Page 17

Ormund

Many years ago on Pharenos

It took my mate a week to realize who I was to him and why I kept apologizing about his parents. That week was agonizing for all of us but most of all for Dern and I. All the signs were there. He was restless if I left his side which Kaladar often prompted me to do. Perhaps he thought sitting beside my mate while he healed would only brew rage that much stronger. Perhaps he thought Dern might actually sleep more than an hour or so at a time if I wasn’t there stroking his hair, fussing over him, and whispering to him about how sorry I was. So, I went back and forth between soothing my injured mate and making Elke’s life a living hell.

My friend and peck brother, Soar, was the one who took him alive. Soar found him in some round table meeting with other foaming at the mouth canines. To hear him tell it, they couldn’t believe one ‘bird monster’ had done so much damage over one abomination of a wolf. There was only one path for Soar to take. He had to rid us of the wolves who planned to climb the mountain and attack us and he did. He only spared Elke in case Kaladar needed his blood to save Dern. In the end, the healer made good use of the blood we leeched from the once leader of the pack and shortened Dern’s healing time by months. It was also Elke’s blood that saved my mate’s womb.

Elke was a present to me from my peck brother. For the time he lived with us, he remained tied to a pole in my backyard. The rope was strong, woven from shed feathers of peck members. Not even his angry puppy teeth could chew through it. Not that he could shift while tied up. Our peck had enough magic to work around whatever the wolves cooked up.

I often sat on a pile of feathers not far from him. Elke liked to howl and scream at me. He liked to rant about how he knew ‘us monsters’ loved ‘abominations.’ All the while I daydreamed about presenting his head and entrails to my mate. I had considered presenting his whole wolf hide instead but Soar thought that might be unnerving to Dern since he was a wolf. In the end, I decided he was probably right, but it took a lot of self-control not to skin him slowly. Without Soar checking in on me and Dern to visit I might’ve spent those weeks forcing him to shift and skinning him bit by bit. It would’ve served him right. Skinning him alive would’ve been justice for the wounds inflicted upon Dern. It would be years before I fully understood how many forms justice could take.

“You howl a lot for a wolf whose pack cannot hear you,”

I sighed one evening as I sat down on my pile of feathers after Kaladar had chased me out of my mate’s recovery chamber. “It sounds horrible when you’re stuck without your fur. You call us monsters but as of right now I’m sure you’re frightening chicks all over the mountains.”

“Then your women should be braver,”

Elke growled.

“Our women are brave enough. Our chicks are too young to know that you howl more than you’re allowed to bite,”

I laughed, stretching out my legs before me. “Tell me. How do you want to die when Dern is well? Shall I deliver your pelt back to your pack as a warning?”

“A warning of what? A warning that monsters will get you if you do the right thing?”

he growled.

“Which right thing did you do, Elke? I’m all ears,”

I inquired.

“I was saving him from a life of torment. If the others found out that he was wrong inside – they’d have never let him be. Either they’d have chased him off or made him mate like one of the women. That’s no way for a man to live. You don’t understand it. You bird monsters aren’t people. You’re all monsters. So you just accept each other.”

“Are we the monsters? How many of our omegas or women for that matter, have you heard call out in fear or pain because someone was killing them? We don’t need to disfigure our own people to make others behave. Were you not their leader? Were you not in charge of them? Would you really allow them to –”

I stopped because I had missed the same point that Elke had missed. “Why do you allow men to treat your women so horribly that you fear one of your own gender would be treated that way?”

“It is nature,”

Elke growled.

“I don’t think it is. The womb inside my mate is nature, wolf. He is who he is, and he is an omega. Did he want you to remove it? Did you even bother to ask? By all means, if he asked for it let me know and if he agrees, we’ll stop this now and I will apologize for everything.”

“People don’t always know what’s best for them,”

Elke said, ignoring the rest of my questions.

“I think I will skin you alive when the time comes. I think I’ll start with your tail so that you can feel the blade slip under your hide again and again.”

“You can try, bird monster! You can try!”

he growled. “But my wolves will come and you will be plucked! We’ll sleep on mattresses made of the feathers of bird monsters!”

“Between us, Elke, I would welcome a fight. The chance to tear your insides out would delight my bird but there will be no fight. We have scouts in the sky every day and no one is coming to rescue you or Dern. No one is coming to save you. You’re alive as long as Dern needs your blood to heal. After that, perhaps I’ll wear your hide as a hat,”

I said pushing myself upright because I had to get away from him before he goaded me into killing him too soon. “Now, all this talk about skinning you has made me ravenous. Perhaps, I’ll toss you out the bones from my dinner, puppy boy.”

And that was more or less how that first week went. Things improved slightly when Dern came to the realization that I was his mate.