Archive of Our Own

1. He had this girl… this woman with him, who was in worse shape

It took a while for Leah to find out the date. The general store had newspapers, months old, withered things, which gave her an idea of the year but it was only when Bran Cornick received a letter from his eldest son and used it as an instruction to help her learn the aging of scents that she discovered it was September, 1820.

Her family had set off on their doomed voyage westwards in May of 1815, four weeks after her fifteenth birthday. As well as missing five years of her life, she was now in her twentieth year.

Leah both did and did not feel as if she was twenty years old, which seemed to her to be a great age. An adult in truth. An age where she had expected to be a married woman, perhaps with a baby of her own. Only one of these things was true now.

When she looked in the glass that hung in the bed chamber, the face that looked back at her was no different than the face that had looked back at her five years before in her mother’s vanity. Her hair was up, now, instead of in the plaits that had been common throughout her childhood. She didn’t remember when she had started putting it up, a day she had once longed for as a signifier of the mysteries of womanhood. A month or so before, when her hair was long enough to do so, she had done it automatically. She had pushed in pins in, she had weaved and tucked, to be neat and presentable and there she was, an adult woman.

Mrs. Bran Cornick of Aspen Creek.

“I am twenty years old,” she told Bran, when he came to bed that night.

He faltered, a little, as he undid his trousers. “Twenty?” He breathed out. She was beginning to know him, a little, to understand what the creases at the corners of his handsome eyes spoke of. She thought he was relieved, though she did not know why. She did not think him much older. “That’s good.”

Apart from this moment, this little conversation, the night went as it always did. In the dark – a strange dark, now that her eyes could see clearly – he laid over her, pulling her nightdress up above her hips as he kissed her fiercely. She felt the head of his thing nudge her. He mouthed down her neck, another kind of kiss. It made her writhe with unusual fervent feeling, her legs strangely restless, a heat pooling between her thighs, where he was poking, insistently.

The thing entered her slowly, breaching her in little nudges, Bran’s hips moving in a rhythm that her body tried to match. He always made a noise, when he was all the way in. Like he was pained. She winced in sympathy. The first time they had done this, she had winced too. Though it hadn’t hurt, it had been a surprise.

Despite this, his obvious discomfort, this moment was her favorite part, the sensation of their hips meeting, the feeling of his fullness within her. That and the little pause that followed, when his lips and teeth were still on her neck. Then all too soon, he began to move, quickly. Their skin slapped together with each thrust, the headboard of the bed hitting the wall. She counted. One, two, three… all the way up to thirty and then he made that noise again and shuddered. After a while, she felt a hot wetness between her legs. That was his seed. If she were not barren, now, that was how they would make a baby.

There would be no babies. He’d told her so. Another curse of her change.

Bran withdrew, when the shuddering finished, from her and from the bed entirely. His feet padded away as he left the room. She didn’t know where he slept every night. Perhaps he took his wolf form.

When Leah was certain he was gone, she reached between her legs, where she was slippery and sticky like syrup and found the little illicit nub, that lay hidden, secret. She rubbed it until a great warmth flooded her body, the space where he had been clenching around nothing, each clench a little pleasure on its own.

She sighed with relief. That was her second favorite part.

2. Guilt could drive a person harder than love

Very vaguely, Leah could hear herself making noises, unladylike, helpless noises. She wanted to stop herself, wanted to cover her mouth but he held both her hands above her head by her wrists. Her head moved restlessly against the tree bark, she could feel the bare skin of her bottom being abraded by every thrust of his hips. She did not care.

“Come on, Leah, come on,” he was saying, his mouth on her throat.

Her climax was inching ever closer. A monumental one, spurred on by their physical distance these last few weeks. She did not think of that now. Did not think that he had come upon her, a mile from home, sourcing wild greens. Did not think of how he had shoved her against this tree, kissed her like she was his only source of air, that the barest of stroke of his knuckle between her thighs had made her wet as a waterfall for him though she had sworn, absolutely sworn, that when he returned she would make him beg for it.

