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CHAPTER ELEVEN

ATHOS SENT STOCKTON a text. Where are you? We should talk about something that just happened to me.

Stockton texted back that he was seeing his father off and that he was curious. What had happened?

Athos said they should talk face-to-face. He wasn’t going to tell the younger buck that he was blowing him off for this Tawny woman in a text. It wasn’t exactly the right thing to do, but he didn’t fucking care at this point. If he did not stick his dick in that doe, he was going to regret it for the rest of his life.

He did not feel exactly, uh, rational about his sexual attraction to her at this point.

He had not had sex since the end of his marriage.

He hadn’t even tried.

He hadn’t even wanted to try.

He’d sort of hoped this weekend would make him function again, he guessed.

And, um, it was working. It was working too well, maybe? Sex with Cira had been unlike anything he’d ever really experienced in his life. It had been intense, ridiculously intense, frequent, and he’d, you know, thought it was good.

Apparently Cira had not. Apparently Cira had been craving a bond with a swan, not with him, the entire time they’d been together, but he hadn’t craved anything except her. He’d been totally and completely satisfied with the arrangement, even though the way swans fucked meant that orgasm was sort of… besides the point. You didn’t do it to come, you did it to intertwine .

And what was more, he found himself not fucking caring about the orgasm element of the whole thing fairly quickly.

He was easily hopped up on the bonding part. The bonding part was just out of this world. It was better than just getting his rocks off.

Or…

Well…

This, though. Possibly, he’d never done this. Possibly, he’d never experienced this kind of sex or a mating ritual that was aligned to his biological needs or whatever, because he was feeling a little crazed.

It was partly because that Tawny woman had some incorrect idea about who he was. Sure, he shouldn’t have made that joke when she accused him of weaponized incompetence. Okay, maybe it hadn’t even been a joke. Maybe he meant it.

Or maybe it was because his own relationship with Cira had fallen apart in such a way where he felt like he had more in common with the things that women complained about with men than he did with the things men complained about with women?

He had devoted his entire existence to his wife, at least to his way of thinking, he had. He’d lived for her.

When they got divorced, and she said he was never around and he thought of his job as more important than her, he couldn’t believe it.

He only ever did that job because of her.

When they’d started dating, he’d been thinking about dropping out of pre-law, and she had been so hot for it. I can’t believe you’re going to be a lawyer, she’d said. And it wasn’t as if it was a sacrifice, not exactly. It was just that if Cira liked it about him, he liked it about him. He wanted to be whatever she wanted. He wanted to be worthy of her, to earn her, to satisfy her, to spend his fucking life worshiping her. Just…

Anyway, whatever.

He was not the kind of arrogant buck that Tawny thought he was. He did not think of himself as more important than women. He did not expect women to serve him.

But, uh, something about pretending to be that kind of man had felt good in a weird way.

It had felt freeing.

He couldn’t believe he’d spoken to her the way he had. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t slapped him.

No, that wasn’t true. There was something else to their interaction, an undercurrent. He couldn’t explain exactly how he knew it was true, but he did.

Yeah, and that’s exactly the kind of thing an arrogant dickwad would say, though.

Whatever. This was his chance to try it out, to inhabit it, to be that kind of an arrogant dickwad, to see what it was like to indulge in the arrogant dickery of being that kind of a buck. He was going to fuck Tawny and he was going to chase her, and he was going to get her pregnant.

Fuck, thinking that made his balls feel tight.

Just about then, Stockton showed up in the courtyard. He came over to ask him what was going on.

“You know how I’m supposed to look out for you out there?” said Athos. “I know I promised Bruin I would.”

“I already said I don’t need you to babysit me,” said Stockton. “I definitely don’t want you to watch me fuck anyone.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to do that, but I am just trying to tell you that something’s come up, and I need to be focused out there.”

Stockton snorted. “You’re going after a specific doe.”

“I need to go after a specific doe,” said Athos. “I don’t expect you to understand. You can even be annoyed with me for breaking my promise. That’s fair. I only wanted to give you a heads up.”

Stockton was still laughing. “I really hope you have fun out there, Athos. And I also hope she doesn’t turn you down flat when you catch her.”

