Page 11 of Night's Bride

Her heart ached at the worry in his voice. “No,” she replied quietly as she continued to draw the brush through his mane. “I have the family I want right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Vikt’s jaw brushed her hair for a moment before settling against the top of her head with a heartfelt sigh. He held her there, tucking her close to his heart as Vrel rested the weight of his head against her knees. The brush fell from Emily’s hand, clattering against the floor as she clung to her mates in turn. Something seemed to pass between them in that moment—a deeper communion and sharing of spirit that brought them closer together as they held each other while the snowstorm howled just outside their walls.

There was no leaving them. Not when her heart spilled over with love for them and the memory of their touch was carved deep within her bones.

This was the forever that she’d been promised. The forever that she had not quite believed through the long trek to them. And now that she had it, she was never giving it back.

Chapter

Ten

CHAPTER 10

Nash slowly awakened as if painstakingly surfacing from a pool of water. He dragged in a deep breath and shuddered as his eyes opened and he blinked groggily. He was inside. The glow of the fire was unmistakable even if his surroundings were unfamiliar, but at least it was warm. That much was encouraging, even if it was filled with the distinct scent of two Ragoru, and a third scent that was just as powerful but far sweeter and more pleasant that he could not identify. He swiped a hand over his face and sighed with equal measures of relief and exhaustion before turning his head to get a better view of his surroundings. And froze.

A dark gray male with a faint warm undertone to his fur was directly across the room from him. The male was smaller than the average Ragoru and possessed a slender build, but Nash regarded him warily, dread pooling in his belly as the other male turned, locked eyes with him, and also froze in place. The male did not appear aggressive, but that did not tell him much. How many males had he approached since becoming an adult—males who had appeared to possess desirable traits for his triad until they turned on him and drove him away? They had been small, vicious males that snapped their teeth threateningly until he gave up and continued on his way. It was better than the alternative where there would be a chance of hurting the other male.

Despite being an alpha fully capable of leading a triad, he was too large to reassure most males that he would not bully them, and not aggressive enough to enjoy the combative struggles that some males participated in to acquire their triad kin. He could have held them down and gently dominated them until he won their trust in his strength and their compliance, but it never seemed to be worth the effort when he did not enjoy utilizing unnecessary force. By coming to the northern lands in search of the clan he had heard of, he had hoped to find other larger males like himself who would not be immediately predisposed to finding him a threat. It was just his miserable luck to run into not only a small Ragoru, but the smallest, daintiest male he had ever seen outside of a juvenile. Truthfully, dealing with smaller Ragoru was an exhausting situation that he simply did not care to repeat.

Unfortunately, seeing how he had somehow ended up inside a den with this male, he had the sinking feeling that he was not going to be able to run away to avoid a confrontation this time.

Might as well get it over with.

With an inward groan, Nash sat up and froze in surprise when the male scampered back nervously, his slender ears flattening as his yellow eyes went wide. Nash stared back, caught off guard. He was accustomed to the aggression of males off-put by his size and assumed that he would be cruel because of it, but this male wasn’t just unnerved—he was genuinely afraid of him. From all appearances, he seemed to lack an aggressive bone in his body.

Swallowing back the bitter bile that had risen to his mouth, Nash immediately lowered his gaze slightly with the hope to put the male at ease.

“Be at ease. I will not harm you,” he quietly entreated.

From his peripheral eyes, he saw the male shiver but his stiff posture relaxed slightly as his ears pricked briefly toward Nash with curiosity.

“Who… who are you?”

“Nash.” Nash glanced up at him briefly but lowered his primary eyes, keeping only his secondary set directed upon the male as that would be perceived as less threatening. “I am confused. My last memory was that I was lost in the snow. Where am I?”

“Th-this is our den… my brother, Vikt, and I.” The male visibly swallowed. “I am Vrel. We are members of Alpha Clan—first clan. Y-you are in the clan lands.”

Tension fled from Nash’s shoulders at the words. He had made it.

His secondary gaze roved over the smaller male, taking in his smaller features. It was rare for Ragoru to be born so small unless—a memory surfaced of a pair of twins his mother birthed when he was an older rog. Of a total of five healthy offspring she had birthed, they were the smallest. He had been enchanted when he first spotted them, but the magic of the moment had quickly become a nightmare when his mother, upon inspecting her young, broke their tiny little necks before handing them over to his alpha father. Nash had been struck with such grief and terror that he hid. He refused to come out of hiding, despite the signs of his mother’s own intense grief, until his second father found him and gently explained.

Survival in their world was hard. The two little ones were twins. They had shared a sack in their mother’s womb which, among Ragoru, was as good as a death sentence. Itwas an anomaly which caused stunted growth, made them more delicate, and because of that they would possess certain disadvantages that would make it difficult for them to survive into adulthood—and even if they managed, they would struggle to fit into a triad and mate. Culling them was a mercy in their world, even if a tragic one. One that his mother privately grieved over for the rest of her life. She never knew that he often followed her after that, her own shadow whenever she sought solitude. And it was a memory that continued to haunt him even as an adult when he finally came of age and left the den.

That this male and his twin survived was extraordinary.

“You are a twin,” he rasped aloud and then immediately regretted his words as he watched Vrel flinch. “I do not mean that there is anything wrong with this,” he hastily explained, “I have never seen adult twins before.”

Vrel’s ears twitched nervously as he eyed him. “It is rare,” he admitted. “We were the only rogs born to our mother. She was unable and unwilling to exact her mercy upon us, as my alpha father put it.”

There was a hint of bitterness in the male’s voice, and it was clear to Nash that the alpha had possessed a different opinion than the mother. No doubt their mother protected them from the alpha when she refused to kill her offspring.

“Life must have been very difficult for you,” Nash acknowledged. “Not even in regard to your alpha father, but also from other Ragoru. And yet you showed kindness and charity in saving me when many Ragoru would not have. I thank you.”

Vrel’s ears pricked, a flicker of surprise crossing his face. “Th-these are the clan lands,” he replied as if that explained everything.

The corners of Nash’s mouth tipped. The male discounted his own generosity far too easily when it was something he had rarely been treated to among Ragoru. Clan lands or not,the twins had found him and chose to save him when they could have pretended otherwise and left him in the snow to die. Ragoru of Alpha Clan might have taken him if he approached and asked for charity and to be accepted within their clan, but he did not have as much faith that another Ragoru would have gone out of their way to save him from death.

“Still, I thank you for your kindness,” he rumbled. “There are many males who have seen a male like me and would have let me die due to worry that I would seek to harm them.”

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