“Oh, God,” Leah cried, as it happened, the great sensation brought about by his cock driving inside her, the angle of this coupling particularly and shockingly stimulating. They had not done this before. Her entire being clenched around him, repeatedly, waves of unstoppable rapture. It was too much. “Oh, God, Bran.”

With a grunt, he yanked her thigh up another inch – sending him deeper – and then groaned himself, jerking and shuddering as he finished with his final, wet-sounding thrusts.

After a moment, when his shudders had stilled, Bran put her down and separated them. He stepped back, staggered, really, and pulled her water skin from her basket, drank thirstily, looking away whilst she righted herself. She frowned in discomfort, pulling her skirts down and arranging them. An unexpected side-effect of their reunion - she would have sticky thighs all the way home.

Bran cleared his throat. “What have I said about taking the Lord’s name like that.”

He was a critical man, her mate. Particularly with her. But his words held no heat, not truly. He seemed to like to say something disparaging at times like this, his eyes lowered with distaste. Bran did not like her. He particularly did not like what they did together, more so when physical needs overcame him. It was clear to Leah that the latter was the case here. When he had not found her at home, he had sought her out to have her against any surface that would take them.

“I shall certainly try to remember next time,” Leah murmured, meekly, if falsely, dutiful. There would always be a next time and her tongue would do as it pleased.  

Leah held her hand out and he mutely passed her the water skin. She drank and then, searching her pockets, found a handkerchief in a moment of necessary inspiration. She wet this article and lifted her skirts once more. She shivered as she cleaned herself, brushing where she was pleasantly tender. She could feel the grazes on her bottom now. She could smell blood. She liked it, these symbols of their coupling, though they would be gone in a matter of minutes.

Bran watched her clean herself, this time, his eyes penetratingly dark. She wondered what he was thinking. Nothing sentimental. Perhaps he was thinking how he wished things were different. How he wished for his last wife. She knew better than to ask, anyway. He would not tell her and really she did not want to know.  

3. Such determination, so much fight in her

At night, Leah sometimes walked around the new house with a sense of wonder. She’d had little to do with the plans of the property. That had been Bran and his sons, building a fortress for the growing pack. Though she had known it would be a larger property, with many rooms, she had been surprised at the sheer scale of the foundation, surprised when the timber structure kept being laid down. It was a very big house, indeed, the likes of which she had never seen in her life, which she supposed wasn’t saying much. Her life had been very small.

New furniture had been made – or ordered – and she brushed her hands over the chairs and couches and tables that had been chosen. She’d at least had a hand in that. Bran acknowledged that the domestic sphere was hers to dictate, he only asked that she keep in mind most of the guests would be werewolves with few graces. She should be practical. She was always practical, she felt.

Things with Bran had been particularly awful. She thought they’d reached some kind of understanding these last few years. A sense of mutual respect, in and amongst the obviously unnatural nature of their relationship. But something about this new house, or his growing pack perhaps, was causing friction and she did not believe she was the cause of it. He had been snappish with her. Difficult. A few times he had spoken to her disrespectfully in front of others and been forced to apologize. It was unlike him.

With one finger, she pushed open the door that would be Bran’s study. The walls were lined with bookshelves, rapidly filling bookshelves. In their old house, books had been everywhere. Every shelf, every wardrobe, every surface had stacks of the things. Dense tomes in foreign languages, of literature, poetry, philosophy. Many a time she’d picked one up, thinking it would be a good conversational point, and got no further than the third or fourth page before her eyes drifted closed.

He thought her stupid, of course. Perhaps she was if this was how cleverness was marked. His sons could read these books.  

Leah could already see her mate spending all his time here, when he was not about in the world. There was a great desk, ornate, behind which sat a comfortable, high-backed chair. He would sit behind it like a king holding court. It was in here he would spend more time away from her, sequestered with his sons or members of the pack, talking of manly things, of battles and bloodshed. There would be no nights in the parlor, him reading and she trying to draw him into conversation. She would talk battles and bloodshed, too. If he let her.  

A great swath of unexpected sadness overwhelmed her, then. Leah sank down onto a chair and covered her face with her hands. She would not cry because she did not cry. In the great mystery of her past, she could only suppose she had cried enough for a lifetime. It certainly felt like that was the case, when she was alone like this.

