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Fawn

I awoke cold and alone despite the warmth of Solara’s blessing beaming down on me, my arms empty of my beloved alpha mistress.

Fear laced me, wondering if Brielle had gone to bathe and slipped down the cliff, plummeting to her death.

She was often clumsy in silly ways when she let her guard down, and she was still in the haze of her rut.

Endless possibilities raced through my mind as I pushed myself to my hooves and skipped towards our cottage door, the momentum bringing me from the meadow to the living room in no time.

Empty.

Maddeningly empty.

I searched for any sign of life, my anxiety mounting with each room I turned over as I noticed little things missing.

The finely carved hairbrush she brushed through her dark coils every morning was gone, and the run-over boots she pulled on to weed the gardens were missing; even my alpha’s poorly crafted loom of flowers had disappeared from our bedside, created when Brielle tried to adopt my hobbies.

She’d just …

vanished, like a ghost who passed through unseen.

A shuddering breath eclipsed the sound of my panting breaths, and before I knew it, I was sobbing like an actual fawn, a lost little child unable to comprehend being left behind.

She wouldn’t have left me, not without a reason, not after worshiping every inch of my body and conveying her love for me wordlessly all through the night, into the wee hours of the day.

I didn’t believe it.

So, that left only one option: she had to go by force.

What force compelled her didn’t matter to me.

I now had three tasks to track down my runaway bride.

Breathe.

Hunt.

Claim.

As an herbivore kindred, I wasn’t used to prowling for prey, but I was an excellent tracker and would follow her footsteps with ease.

I burst through the door, my thighs trembling as I ran, barely able to keep myself upright as my raging emotions suppressed the beast within me.

When I reached the edge of the woods, my cloven hooves weren’t digging into the dirt.

Bare human toes clenched dirt, as I lost control of my emotions, appearing more human than kindred for a brief moment.

As I reached a small clearing, my once smooth legs were once again covered in thick fur.

My horns felt heavier, my body unsteady, as I hadn’t entirely shifted in years.

Even this partial shift to my human form was overwhelming.

“Ugh!” I was thrust back, stumbling backward as I hit something hard.

I tried to walk again and was propelled away.

I rammed the invisible wall separating me from my alpha, desperate to break it.

But now, I was so damn weak even this spell exerted too much of my energy.

A spell, a ward specifically meant to keep me away.

But why?

Maybe she had placed it there to stop me.

To give me a chance to turn away.

I supposed I had a choice, but it was a false one.

Of course, I’d go after my wife.

“She means to protect you, fawnling. Do not give in to that human alpha’s lies when she offers you one final truth. She loves you enough that she doesn’t want you harmed.”

I froze, my back rigid as I slowly turned around.

An endearment falling from my brother’s lips only came one or two ways, as a jest, and when he felt sentimental.

And the serenity of his fear sent a shudder down my spine.

“But why, Omolan?” I met his golden eyes and frowned.

He was also shifted, his furry legs longer and broader than mine.

He usually never took a more mortal shape.

But I was happy to note my horns were still much longer than the obsidian twigs poking from his head, in comparison.

“To protect you,” he said flatly.

“I don’t need protecting,” I spat, and it was true.

I was the low goddess of these woods, the one blessed by the High Goddess to protect this realm.

Alpha or not, a human under my care, my wife, shouldn’t have to give her life to save me.

“Maybe not. But if a mere mortal thinks you do, I’d reason it makes sense to at least consider you do. They will hunt you down. Shoot you. Dehorn you. Sell your blessing for some human bastard’s mantle. Don’t you think it odd, after all these years, that a bride comes with a reputation like hers? A bride who couldn’t tear her eyes away from the gold on your head, even when presented with her wedding gift.”

The quiver of arrows and bow materialized in my hands, and I clenched them in my fists, frustrated tears stinging my eyes.

The only thing she didn’t take.

Omolan, my brother whose humanized name my bride bore, frowned, whispering, “She was much more honorable than I’d imagined. But a thief is a thief. Whatever business took her down the cliff’s edge was bad enough that she decided she didn’t want you to come. It’s for the best.”

I bristled.

He was speaking of her in the past tense as if she were dead!

“I don’t care! I will protect her with my life if need be,” I gritted out.

“You may have given up on claiming your mate, but I never will. Now, take down this ward!”

He glared at me, but there wasn’t an ounce of animosity in his gaze.

Majesty, the gorgeous unicorn shifter he’d bonded with, was destined for another.

Omolan knew this, freeing the man of his dreams after his injuries healed, and took my familiar dig in stride.

For him, love meant sacrifice.

For me, it meant companionship even if it spat in the face of fate.

But my brother was still fearful for me, an emotion he never shared unless under duress, which made me even more afraid, despite the steel-like inflection in my tone.

“You will never be able to return if you harm a human under the blessing of our ward!” he gritted out, “So what, you’ll die so she can run some more? Will you saw off your horns yourself to trade for her life? Seek reason from Solara and stop this fool’s errand.”

He said this even as the wall of invisible ice on my back melted away.

He, too, was giving me a choice.

But my brother should have known that Mother was right when she used to say I was bull-born, not deer.

Once I had a thought, a path, a purpose, nothing and no one would shake it away.

“If it means I can never see my fated mate again, I will abandon you all. I will protect this bond. Thank you, brother. And farewell if I never return.”

I didn’t give him a chance to speak as I galloped away.

Brielle meant more to me than protecting this empty forest.

Without her, it was but a shelter, not a home.