Falling in Love with the King of Beasts

ADMINISTRATION NOTE: For the next week or two I'm going to try uploading the daily chapters a little earlier (4:30 and 5:30pm, Pacific) to make the content available to the East Coast readers at a more convenient time. On Webnovel, little details like upload times can have an impact on income, so this is an experiment to make sure I'm not hurting Reth & Elia's audience. I'll let you know if it changes again!

*****

GAHRYE

"Do you believe me?" he said a moment later. 

Kalle nodded, swallowing again and again. "I know you'll come back for me. I know we'll be together again, but… you might not have any choice if we can't find Elia."

Gahrye winced again, but then he said, "She's not far away. She's eating him. At least, pieces of him."

Kalle's eyes widened. "That's… that's so…"

"It's only what he deserved.

She shook her head. "It's what the voices deserved. Uncle Shaw was only guilty of wanting to see your world so badly he tried to go over there. But they're the ones that made him do all these horrible things. I can't believe he put the wolves onto Elia."

"Did he, or did they just know where to look? If the voices were inside them as well, maybe it had nothing to do with Shaw."

Kalle shook her head. "No, that's when he got obsessed with those reports. I remember because it was so odd that he was suddenly so fixated on that one detail. I thought it was because we had several Anima come through twice, in quick succession, and he had more stories than he'd ever had before. But I remember thinking it was odd at the time… it doesn't matter. It's all done now. The wolves are back in Anima and Shaw's dead and—"

"Shit… shit, of course!" Gahrye cursed. "That's what's happened to the wolf pack. The voices are loose in them, Kalle! That's why we have this stupid war! That's why Lucan went bad last year—or worse, anyway. Of course. I can't believe I didn't see it."

"You didn't know any of these things back then, Gahrye," she muttered, carefully lifting her hands to see if the bleeding was slowing.

It did seem like his shirt—though saturated—wasn't spreading as quickly as it had. He hissed at the pain when she moved her hand, but breathed through it until he could talk again. 

"It's the voices," he sighed a minute later. "That's why there's suddenly so much darkness—probably one of the reasons the people wouldn't accept Elia. Definitely why the wolves wouldn't. Reth is going to have kittens."

"Well, let's get Elia through that first and then see how we go," Kalle said breathlessly. 

Gahrye started to laugh, then groaned and she bit her lip, but he squeezed her hand. "It's just pain. I'm going to be fine. I won't even feel it anymore in a couple days. I promise."

"I really, really hope that's true, Gahrye."

They stared at each other for a minute and her eyes silvered with tears in the moonlight. He could smell the saltiness of them. See the shine in her eyes. He wanted to tell her not to cry, but he knew she was already fighting it. And he was so tired… he let himself just drink in the sight of her. He didn't know how long it would be until he couldn't do that anymore. 

He didn't tell Kalle, but he could hear Elia, digging into her meal in the trees not far away. He imagined that his mate wasn't accustomed to the… brutality of the Anima beasts that rarely got to hunt. He'd been impressed with Elia's instincts. She'd timed that exactly right, and hit him just right, too. 

He was about to ask Kalle if she could appreciate how fierce Elia had been, when he heard the distant bang of the door into the Big House, and footsteps hurrying along the grassy path towards them.

"Eve's here," he said quietly.

Kalle sighed with relief, then broke into tears a moment later when her grandmother dropped to the grass next to her with a thick, but small red case with a cross on it. 

"Okay, somebody tell me exactly what happened," she said as she flipped a little catch on the box. 

Kalle stumbled through it, while Gahrye added a detail here and there. They didn't get into the prophecies—he gave Kalle a sharp look when she sounded like she was about to get into that. He didn't know how much this crossed over with his purpose yet. He didn't want to risk accidentally giving anyone a clue about what he'd learned. 

While Kalle spoke, Eve pulled out several sharp-smelling, crinkling packets and began to open them, revealing bandages, tape and other things made of these awful plastics, though the bandages held the faint whiff of linen… though coated in something so sharp it made his head hurt. 

But as Eve quietly consulted with Kalle, and Kalle showed her the wound, Gahrye could already feel himself growing stronger. His body would heal this wound, he was certain of it. 

Eve tsked and swore after she cut his shirt open to reveal the wound properly—still bleeding, but slowed to a trickle. 

"I don't think it's far enough around, or deep enough, to have hit the kidney, but you'll need to tell me about any deep aches that aren't related to the stab itself, Gahrye."

"I will."

Eve spent several minutes stitching his skin—which hurt like a bitch—and spreading more of that awful sharp-smelling disinfectant on it. Gahrye hated it, but they told him it would stave on infection, so he submitted. 

Elia's feeding frenzy slowed while he was being patched up, then stopped. He didn't hear anything from her direction for a full minute and wondered if she was going to go to sleep after her meal. Gahrye shuddered and Eve accidentally stuck him with the needle again.

Kalle had moved to be next to his head, stroking his hair and arm while Eve worked.

He turned his head to look up her and she smiled. Her tears were dried, but still threatening. 

"Such a drama queen," she said with a quavering grin.

Gahrye snorted. "You have queens for that?"

Kalle's brows pinched, then she laughed. "Oh, no, it means… it means someone who makes things dramatic on purpose, when they don't need to be."

Gahrye raised his eyebrows. "I think that's our Queen, don't you?"

Kalle grinned and looked over her shoulder. "Is she still nearby?"

He nodded. "I can still smell her, but she's not moving that I can tell."

Kalle's face dropped and she stroked his hair again. "So… you think you'll be okay to go through?"

"I'm certain of it," he said quietly.

She nodded. He held her hand in silence until Eve was done.

*****

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