Free Web NovelChapter 265: The Wag Heard ’Round The Forest
Aurelia’s gold eyes were enormous. She was standing very still, the way a creature stands when something much larger than itself is covering it in affection and it has no frame of reference for why. Her tail gave one tentative wag. Then another.
Aegon: She wagged. Did you see that? She wagged for us.
Dex: I saw.
Aegon: Again. We make her run again. I will catch her faster. freewebnoveℓ.com
He nudged her. She bolted. He tore after her with identical intensity, as though the outcome had ever been in question, as though this was the Olympics of wolf-chasing and not a training exercise in a forest where the only audience was squirrels.
Aegon treated every lap like a highlight reel and every wag like a trophy presentation.
He caught her. Licked her. Nuzzled her. Purred.
Aegon: I am the greatest hunter alive.
Dex: She let you catch her.
Aegon: Slander.
She wagged. He lost his mind over the wag. She ran. He chased. The cycle repeated with the reliability of a natural law and the emotional escalation of a man falling in love for the first time, which, for Aegon, this was. In this body. In this life. The first time he had touched the wolf that his soul had been looking for across thousands of years of reincarnation and bad timing.
Dex: Are you going to let me back in?
Aegon: Go to sleep, Dexmon. I am busy.
Dexmon checked out. There was nothing else to call it. He withdrew from the driver’s seat of his own body with the resigned acceptance of a man whose wolf had commandeered the vehicle and was driving it directly into domestic bliss at maximum speed.
Dex: If you break my legs doing something stupid, I will never forgive you.
Aegon: Quiet. She is looking at me.
The last thing he registered before Aegon shut him out entirely was the sound of Aurelia’s breathing evening out, her legs steadying beneath her, her stride growing longer and surer with every lap through the trees. She was getting stronger. In real time. The pathways rebuilding themselves under the pressure of use, the way muscles grow under load and bones harden under impact.
She was healing. And Aegon was never going to let her go.
Aegon circled her once. Twice. His gold eyes tracked every inch of her, reading the language of her body the way he read battlefields: for vulnerabilities, for openings, for the precise moment when defense became invitation.
She looked at him. The searching was gone from her expression. Whatever she had been looking for in his eyes, she had found it somewhere in the last hour, between the seventh chase and the twelfth nuzzle, in the space where instinct met recognition and decided they were the same thing.
Her tail wagged. Slow. Deliberate. The wag of a wolf who knew exactly what she was communicating and chose to communicate it anyway.
Aegon: Mine.
He said it with the conviction of a wolf who had trademarked the word and intended to enforce it internationally.
He moved to her. His body pressed along the length of hers, chest to her back, his weight settling over her with the controlled authority of a wolf who had been waiting for this since before time had a name.
His forepaws locked around her midsection. His teeth found the scruff of her neck, and when they punched through, his venom surged.
There was nothing tentative about it. He drove into her, and the sound that tore from his chest was half growl, half something far more desperate, the sound of a wolf completing a circuit that had been broken for thousands of years. Every thrust was claiming. Every thrust said mine.
Aurelia’s claws dug into the earth. A whimper escaped her that carried through the forest and scattered every living thing within a quarter mile.
Aegon’s pace was relentless. Primal. Driven by an instinct older than language and deeper than memory. His jaws tightened on her scruff, holding her exactly where he wanted her, and Aurelia let him. Her body curved into his, accepting the weight, accepting the claim, her gold eyes half-closed, her breath coming in sharp, broken sounds that were equal parts pleasure and surrender.
The edge hit them both at the same time. Aegon’s body locked, a roar ripping from his throat even with his teeth still in her scruff. Aurelia’s claws tore furrows in the earth, her own sound buried beneath his, and the forest held them in it, that single, infinite second where everything that had been separated was whole again.
He released her scruff. His tongue dragged across the spot his teeth had held, slow, reverent, the gesture of a wolf who had just claimed his mate and intended to spend the rest of his existence making sure she knew it.
Aurelia turned her head. Gold eyes met gold eyes. She pressed her nose to his.
