Page 32 of Ragoru

“There’s no need to start humoring me now. Speak your mind. What’s disturbing you?”

“It’s ridiculous,” he replied. “Not anything worth worrying about.” Thral’s gaze bore into him, and he shifted uncomfortably, tipping his head toward Vrishna and Evie who were beginning to get ahead of them. “We should catch up.”

Thral didn’t move except his ear, which tipped toward the other half of their family and then flicked back in his direction in consideration. Finally, the male sighed. Unexpectedly, he turned his entire body, throwing his weight into Sabol as he came down hard upon him so that they both toppled to the ground. Sabol grunted with the force of the impact and wheezed when Thral dropped over him, though the male caught most of his weight braced on his arms. Hackles raised, Thral stared down at him and a shiver ran through Sabol at the look of domination that he met.

However, instead of snapping his teeth as many alphas did, Thral settled his weight carefully over him, pinning him gently under his warmth and, bracing himself with his lower hands to take as much weight off him as possible, used his upper hands to cradle Sabol’s face. His thumb and forefinger pinched and rubbed along Sabol’s ears until he was practically melting into the ground.

“Now speak your concerns,” he rumbled, his large body vibrating down into Sabol’s with a warm friction that made him arch beneath him, seeking more of that feeling. Thral obliged by sinking lower until his weight held Sabol firmly in place, his soft rumble sending pleasure scattering through him. “What do you need, Sabol?”

The query was so soft that Sabol might not have heard it if they weren’t pressed together so closely. He swallowed, his ear tipping to the sound of Evie and Vrishna making their way back to them.

“I need for all of you to stay safe,” he rasped as he steeled himself for mocking laughter from the other two males for his weakness. For all his physical strength, determination, and ruthlessness at times, this was a vulnerability that was opposite of the confidence so admired by Ragoru. A triad was to have no fear, going wherever their female led, not attempt to cling to safety and whimpering about leaving like some rog. “I can’t lose any of you. And leaving this place where we’ve been happy and living peacefully, I’m afraid that it will all end with death and blood. And that you will all be gone.”

“Oh, Sabol,” Evie whispered, and he glanced over at her, his heart hurting to look at her with the morning light hitting her head fur.

She didn’t belong out there. She belonged in this forest with her triad.

Thral sighed and burrowed his fingers into the thick fur behind Sabol’s cheekbones, holding him in place as he leaned down and pressed his brow to his. “Though we will be returning, happiness is not a place, as you well know, Sabol. We can be happy and at peace wherever we are with our female until we can return to the safety of our territory. We will protect each other’s backs so that none of our own blood will spill. Because I have no plans on leaving you any more than I plan to leave Evie or Vrishna,” he rumbled.

“I won’t leave you either,” Evie echoed from where she stood, her jaw clenched fiercely in a way that made him want to find a fallen tree to turn her over.

“Nor will I,” Vrishna growled. “We are only leaving for a little while, but we leave together and we will return together. You have my oath.”

“And mine,” Evie echoed.

Thral nuzzled his ear. “And mine,” he murmured. “Now get your tail up and let’s go.”

With that, the alpha shifted, and the male’s large bulk slid sliding off him sent another frisson of pleasure through him. Although there was nothing sensual about their contact and it had been a gentle act of dominance, he couldn’t help his reaction to it. Even as it calmed him it also stirred and reawakened his awareness of the other male. A shiver ran through him as he quickly rolled to his feet and grunted as Thral loped away. He stared after him for a moment before noting that Evie lingered with Vrishna waiting patiently behind her, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

Her smile widened as he joined her as she briefly leaned into his side in a familiar show of affection that he now had come to crave.

“If it helps, I don’t like leaving either. I, for one, will be very happy to return when we are done. It’ll wait. I promise. And even if it didn’t, there’s nothing here that we aren’t taking with us. We’ll be fine. Now let’s get on the road. I think Thral plans to make a certain distance before we stop for the night and I prefer that to be well before sundown,” she chuckled. “These human eyes of mine are useless in the dark, and I do hate stumbling over things.”

“You know that we would be pleased to carry you, rya,” Vrishna growled in reminder as he leaned down and nuzzled her.

Sabol smiled, his heart lightening as he closed the distance between them and nuzzled her neck on the opposite side, drawing a throaty laugh from their female.

“There are other good reasons to stop early,” he rumbled sweetly as he pressed his larger body against her small human frame.

She shivered and her breath expelled with a quake as her fingers played in his fur. “Then we better hurry if we want to have the energy to enjoy it. The longer we dally, the more Thral will be determined to make us walk to make up for lost time,” she pointed out with a chuckle.

Sabol groaned because she wasn’t wrong and reluctantly pulled himself away from her. Instead, he watched as she began to follow after Thral, who was indeed waiting impatiently among the trees ahead of them.

With a bark of resigned laughter, Sabol surged forward on a run. They would do what they had to do, and he would remain vigilant. Then, when they were done, he would personally see to it that his family returned even if he had to drag them back one by one. He wouldn’t let anything happen to a single one of them. His family would return and live the rest of their lives in their chosen territory, far from huntsmen and all else that would seek to harm them. They would have their rogs if the Mother and Dark Fathers blessed them and have the peace that their family deserved after this.

He swore it.

CHAPTER27

The terrain shifted slowly as they traveled, the trees thinning and becoming shorter as their journey took them higher up into the hills, but it was the loss of the thick forest cover that was the hardest on Evie’s triad. The males increasingly became warier, hackles rising and ears tipping at every sound as they kept in a tighter formation with her firmly between them. Every so often, either Sabol or Vrishna ranged further ahead to scout but none of them seemed to like to remain away from her for long before they returned. Given that she wasn’t too thrilled when any one of them were out of her sight for long, the feeling was mutual.

Worse was the knowledge that the closer they got to the mountains, the sooner they would have to part. It weighed on Evie’s mind more and more as the days passed and even late into the night as she slept with them piled around her. More than once she was tempted to demand that they all turn around and go back and abandon this entire idea. Unfortunately, that didn’t make every argument she gave the Ragoru any less true, nor would it silence her guilty conscience if she acted on that desire.

Yet the higher they climbed into the foothills and the rockier the ground beneath their feet came, the more dread settled into the pit of her stomach. Compared to the deep forests, the foothills gave her a taste of something harsher and barren as the green growth steadily began to wane. She was starting to get as uneasy as her triad which was silly, but she couldn’t root out that feeling. There was a strain that they all felt. So much so that her usually calm Sabol startled with a snarl, and she jumped as a gray engal burst from the trees behind them with a sharp beat of his wide wings.

She’d heard them in the distance but hadn’t seen one since she met Sabol. She suspected that the birds were smart enough to stay away from larger predators like the Ragoru. She hadn’t even so much as heard one at all around the territory the males marked out around the house. But this one seemed willing to chance it. Despite its size, its body appeared almost caved in beneath the broad and too sharp breastbone. It was slowly starving, and as a bird not built for long flight she doubted that it would ever leave its perceived territory despite how little prey there was.

The enormous bird circled overhead, and all three of her males closed in around her as one, their eyes following the large predator. She shivered, feeling its gaze focused on her, its wings dipping as it circled. She had no doubt that to the monstrous bird she appeared to be the perfect meal. She could feel it sizing up the situation, looking for an opportunity to attack. Her triad growled in warning and pressed in closer around her until the bird clattered angrily and sailed back into the dense trees just south of them in defeat.

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