Page 8 of Howling Eve (Ragoru Origins #2)

Chapter Eight

S kal circled the wagon, giving it a last-minute check. He gripped the shafts and pulled experimentally, grunting with approval when it rolled forward. Eve couldn’t help but notice that he moved it far easier than her mule had ever managed with even a quarter less of a load. His head ducked as he peered at the end of one of the shafts and tapped a claw on the metal attaching piece toward the end. His brow lowered, his muzzle wrinkling faintly with his confusion.

“You said that this attached to your animal? How?”

“Oh, that just attaches to a harness. Thanks for the reminder,” she sighed as she turned toward the barn. “We would need that for the return trip.”

He made a dismissive sound and Eve rolled her eyes, her lips twitching a little as she stepped inside the dark barn. Normally she would take a lantern in with her, but she knew her way around by memory and was able to locate the leather harness and straps quickly. Piling them over one arm, Eve returned to the wagon. Skal’s ears tipped toward her as his eyes fastened on them. She’d planned to just put them in the back of the fore wagon but found herself quickly relieved of her burden by the Ragoru.

Draping the straps over the front of the wagon, Skal held the harness out in front of him and peered at it with interest. Eve coughed and quickly pointed out the straps of the harness.

“This would go around the mule like… Oh!” She was startled as he removed the lower straps and swung the remaining straps of the harness over his body. “You don’t want to wear that. You’re not a mule,” she said firmly as she reached for it to take it from him.

He immediately shifted out of her reach and pinned her with an annoyed look. “Why would not wish to make use of this? It appears that it would distribute the weight of the wagon nicely as I pull it.”

She could feel her cheeks heating. “But you’re not a mule,” she repeated. “If people saw you hitched the wagon like one that would think that you are no better than an animal. Beside you can pull it just fine without it.” She did not mention the way that they would laugh and whisper. She was used to it, but it bothered her that they would do that to Skal when he didn’t see it that way. She made another attempt to grab only for the male to skitter out of her reach again his ears twitching and pricking at her in a way that seemed adorably playful. The rotten male was laughing at her! She swallowed back her own laugh and scowled at him. “Really Skal, you look silly. Give it back!”

She lunged and he yipped in amusement, the sound drawing a giggle from her. He was really too ridiculous. His jaw hung lax in a lupine grin and a deep, sonorous chuckle rose from his chest. Shaking his head, he snorted and proceeded to tighten up the loose strap over his back, puncturing new holes in the leather with his claws to get it to fit close against his body. “I do not care what humans think,” he pointed out. “It makes sense to use it this way while I’m pulling it if it makes the task easier.”

Eve couldn’t argue with that, so she groaned quietly to herself in exasperation and watched silently as he quickly worked out how to hitch himself to the wagon. She could feel the heat rushing into her face as she watched him. It was just so wrong. But more than that, it was mortifying because it teased her with daydreams of having hold of his harness and having complete control over him as he pleasured her. There was plenty of space along that thick collar strap where she could just loop her hand through and hold on to him while she rode him.

Blessed Mother! Where had that thought even come from?

She fanned her face rapidly with her hand. She prayed that the ground which just open up beneath her and swallow her whole if there was so much as the slightest indication of which she was thinking of on her face. Her eyes turned toward Skal and she groaned inwardly. He was watching her. His head was cocked and there was a look of concern on his face as he regarded her.

“Are you ill?”

Gods, yes. There was definitely something wrong with her to be fantasizing about a male who just days ago intimidated her and tried to kick her out of her own home. That he immediately yielded and had been great company since was rather beside the point.

“No! No, I’m fine,” she amended with a nervous laugh. “Just a little hot out here don’t you think?”

His expression turned skeptical, and he glanced over a tree that suddenly rippled with a burst of cool air. His gaze returned to her.

“No,” he replied flatly. “If you become ill, you will be seeing your… what do you call it?” he grumbled, scratching his jaw pensively with his claws. His expression suddenly brightened. “Ah. You will go see your doctor.”

Her mouth curled in spite of herself. “I will, huh?”

He nodded, his attention returning to the wagon as he resumed checking over the straps. “You will,” he affirmed. “I will not allow you to become sick. So if you are ill at all you will see this doctor and do whatever is required to get well.” His gaze lifted, his eyes piercing her with an authority that made her shiver.