Besides, there was no reason to cry. For whilst she might be hopelessly lovelorn, she could not deny that her position here, at Bran’s side, was a position to be admired. Not just amongst the few female werewolves there were but other women. Last year, they had made the long journey east, for Bran and Charles to review property she did not know they had. Stops were made in Chicago. Philadelphia. New York. Boston. Places she’d heard of but never thought to visit, where modern townhouses were being built, apartment buildings, hotels, factories, all with the Cornick name attached. Whilst she shopped, whilst she acted the great American lady, she had seen such great poverty in those cities. Poverty that could have been her fate, had things been different.  

She turned her head, ears pricked as the door to this great house, her new home, opened and closed. The footsteps were Bran’s and he was alone. She waited, quiet as a mouse. He always knew where she was and if he had need to speak of her he would find her.

She would not, as she had done so many times in the past, draw attention to herself, to call after him. If anything, it would turn him away.

Bran came closer. Walked up the steps into the big area that she supposed would be their new parlor, large enough for all of the pack to congregate. There was a gleaming new grand piano, tuned to perfection. She could see a number of tedious musicales in her future.

Closer still he came. Down the hallway, off of which there were many smaller rooms. She would make one her own. If he had his study, she should have one too. Somewhere to hide away during the day, her private space where the matters of the pack would not bother her.

He appeared in the doorway. Sometime between leaving that morning in reasonably good condition, he had apparently been in a brawl. His shirt was torn at the collar and missing a button. There were marks on his pants. Blood and dirt. She could see his knuckles had been scraped and healed.   

Fights, in their circles, were common and nothing to comment on. “If you leave the shirt on my pile, I’ll mend it,” she said in greeting. Bran liked to run his clothes ragged, rather than buy new.

He tapped his fingers on the door trim, restless eyes moving around the room. “Clara can do it.”

Clara was their housekeeper. Their new housekeeper. Leah was a woman who had a housekeeper. There was also a girl who would come three times a week to help clean. She had servants now. She had been born to a farming family and now she had servants.

Still. “I would prefer to.” The thought of another woman handling her mate’s clothes so intimately discomfited her, somehow. It was bad enough that his clothes were now washed by someone else. Her wolf didn’t like that at all.

As usual, as she had expressed a preference, Bran acquiesced. It was a small thing, after all. He could be generous with the small things.

What she didn’t expect was him removing the article at that moment, reaching a hand behind him and pulling it over his head in one go. He held it out to her between his fingers, expectantly.

Leah swallowed. If there was one consistent factor of their companionship, despite all the strife, it was this. She found him very appealing. Sometimes it was as if her very bones vibrated with her desire to be with Bran. It was particularly the case when he was disheveled, when there was an air of post-violence lingering around him. The backs of her teeth ached at the same time as the parts of her that would draw him inside throbbed in anticipation. It was not love, this feeling, it was far more uncomplicated.  

Of course, Bran knew all this. As he watched her, his nose flared ever-so-slightly, his eyes narrowing with razor-sharp focus. The tell-tale signs of reciprocation.

Leah took the still-warm shirt from his fingers and rose, drawing it over her arm. “I’ll take care of this tomorrow,” she murmured, lowering her eyes, some age-old desire to retain a sense of virtuous decorum. “Come to bed?”

Bran did not need to answer. She walked ahead of him, aware of his physical presence, his predatory tread behind her. Tonight, as with every night, she was his prey, his willing prey. She mounted the stairs, her nightdress and robe fluttering about her legs. She could feel her body warming for him, the points of her breasts, the apex of her thighs, her belly.

She led him into her bedroom, dropping the shirt into the basket by the fireplace. When she reached up to untie her robe, his fingers were there, his chest pressed to her back. She caught her breath as he undressed her from behind. His mouth against her neck the way that made her sigh. He unbuttoned her night dress and slid his hand inside to cup her breast, fingers cold against her warmth. She gasped.

