Mated to the Warrior Beast

Catching the look that passed between them, Sarayu sighed and muttered something about twigs turning to limp stalks when they were dehydrated. Harth had to swallow laughter when Tarkyn glared at her. Then the female got to her feet, dusting her hands on her leathers.

“Keep eating and drinking until you sleep,” she said sternly to Tarkyn. “I’ll be back in the morning to check on you. You’ll need to rest tomorrow and the next day as well.”

“We’ll see.”

“Tarkyn, I’m supposed to report back to the Queen now about whether or not you’re currently strong and sharp enough to continue advising. Do not make me declare you incapable.”

“You wouldn’t!” Tarkyn growled.

“Don’t test me. Rest. Rest, eat, drink, then rest some more.”

.....

Tarkyn scowled. Harth took his hand and he squeezed it without looking away from the healer. “I will... keep my activities to an absolute minimum for the next two days,” he said reluctantly.

Sarayu raised her eyebrows. “You must be closer to collapsing than I thought. That’s more than I thought you’d give.” Tarkyn frowned harder, but Sarayu just looked at Harth again. “Remind him to drink, even when he’s not hungry. Drink as he would if he were in the desert. His body needs to flush out toxins.”

“I will.”

“Good luck,” she said with a smile, then slung the bag over her shoulder again and started for the cave opening. “And don’t forget, Tarkyn: The twig without water begins to droop...”

Harth laughed again as the woman ran for the cave opening and launched herself off the trail, shifting in mid-air, snapping her wings wide and soaring out over the forest below.

Harth felt oddly comforted seeing that. She was reminded of Kyelle’s beauty and grace in the sky. But that quickly led to thoughts of her people... which led her mind back to Zev and Sasha and the pain they were enduring at the hands of these people. And yet, her mate...

Tarkyn was watching her when she turned to look at him again.

“I’ll fix this,” he said quietly. “Just give them time. Elreth... she’s lost so much to the humans... I know why she’s resistant to taking any risk. But she’ll hear the truth and see it with time. Please, Harth, don’t give up on me.”

Harth blinked, shocked. “Tarkyn, I will never give up on you!” she rushed, leaning down to kiss him, enjoying the sweet juice of the pear on his lips. “I just... I just want to see my people safe.”

He nodded. “Me too. I want to see them safe for you, but also for us, Harth. If their hearts are like yours, we’re brothers and sisters, not enemies. I’ll do everything I can to make certain my Alpha sees that. I promise you.”

She nodded, her heart heavy and smiling in the same breath. “You keep eating,” she said. I’m going to make a fire.”

Then, with a quick squeeze of his shoulder, she got up to do exactly that.

But a few minutes later, when the flames crackled merrily, casting an orange glow through the cave as the sun dropped below the mountains on the horizon and the sky began to turn dark, she turned back to ask Tarkyn whether he needed anything and found him deeply asleep, his hand still curled around the half-eaten pear.

Her heart squeezed with protectiveness at the sight of his strong jaw and full lips so relaxed. She took the pear carefully and finished eating it herself, taking two other pieces of fruit, and one strip of the dried meat, but leaving the rest in case he woke hungry.

He lay on his side. Harth was about to put the second fur over him, but his clothes were pulling around his middle and the leathers were tight on his thighs. He needed to rest and his skin likely needed to breathe.

Biting her lip, Harth reached for the buckle of his leathers. At first she worried about waking him, but clearly Tarkyn had given over to the exhaustion he’d been fighting all day. He was practically unconscious. He brushed her hand with his once when she struggled to tug his leathers below his hips, but only murmuring her name, then sinking back into sleep.

It would have been impossible to get his shirt off without his help, but at least it was cotton and would breathe. So she just folded his pants and put them aside, then looked at the cave mouth.

She preferred to sleep naked herself. And a part of her wanted to feel what it would be like to lay with him that way. But she’d heard the healer’s caution.

Looking at Tarkyn, his mouth slightly open, and chest rising and falling so slow and even, she sighed. He wasn’t going to be awake to be tempted.

She would lay with her mate in the way she’d always imagined, and pray the day came soon when they could be alone and together and... not exhausted.

Cheeks warming a little at the thought, Harth stripped off quickly, then slipped into the warmth of the furs behind where her mate was curled on his side, and... after an uncertain moment, let her arm slide over his waist, dropped her forehead to that dip between his shoulder blades, then let herself rest there, with the scent of him in her nose, and her skin warmed by his.

At first she lay very still, worried she might disturb him. But then he sighed in his sleep and tightened his arm over hers, holding her to him.

Tears pricked her eyes and Harth dropped a slow kiss to his spine.

She wished he wasn’t so exhausted. Wished it hadn’t taken that to bring them together. And yet... she couldn’t help smiling at the sight of his broad shoulders looming high. She couldn’t stop examining the strangely intoxicating feeling of his steel-hard abs under her palm.

Although his back was to her, she could see the way his body sloped from the width of his shoulders, to his narrow waist. And something about the tangled leather tie keeping his hair back, the stray hairs that had fallen from it resting on the back of his neck felt oddly vulnerable to her.

Snuggling into his back and holding him tightly, she didn’t sleep immediately, too busy absorbing the new and wonderful experience of curling together with her mate in this way she’d always dreamed.

It wasn’t a cold night-at least, not yet. But the warm smoothness of his skin felt so... satisfying. The firmness of his back, her breasts pressed against him, her legs curled behind his... all of it conspired to fill her heart.

She prayed that Sasha and Zev had the chance to rest together in this way that night. That Zev’s pain would be eased. That the Queen would see the truth about the Chimera. And that, somehow, all of this would be resolved quickly.

She prayed, fervently, that somehow the Creator would see a way to bring her and her mate together in peace-and their peoples, too.

And she tried not to think about all the ways her people might be hurting under the night sky tonight. She couldn’t regret that she lay there with his scent in her nose, and his warmth under the furs. So, as she gave in to the heaviness of her own eyelids, she smiled and thanked the Creator.

Because, no matter what, she knew she would never be alone again for a day in her life. She’d finally found the other half of her heart, wrapped in this beautiful body of strength and grace. And she was grateful.

So grateful...