Oh, she was in trouble! She didn’t know if she wanted to harness him or for him to leash her. At the moment both options suddenly seemed far too appealing.

“I’m fine. Really,” she assured him.

Skal eyed her for a long moment but then nodded. Giving the straps one last experimental tug, he turned forward, placed all four of his hands on the shafts and took several steps forward. His jaw dropped in another one of his grins and he nodded happily to himself.

“This will work! Climb in female and we will depart.”

Pulling a thick blanket out of a compartment behind the seat, she wrapped it around herself and climbed onto her perch. It felt a little weird not having reins to hold onto, but she wasn’t about to ask him to strap anything else to himself just to make herself more comfortable. She certainly didn’t need to encourage any more inappropriate fantasies about her Ragoru housemate. At a loss as to what to do, and without anything to hold onto, she put her hands firmly in her lap.

“Uhm, I’m ready,” she called to him, hating how it came out sounding like a question.

The wagon lurched as he sprung forward and Eve yelped as she promptly tipped and nearly fell backward out of the seat, and then promptly fell forward when it all came to a crashing stop.

“Eve! Are you injured?”

She could hear the frantic jingle of the straps and waved a hand. “Fine! I’m all right,” she laughed as she pushed herself back into a sitting position and brushed her hair out of her face. Skal stared back at her, one hand on a tether as he watched her with a look of shock and uncertainty on his face. “Really. The male never starts up that fast and you just caught me by surprise,” she teased. “I’ve got it now.”

She gave him a bright smile as she curled her fingers around the edge of the seat. He didn’t look entirely convinced but he nodded.

“Start slower,” he grumbled to himself as he once again gave her his back and Eve bit her lip to stifle her laughter at the self-disgust in his voice.

The wagon creaked and this time rolled forward as he began to walk and then gradually built up to an easy lope as they traveled along the little path that led out of her valley and onto the main route through the forest to town.

Skal hadn’t been overexaggerating on his ability to pull the cart. He barely seemed to feel the strain at all as he pulled the wagon at a brisk pace though the muscles in his shoulders and back bulged. Judging by the way his tail swayed as he ran, she could almost believe that he was enjoying himself. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would be so masochist as to be happy pulling a wagon with a hitched secondary wagon full of produce to the market with one human woman added to the weight. She resolved to get the best mule she could find so that he wouldn’t feel obligated to do this again. She didn’t know why he felt so protective of her that he would volunteer for something so degrading and exhausting but whatever the reason she was incredibly grateful to have been spared the walk.

She would have to do something nice for him. Perhaps dinner in town. The small hotel there had a restaurant and tavern on the main floor. Perhaps steak. The hybrid steer was said to be some of the best eating on the continent. As the day wore on, however, and he continued to pull at the same ground-eating pace, she revised her offering to two steaks before finally deciding that she would treat himself to anything he wanted to show her appreciation. Although they stopped for several breaks to relieve themselves and to share food and drink between them before continuing on again, Skal pulled the cart all day at a ground-eating pace without complaint or showing any sign of exhaustion or annoyance with the task. It was a bit of a bumpy ride for her since she was accustomed to the more sedate pace of a mule but once they shifted things around a bit after the first stop and Skal fashioned a sort of padded bed for her with the bedding she’d brought, she found the experience exciting.

Without the heavy blanket of fog everywhere, the forest was vivid with color from the changing autumnal leaves. The entire forest was awash in color in which Skal, who practically disappeared if she wasn’t focusing on him in her valley, stood out boldly with his pale gray coloring. When he finally drew to a stop again, the sun was low on the horizon, making the entire forest appear almost as if it were burning. The beautiful sight captivated her. It would soon be dark. Time to make a quick meal and set up get a bed made up around the fire.

Even stood and stretched, her eyes catching on a crimson leaf that dropped from the branches above and tangled in his thick fur. There were several others that had accumulated during their various stops that were beginning to get matted in. Although he regularly ran his claws through his fur to remove the large bits of them that he could reach, the smaller fragments dusted him like the bio-confetti that dropped over the town on Foundation Day. Perhaps she should get him a good grooming brush. Would she let her brush his shiny coat in the places he could reach so well? Cozy winter evenings of running a brush through his thick fur and then perhaps changing places while he used a more human appropriate brush on her hair invaded her thoughts as she climbed from the wagon.