With one hand on her head, he eased her down onto the bed, bending her over into an indecorous position. She could be anyone, in this position, and did not like it. When she tried to move, to put her knees on the mattress, he tugged at her hair. “Stay,” he commanded as his pants hit the floor.

She stayed.

His hands tugged up her nightdress, baring her backside and she grit her teeth. “Bran.”

“Stay.” His mouth pressed to the base of her spine. His knee intruded between her legs, easing her thighs apart.

She did not like it. There was something— something familiar about it, something she did not remember and did not want to. Sometimes she could ignore it, sometimes it was fine, but tonight she could feel her anxiety ratchetting up. Leah did not want this.

So she took control, hooking her leg behind his and spinning them onto the bed, Bran landing on his back with a surprised noise. She clambered on top of him and pulled her nightdress off over her head, the echoes of her panic a mere drop of metallic taste in her mouth. She was back in charge.

Bran teeth shone white in the dark, a predatory, pleased smile. He lifted his hands over his head, a rare sign of surrender.

Now she was on top, Leah wasn’t absolutely sure what she would do next. She usually took her lead from him and this was not a position they had explored. Truth be told, it was not a position she expected Bran’s wolf would accept. He liked control and here, this way, it felt very much like she was in control.

Curious, and bold, Leah took hold of his cock, stroked the silky-skin in a desultory fashion as she decided what she would do. He lay passive beneath her, his chest rising and falling, his eyes roaming from her hands to her breasts, lingering on her mouth.

So she leaned down and kissed him, their mouths open wide. A hungry-sounding kiss, wet and hot, teeth and tongue. When she pulled back, he murmured, biting at her chin, “Tighter.”

She squeezed his erection more firmly as she moved her hand up and down.

Bran grunted, his hips moving in small increments, held back by her position over his thighs. His hands fluttered to her waist, then to cup her breasts, massaging them. He bent upwards, to take a nipple in his mouth and she decided she didn’t want that, placed a hand on his chest and pushed him back down flat.

He laughed. She didn’t think she’d ever heard him laugh in bed before. “Stay,” she said firmly. Then, inspired, “No touching.”

Bran laughed again.

The laughing was annoying. He should be whimpering. She held the evidence of how much he wanted her in her hand. Leah lifted herself up, so she could stroke the head of his cock along her wet slit, and she was very wet now. Humming with anticipation. Abruptly, Bran’s smile slipped from his face, becoming one of intent concentration, his eyes fixed between her legs.

She focused her attentions on rubbing him over the nub at the top of her slit, the center of her pleasure. She closed her eyes so she could enjoy the moment more, her own breathing, and his, a distant backdrop as she moved her hips up and down, against the direction of his cock. Zings of heat fired up her spine and down. God, that was good.

One hand on his firm abdomen for support, Leah finally slid him into place, slid him to where he was meant to be, dropping her hips slightly so the head popped inside of her.

Instinctively, Bran’s head lifted from the bed and fell back, his mouth parted with an ‘oh’.

She held him there for a moment, just long enough for Bran to whisper the slightest hint of a plea mixed with an order, “Leah.” And then she sunk all the way down.

All the way. She was slightly shocked at how big he felt from this angle, as if there was more of him to take. She leaned forward, hands on his chest, surprised, adjusting to the sensation. She clenched experimentally and Bran’s head lifted again, his whole body tensed like a bow. His hands flexed on her hips. She did it again and he growled. “Move, Leah.”

She didn’t particularly know how to – the angle was different when he was on top – but her body instructed her, and Bran’s hands on her hips helped as she began to move in a kind of scooping motion, drawing him out a way and taking him back in. The muscles in her stomach worked hard, an unusual exercise. Powerful.  

Once she had adjusted to his size, the angle was a uniquely pleasurable one and she was able to only focus on her pleasure, what felt good for her, so much so that when Bran urgently whispered, “Are you close?”, she both realized she was but also that Bran himself was holding on by a thread. It had been a long time since Bran had allowed himself to come before her and he was gritting his teeth, his whole body tensed.