He curled around her, his massive frame encircling hers, chin resting on her back. The purring returned, deeper now, the frequency of a wolf who was completely, catastrophically, irrevocably at peace.
Her tail wagged once. Her eyes closed.
The forest settled around them, dark and silent and sacred, and for one night, in one clearing, the wolves who had been apart for thousands of years were together, and the world did nothing to interrupt.
✦✦✦
Maelor Vantheos had been awake for thirty-one hours, and he intended to make that everyone’s problem.
Sleep was for people who didn’t have wards to reinforce, research to finish, and a kingdom full of wolves making catastrophically stupid decisions about magic they didn’t understand.
His study in Nightspire was organized the way all of Maelor’s spaces were organized: immaculately, obsessively, and in a system that only he understood and that he would defend with lethal force if questioned. freёwebnovel.com
The last apprentice who had moved a folio three inches to the left had received a fifteen-minute lecture on spatial integrity and a reassignment to library cataloguing.
Riven Nightspire was sitting in Maelor’s chair. This was a violation of protocol so egregious that Maelor had, upon entering, stopped in the doorway and stared at the occupied chair for four full seconds before choosing, with visible effort, to address the political crisis before the furniture one.
"The cloak is deteriorating faster than I projected." Maelor set a stack of research folios on the desk with the controlled precision of a man who wanted to throw them. "Her Fae signature is feeding the tether from the inside. Every time she uses Fae magic, the connection strengthens. Every time she experiences a heightened emotional state, the Emperor receives fragments."
Riven didn’t move from the chair. "Fragments of what?"
"Thoughts. Impressions. Emotional landscapes. Nothing coherent yet, but the trajectory is clear." Maelor began pacing. His robes did something dramatic on the first turn, which he was absolutely aware of and would deny if asked. "The cloaks I’ve layered are holding, but they are bandages on a wound that is growing faster than I can cover it."
"How long?"
"Before the cloak fails entirely?" Maelor stopped pacing. "Weeks. Perhaps less, depending on whether Drakenfell decides to subject her to more emotionally catastrophic situations, which, based on recent evidence, they will, because the men in her life appear to be in active competition for who can cause her the most distress."
Riven’s mouth twitched. Just barely. The twitch of a man who found the observation accurate and the delivery entertaining and saw no reason to comment on either.
"Hyran agrees with my assessment. He is, on occasion, capable of competence." Maelor resumed pacing. "The tether is unique. I’ve studied Shadow-Tethering for fifteen years. Hers is the most advanced parasitic link I have encountered, and the fact that she is functioning at all is either a testament to her resilience or an indictment of our understanding of the magic involved. Likely both."
"What do you need?"
Maelor stopped again. He turned to face Riven with the expression of a man who had been waiting to be asked that question for six weeks and had rehearsed the answer with theatrical precision.
"Time. Access. And for every wolf in Skardos to stop making decisions about her safety without consulting the people who actually understand the magic trying to kill her." He paused. "That last one is aspirational. I am aware."
Riven studied him. The study of a king who had known this man for over a decade and understood that Maelor’s dramatics were proportional to his concern, and right now, both were at levels Riven had rarely seen.
"You’re worried."
"I am professionally alarmed. There is a distinction."
"The distinction is your ego."
"My ego is what keeps this kingdom’s wards intact and your throne room properly decorated. You’re welcome."
Riven let the silence hold for a moment. Then he stood from the chair, which Maelor noted with the visible relief of a man whose most sacred boundary had just been restored.
"Keep the cloak stable as long as you can. I’ll speak with Tiberon about access." Riven moved toward the door, then paused. "Maelor."
"Mm."
"She looks like her mother."
Maelor said nothing. Because the grief in that sentence belonged to Riven, and Maelor Vantheos, for all his performances and all his dramatics and all his elaborate refusal to read a room, knew exactly when to be quiet.
Riven left.
Maelor sat in his own chair, smoothed the front of his robes, and allowed himself three seconds of silence before opening the next folio.