By the time she was firmly on the ground Skal was already unstrapped and pulling the bedding and camping supplies from behind the driver’s seat before she even had the opportunity to go back and help him. She frowned at him, feeling bit a useless and as if she was taking advantage of him but the Ragoru simply grinned at her as he stepped past her with his last armload and carried it to a small clearing of ground. She half expected him to just dump it with everything else and leave it for her to sort through and set up like Victor always did. Skal’s neat piles were surprising but even more so was the sharp look he gave her when she stepped away to gather firewood.

“Where are you going, Eve?” he rumbled, his yellow eyes gleaming in a shade not unlike the burnished fire of the sky as they bore into her from where he was crouched over the bedding he’d just unrolled and straightened.

“Wood,” she squeaked and immediately gave a nervous laugh. “Firewood. We’re going to need some for the campfire.”

He shook his head and pointed at the sleep roll. “Sit here. The woods are getting dark. Better that you stay here where it is more comfortable and safer within the clearing. I will get the wood,” he rumbled as he straightened.

Her mouth went dry as her eyes fastened on the single bed roll. Would he sleep beside her? Ever since he showed up at her house, they’d always had a door between them with Eve on the bed and Skal sprawled in front of the hearth. He was probably accustomed to sleeping on the ground but the thought of him doing so while she was comfortable wrapped up in blankets on the bedroll didn’t sit well with her. The nights got chilly after all.

She nodded when he continued to watch her expectantly and made her way over to her makeshift bed. He remained standing in place as she lowered herself upon the blanket and she became uncomfortably aware of how close his thick thighs and bulge were to her face as she dropped to the ground. She blushed furiously, barely daring to breathe as hot arousal curled within her belly. From the corner of her eye, she watched as Skal’s tail lifted slightly and stiffened in an alert position. He chuffed then and turned away, leaving her alone on the blankets as he loped into the thicker trees.

Curling her legs up against her body to preserve warmth, Eve stared at the woods as she pulled out dried meat, bread, cheese, and some of the fruit she’d dried over the summer. She’d just laid it out neatly when Skal returned with not only a large amount of wood tucked under his arms but also large hybrid rabbits, for lack of a better word, that had rapidly spread over the continent along with the human colonists. He lowered the rabbits to the ground a couple of feet from her, his eyes flicking to the food spread out before ignoring it completely in favor of watching her guardedly.

“I would feed you,” he rumbled with a pointed look to the rabbits.

He wanted to feed her? He’d hunted for fresh meat for the table before but somehow that sounded a lot more intimate. She had to just be projecting.

“Oh. I would actually like that, thank you,” she murmured and quickly wrapped the dried meat back up, leaving the rest for them to enjoy with the meal.

Skal gave an approving nod, his ears flicking before he crouched and got to work. His two sets of hands worked quickly as he meticulously built the fire, spit the rabbits, and set them over the flames to cook. He watched her a lot as he cooked, his gaze lingering on her only to drop occasionally to the rabbits as he rotated them over the flames. That focused look didn’t waver when he eventually removed them from the fire, crouched at her side, and carefully, with the tips of his claws, pealed sizzling meat from them and held the bite-sized morsels in front of her lips.

Eve felt her blush climb hotter but leaned forward and ate the offered meat. The corner of his mouth inching up as if pleased persuaded her to take another bite, and then another. He ate in between the bites he fed her, his demeanor growing increasingly comfortable and, if she wasn’t mistaken, happy. She was almost sad when the last bite of meat finally was eaten. She pulled out the large water bottle to rinse their hands, certain that was the end of whatever closeness that they’d been enjoying. His large body crowding hers on the bed roll minutes later was both a surprise and incredibly endearing with how eagerly he wiggled into the bedding her with, happily snuffing and rumbling to himself. That it also made her uncomfortably aroused was something she chose to ignore as she smiled and snuggled into his embrace as his large body curled around her.

It meant nothing. They were just two bodies sharing heat on a cool autumn night. As far as she observed, he didn’t even appear to be interested in humans or anyone that way. But she fell asleep with a smile on her face because in her dreams she could at least pretend that just maybe it was something more.