“I need you to do me a favor,” he says when he breaks it.
“What is that?”
“Try to get on with Vulpes.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. He hates me. I literally stopped a foal from dying on his watch, and he didn’t care. He was so rude.”
“Vulpes is not like most of my soldiers and warriors. He is the closest thing I have to… well, not a brother. But a cousin. He is family. He has sacrificed more than I could ever explain.”
“Try explaining. Because I am pretty sure that he and I are going to kill each other if I can’t find some way to find him even a little tolerable.”
“He used to breed hounds. You know the war hounds.”
“The slavering beasts which scared the shit out of me when I first saw them, and every time since. Yes, I’m familiar.”
I love all animals, but I don’t love those hounds. They’re too terrifying for words. It makes perfect sense that Vulpes would have bred them. He’s got that hound-like quality, now I think about it.
“He doesn’t anymore because I needed someone to watch over the city and my finest stock.”
“I feel like you’re not telling me something.”
“He was wounded in an Eponite attack,” Equs admits. “And the hounds don’t respect anyone with a weakness. The bitches can only be handled by someone without any physical issues. They have a habit of attacking anyone or anything they perceive as being weak. So he can’t do the one thing he loves because he defended me.”
“But he doesn’t have physical issues?” He certainly didn’t seem to have any when he was grabbing me and pushing me against the wall.
“He has one wooden leg.”
“No, he doesn’t… does he?”
“He does.”
“So I’m supposed to give him a free pass because he’s a veteran of one of these stupid Eponite conflicts that shouldn’t be happening?”
“Aren’t you opinionated? I take it you think you could end the wars?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe,” he laughs. “What arrogant little creatures you humans are.”
“It’s just me. The rest of us are super sweet.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“And you probably shouldn’t. But seriously, the Eponites need to be, I don’t know… crushed, or something.”
“Bloodthirsty little thing,” Equs says. “We are not crushing an entire species out of existence because of some conflict. We are warriors. We expect battles.”
“Then expect one in your barn, I guess?”
“No,” he says firmly. “I will not tolerate that conflict inside my own house.”
“Then tell Vulpes to sort his shit out.”
“I’m telling you to get your tongue and behavior under control before I do it for you.”
He’s really pissing me off. He’ll sit on his hands when it comes to almost any bastard beside me. I say one word out of line, and that’s a huge problem for him. Dick.
“Don’t pout, human.” He runs the pad of his thumb over my lower lip in a gentle caress which makes a lot of the anger slip away. What is it about his touch? It’s like he’s magic in some ineffable way. When I feel him, I melt. All my old anger and hard walls start to swirl and slide away. But the second he’s away… I’m back to my old self.
“Is there anything else I can’t do? Like, breathe wrong? Do you want to script every second of my expressions from now until forever, is that it, Equs?”
“I want you to be by my side, as my mate. I want you to be the one person in all the worlds I do not have to worry about.”
“That's a really fucking big ask.”
“I know. I’m asking it anyway.”
He’s going to be disappointed. I know it. He knows it. But I guess I can try.
“So. How was work, honey?”
He sighs and flops down on the bed beside me, his actions so human, even down to the one arm behind his head to prop it up, the furred swell of his bicep and all those other ceps making me tingle on the inside. He’s so damn hot.
I reach over and tangle my fingers in his hair. I love playing with his mane. I think, to myself, privately, that maybe one day, if we did have a kid, it might have amazing hair. And fur, for that matter.
“I dislike attending to matters of state,” he says. “But it has to be done. If I do not do it, all the lesser officials start making rules and imposing them, and… I’ve spent most of the day striking down regulations that exist just to be there.”
“I guess you guys got that from our side of the ancestral family tree.”
“Possibly,” he admits. “I missed you.”
We have only been apart for a matter of hours. But I missed him too. We’re bonded in some way I don’t think either of us expected us to be.
“You too,” I say, snuggling into his mane and against his body. I am so safe here. It’s the most perfect place in the universe, being cuddled up against the wild king Equs, who wraps his arm around me and snugs me even closer.