“She would probably do that,” said Athos. “I can just picture her doing that.” Her doing that, for some fucked up reason, was giving him an erection. “But no, she’s not going to. She’s going to let me knock her up. It’s just a question of how much she puts me through before she does let me.”

Stockton raised both hands. “I’m staying away from breeders.”

“Yeah, good for you.” Athos clapped him on the shoulder. “Okay, then, well, good talk. Sorry about everything.”

“Seriously, you don’t need to apologize,” said Stockton. “But I really am thinking I’m going to go home. Well.” He considered. “If I go back to Bruin’s, he’ll know I left, and that’ll make him annoyed. I could go to my ma’s, maybe, instead.”

“You might as well stay and try to get out of this what you paid for,” said Athos. “Got to go, though.”

“Why?” said Stockton.

“I never found the keycard,” said Athos. “I’m going to check the bar again, because it’s 10:20, and maybe she’s out of there by now, getting ready to start the run.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’ll find you later, okay?” said Athos, taking off in the direction of the bar again. “Do not check out, Stockton. Stay.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER , Athos had discovered the keycard had, in fact, been turned in to the front desk, who offered to issue him another one, since the keycards were just programmed to open various doors. He had said that he didn’t need two. One was fine. And the front desk had pointed out that if he’d lost a keycard once, he did—in fact—need a spare.

So, then, armed with the new keycard, he’d gone up to his room, dropped the spare off, and then come back down to the courtyard.

He’d missed the announcement of the run, but he could see that people were already running over the lawn. He looked around for Tawny, both in the field and in the courtyard, and he didn’t see her anywhere.

He considered going to make sure she wasn’t anywhere in the courtyard or the bar or elsewhere, even though—if she was out here—that would give her quite a head start on him.

Then, he spotted her, all the way across the field, disappearing into the woods. He recognized her tail somehow, and he hadn’t realized he’d already found her tail to be so distinctive, but apparently, somehow, he’d noticed.

Another man was after her, a stag with a rack full of antlers, someone who was probably ten years older than Athos.

I can definitely take him, he thought, and he took off as quickly as he could, racing across the lawn.

He could see that he was gaining on the stag, who was going after Tawny, but seemed to be keeping his distance, dragging out the chase.

He caught up to the stag just inside the tree line of the woods.

Tawny was up ahead, disappearing between two trunks of the trees.

The stag was going after her.

Athos yelled, “Hey, I don’t think so, old man.”

The stag really wasn’t that old, but Athos wanted to taunt him.

Tawny turned, her eyes lighting up at the sight of him, and that made something in him feel lit up too.

The stag turned, grinning too. “Up for a bit of a spar, then?” he said, as if he was eager for it.

Well, okay, Athos had never fucking done this. But he put his head down, antlers first, and rushed at the other man.

The other man let out a noise like a roar, some kind of battle cry, and rushed at Athos, copying his stance.

When they collided, it hurt.

Their antlers tangled, and the stag pushed at him. Athos could feel that there was a playful element to it, but that there was also real force behind it.

He pushed back.

Locked together, the stag gave ground and then redoubled his efforts.

Athos was forced back.

The other stag pressed his advantage.

Athos stumbled backwards, antlers locked in with the other stag’s. He collided with a tree trunk.

The stag pressed against him. “Yield,” he grunted.

“No,” said Athos. “No way, that doe is mine.”

“You’re such an asshole!” came Tawny’s voice, but it was breathy. “And you can’t even fight anyone off, anyway.”

“Watch me,” said Athos, feeling his muscles flood with strength. He would proved to this woman what he could do. He would prove to her that he was worthy of this. He would prove to her that she wanted his sperm. Uttering a cry, he pushed with all his might back against the stag.

Who lost his balance and went sprawling.

Athos advanced on him, hands clenched in fists.

“Yield,” said the stag, laughing, hands up in surrender. “Yield, yield. Have fun, you two.”

Athos paused.

The stag got to his feet and ran off, further into the forest, right past Tawny, who was gazing at him, lips parted, eyes bright. “Shit,” she said. “You won.”

“I just fought for you, yes,” he said. “Told you I was going to. Now, I’m going to kiss you.”

She let out a breath. “I said you had to catch me first.” And she took off running, her little white tail bouncing ahead of him. The sight of it made him feel out of control, as if it was whiting out some rational part of his brain.

He ran after her.