Page 10 of Wandering Witch

Suddenly, her willingness, her pliantness, disappeared in a heartbeat.

Her thrashing changed from throes of passion to ones of distress. When she shoved against my arms, her fear spiked in the seconds that it took me to comprehend the shift in her emotions.

As soon as I realized she was afraid of what we were doing, I pulled my hands away immediately. I jumped away from her as soon as I could.

In my haste, I lost control of my man form, and as I put distance between us, I returned to my bear form.

I stood now on the opposite side of our small campfire as I watched my mate curl in on herself, trembling. I ached to go to her, soothe her as she’d let me do before. But the bear’s instincts roared in my head for me not to make a move towards her.

Eventually, her shaking subsided and she looked up at me through small breaks in her tangled curtain of hair.

I lowered my body as much as I could and belly-crawled toward her, whimpering all the way. There was no way I could speak in a way that she would understand in this form, and my bear refused to give me back control, lest I hurt or scare her again. So I was left hoping she was calm enough to read my body language and understand the message I was trying to convey.

Luck must have been on my side this morning, for after a few shuddered breaths, she tentatively reached a hand out for me to press my snout in.

“G-good bear. Gentle Locke.” She murmured to herself as she slowly ran her hand along my muzzle. I groaned and leaned into her hand. Hesitantly, she bowed forward to rest her head on my face.

Eventually, she pulled away from me and moved to get herself ready for the day. I guess that meant that the moments between us had well and truly passed now. Taking my cue from her, I kicked dirt over the smoldering coals to ensure that the remains of our campfire didn’t start the whole forest in ablaze.

As soon as she was done readying herself and making sure our bags of supplies were repacked properly, I lowered myself to the ground so she could hang the bags over my shoulders before pulling herself onto my back. Once situated, I rose to my feet and took several slow lumbering steps before I slowly picked up speed and eventually settled into the solid gallop that comprised much of our journey.

Farren

The rest of our trip to the Southeast United States was very boring and uneventful if not more than a little awkward. After my freak-out on Locke a few nights ago, we both tried to act like it didn’t even happen. But we both failed at that.

I had grown jumpy at any sudden move he made, thinking he would pounce on me and continue what we had started that morning. If I was being completely honest with myself, I was both terrified of that possibility and incredibly interested in it at the same time.

Locke on the other hand, had taken to handling me, at least emotionally, with kid gloves. He seemed to have taken my jumpiness to mean that anything he did would potentially upset me. It had gotten to the point where all the little things he would do for me before stopped, and I now was able to see how much of those small interactions I had come to take for granted.

Little things like making sure my spot around the campfire was warmed up before I laid out my bed roll had stopped. If the night got too cold, he would dig around in the bags for spare blankets instead of just sharing his body heat with me.

That one hurt a lot. But the one thing that hurt me even more, was that after long periods of travel, he would make sure I would dismount beside rocks or trees. When we first started, he would always be watchful of me. If he thought there was any possibility that I would lose my balance and fall, he would shift to catch me.

Now it was as though he was doing all he could to avoid any “unnecessary” contact with me. If I was being honest with myself, I missed the little touches he would give me as I prepared food for the night, waking up with him at my back. There were even a few mornings he would wake before me, and I would find he left me a breakfast of local fruits and nuts piled neatly beside my head. But since I woke to find his hands all over my body, those little niceties had abruptly stopped. The closest solace I found since then was being able to bury my face in his coat as he carried us towards our destination.

I had gotten so lost in my thoughts that I’d failed to notice the drastic change in scenery. The dense forests we’d been racing through had changed into more of a marshy wetland. Eventually, the faint scent of salt was added to the air as we neared what I guessed would be the next location on the map.

I could only guess where we were since Locke had taken over navigation after he witnessed my nightmare and made me tell him about the other dream I’d had. That was one of the few ways he had continued to care for me at least.

A sigh just barely started to escape my lips as long tendrils of willow branches lashed my face. I sputtered as I swatted the leaves away and tried to take in my surroundings. When I could see again, the foliage had grown dense enough that I couldn’t see the ground around us.

I dug my fingers deeper into Locke’s thick coat as a shiver of dread raced up my spine. Something about this place was giving me a terrible feeling. A shadow clung to these woods that felt darker, deeper, and more ominous than anything I’d come across before.

Considering that I have come across locations where my family curse had struck my relatives down, leaving shades of the past in its wake, that was saying something.

Even the abandoned village where Locke was living wasn’t this foreboding. Locke had gradually slowed to a stop and sniffed at the ground before he moved once more.

“Um, Locke? What’s going on? Are we there yet?” I asked as I had to adjust the way I sat on Locke’s back to make up for just how different his body moved at his slower pace.

He didn’t answer me, naturally. But still, I felt better asking my questions out loud.

Eventually, I could see ruins form in the distance.

We only traveled a few more feet before he let me down beside the thick trunk of a willow tree. As I slid off his back, he shifted into his human form and turned to look at me.

“We’ll stop here for the night. Our destination is just ahead.” His voice was curt as he turned back away. I tried not to let his harsh words affect me as I glanced around and noticed that the sun was still mostly high in the sky. It couldn’t be any later than early afternoon.

As though he heard my confused thoughts, Locke answered me as he proceeded to gather wood for a fire.

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