I think about those occasions when I partially shift. Usually, when I’m pissed or sense danger, but also when I am…

“Tell me some of them, please,” she demands.

“No,” we say in unison again.

We share a look. A smile touches his lips.

The bastard is up to something, that much is certain. He has not made a move yet, and I was expecting him to. The wait is making me nervous, which makes no fucking sense.

He is always striding around fucking naked with his third leg swinging as he sets up the small camp. It is like a magnet drawing Fawn’s eyes, making her aroused scent bloom like a cloud until I have no choice but to mount her so I can think straight… which does not last very long… not the mounting, the thinking straight afterward in case anyone is confused.

But he has not said anything more about her being his queen. Nor has he once shown even a hint of arousal… other than the occasional—and I’m now certain, involuntary—sprouting of his antlers when I fuck her in front of him.

Maybe he has changed his mind?

Maybe he’s not into does and merely wants a queen in name?

Nope, the bastard is playing the long game. I’d bet on it.

Fawn

I love Seven’s antlers. They are surely the most beautiful antlers in all the world. I have admired them often and with increasing boldness since we left the pack four days ago.

Once it was decided that I would leave, I spent a day sorting through my possessions, choosing what to keep and what to leave for the family who were looking for more space and were delighted with the boon of my former home.

In the end, I left most things for the family, including Greta, my wayward goat.

Now we are on our way to Seven’s home. And while my mama hailed from a lesser herd and not his herd, it still feels like I’m going home to where my parents’ secret love first began and before they had to flee.

Seven told me the story of their mating, how a lower herd leader’s son sought to break them up, and how Seven’s father, the former Master Stag, and then Seven searched for us.

My tummy feels all fluttery thinking of Seven searching for me all these years. It feels like his finding me again is the closing of a circle and significant somehow… I imagine tracing my finger along his antlers, how velvety they feel, like they are designed by the Goddess herself to entice me to pet them.

Despite being cross with him for not letting me shift, only moments later I’m mooning after his antlers again.

If I love his antlers, then I also suffer a lot of guilt about them, specifically that I admire them so much, along with the rest of him: his beautiful golden skin that seems to shimmer in the sunlight or campfire, his long golden hair, and his cute pointed ears, which I am not yet bold enough to pet… his kind, patient, and infinitely gentle ways, and the occasional firm side he reveals, that makes me want to be good and bad all at once. And his stag form, which is so much larger and more dignified than the younger version I first met. My doe is besotted with him and his scent. She preens inside me whenever we are close, which is most of the time.

It is probably for the best that I have not been allowed to shift while we travel, lest my doe shamelessly entice the regal stag to rut…

I want to shift, though, desperately, maybe not in front of Seven, given my doe’s obsession with him. Seven has assured me that I can shift as often as I like once we are within his herd.Yesterday, he mentioned that I was being allocated courtiers, who I think are like personal guards.

Courtiers.He mentioned them before when he first arrived at my home, telling me how I was descended from a fairy, how I am lusty, and how I would need a lot of tending, and mates, and courtiers, whom I think might not only be personal guards, but extra mates for when I’m very needy indeed. How his herd’s finest warriors would have leave to woo me…

At first, I thought he wanted me… to share me with Wolf, but now I am not so sure.

Pushing Blue’s heavy head from my lap, I rise and begin to pace, blushing furiously, aware of how close I am to both Wolf and Seven, who have taken seats on opposite sides of the small campfire, how their combined scent tickles my nose, how I am making a little mess between my legs.

Wolf suddenly growls.

If my doe finds Seven noble and intriguing and flirts shamelessly before him in my mind, she is a hussy for Wolf. For Wolf she wants to wag her tail like that might encourage him to take her. That he is a wolf and she is a doe is of little importance to her.

Hearing a faint rustle, I spin around.

“My mate has needs,” Wolf says, snatching me up and carrying me like a sack over his shoulder to his side of the small clearing where he drops me to the ground.

“You are making it wo?—”