Page 89 of Untamed

After a long time, I feel him kiss me again. "Sleep, my luna." I don't stir. Let him think I'm asleep. He needs to do his other things.

When he leaves the office to return to the room with the large table, I open my eyes. My eyelids are heavy and swollen, reluctant to move. I feel like I've been drowning. My body is sluggish and heavy as I force myself up from the couch.

Unsteady, I cross to the window, wanting fresh air again. My head is pounding, my body shaking just a little bit. I catch myself against the bookcase halfway across the room.

My hand hits a wooden box on the shelf. It falls to the floor and upends, the things inside scattering. Using Father's favorite curses in my head, I kneel to pick them up.

"Qitsuk, are you alright?"

I can't answer Mactiir, not because of my self-imposed muteness, but because my fingers are closed on Father's knife.

Father's knife.

"No. Drop it,now."

I meet Mactiir's hard walnut-eyes, the ivory hilt clenched in my hand. I can't remember standing up and facing him. I take a shaky step, nearly stumbling and falling again. My things. He's had my things. I can read the truth in his eyes. Mactiir stole my meager, pathetic possessions and kept them secreted away from me.

A whimper of distress bursts free from my chest. My she-wolf crouches low, snarling at the thief who is moving toward us cautiously.

"Bliss, don't. Let me explain. I can feel you're hurt, my luna. I wasn't keeping your things from you," he soothes. He's lying. I can hear it in his voice.

Frantically, I tear my gaze from his to look around. My things, my only possessions in this world. A keening wail rises in my chest, but I beat it back. It mixes with the snarl on my tongue, a warning to Mactiir to stay back.

We are two predators now, dancing around each other as only wolves can. Mactiir's teeth are bared. Even though he's trying to be calm, he can't hide his instinct. Pack males will dominate, lie, manipulate, and nowsteal. Mama said so. Mama was afraid of males. Pack males.

Another cry is wrenched from my gut when I see my Father's journal, wrinkled from its bath in the river.

"Bliss, listen to me,Qitsuk,please. I was waiting for Alpha Jax to return and take a look at that stuff. That was the plan, and then I forgot all about it."

Mactiir-the-Brute steals from wolves who venture too far into the forest. I remember that part of the stories, too. He's a trickster, a thief, a murderer. But not my Mactiir. My Mactiir isn't like the stories, right?

MyMactiir blurs in front of my eyes as he kneels next to me, capturing my face in his hands.

Walnut-eyes stare into mine. I search them, looking for the lies, the cruelty that I always thought males had. That maybe this male has, and I just haven't seen it.

Nothing but softness looks back at me. "I love you, my sweet Bliss. Don't be sad. I forgot about all this. I just forgot."

"Why don't you take her home, In? You both look exhausted." Blue-Star hovers in the doorway, the Moon at his elbow.

"I need to finish the initial search at least, be here for the pack. I have Asher bringing the FeraxMaw wolves here to question. There's too much to do. You know that, Rhet," Mactiir replies. He soundsresolute; resolved, firm, unwavering, but his eyes don't leave mine.

"Then just nap, quickly, on the couch," the Moon suggests. She has a lovely voice, honey, on a warm summer's day. Low, melodious, sweetness sticking to your skin. Mama's voice was like a stream in the summer, a song of water, soothing in its way.

I think I sound like a raccoon with its foot stuck in a tree. Maybe this not-talking idea is one of my better ones.

"Alright," Mactiir stands, his gaze traveling over me. "Wake us up in an hour, no more. Earlier if anything develops."

He starts to walk to the window to shut it, but my soft sound of distress stops him. "You want the window open?" he asks me, "you're not too cold?"

Autumn is in the breeze that floats through the window. I am cold, but I shake my head at him, and he leaves it open, crossing back to me and taking my hand. My anger simmers, begging to be unleashed. I keep it down, keep my she-wolf from leaping at Mactiir, and smacking him good. Mama always told me to take care of my things. He's mine, so I have to teach him properly how to behave.

The couch is deep, a bed that may rival the size of our nest. I sink into it with Mactiir, scenting other scents, the Big Dark Male, Blue-Star, the Laughing Male, and another, unknown scent, another male that tickles something buried in my memory. It vanishes, they all do, when Mactiir tugs me into his arms. "Just a nap," he murmurs sleepily.

I turn my nose up to the fresh air from the windows and let my body sink into his. He's my oak, my shelter in the storm, this rotten thief.

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Inuit

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