Feeling wicked, she began to move her hips faster, taking him in deeply, clenching and doing all the things that she knew would bring him forth quickly. He saw what she was about immediately. “Leah, you— oh goddamn,” he growled, his hips rising, his face collapsing in its familiar tortured pleasure. He came, thrusting up, shuddering and an almost comical look of dismay followed.

This time it was her who laughed, though it ended in an ‘ooph!’ as he threw her on her back and began to grind his hips, his half-hard cock still within. He kissed her, ferociously. The motion on her clit worked well, as he knew it would, and she was soon falling apart around him, her mouth captured by his.

“Naughty,” he told her, which sounded in no way like a chastisement. He kissed down her neck and licked the sweat from her skin.

Leah was pleased with herself and, by extension, with Bran. She wove her legs around him, crossing her ankles at his back. Her contentment was such that she felt bold enough to make a comment on the matter of their marital intimacies, a subject they did not verbalize. “That was marvelous.”

Bran bit her shoulder, none-too-gently, and then kissed the mark he had made. “Agreed.”

Leah turned her head, chasing his mouth, and he gave it to her willingly. His eyes were smiling as they only did when they were alone in the bedroom. “Go again?” she suggested.

4. I have always known I was lucky in my choice of mate

She had already been up for a run when Bran woke. She felt his eyes on her as she combed out her wet hair in the mirror and she turned to see him regarding her sleepily.

The run had done her good. She’d been feeling restless, the events of the last few days lingering, his revelation that he had thought she would betray him… lingering harder.

Not for the first time, Leah reflected how curious it was to love someone who seemed to go out of his way to hurt her. It probably reflected very poorly on her own character in some way. Perhaps she sought out that pain? An addict, of some kind, for the only emotion he could give her.

It never did well to think on such things.

“Did you truly think it was me?” Leah asked, putting aside her uncomfortable self-reflection for bluntness.

Bran winced. “It was a process of elimination more than anything else.”

This didn’t make her feel much better. Bran was an expert at that. Unhappily, she faced herself in the mirror of her dressing table, combed over already well-combed hair, drawing out the darkened wet strands over her shoulders. The dissatisfaction sat heavily in her belly.  

“I didn’t want it to be you,” he murmured.

Leah dropped the comb on the glass. Her mouth ran away with her, bitterness tinging the words, “I suppose I should be glad my death wasn’t something you actively sought.”

It would be one way to be rid of her, finally. With Anna in the pack now he might survive with his mind intact, the only reason he had ever really kept her around. Given the choice between her much-disliked company and losing his sanity, she was the lesser of two evils. He had always made that clear.

But in response Bran made a noise, an awful one, and then the bedsheets rustled and he was across the room with a patter of light feet. He dropped down by her side, such an unlikely submissive position that she held her hands up in the air as he buried his face in her lap. “Never. Never, Leah.”

Her hands fluttered over his head, unsure. Bran had never sounded like this before. So wretched. It didn’t fit, somehow. That he felt guilt for his actions she could readily believe but Bran felt guilt about many things to do with her and had never reacted like this.

Gently, curiously, Leah laid her fingers on the back of his head. She knew him well. It wouldn’t do to interrogate him too deeply. But there might be other ways in. She had questions that needed to be answered, after all. “Is that why… you insisted he stayed here? To investigate me?”

Bran turned his head to the side, so she could see his profile. The straight nose, the surprisingly full bottom lip and stubborn chin. He had very good, clear skin – like all werewolves – but normally there was a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose. That they were absent suggested to her he had been indoors.  

His breath ghosted warmly across her thighs. “I couldn’t tell him my suspicions. I hoped he would work out who was the true traitor, that he’d have clarity I didn’t. That I would be thousands of miles away if...” He trailed off.

“And you weren’t?”

He laughed without humor, with very little sound, and sat back. His hands tangled in her robe. He did not meet her eyes. “I had to lock myself in a hotel in Spokane. I couldn’t get on a plane. I couldn’t leave you.”

The use of ‘couldn’t’ was a tell. The wolf, she supposed, rather than the man. The wolf who had been forced to take her on did not want her to die. That was, at least, something.

Though Leah was surprised that Bran, who had been controlling his wolf for many centuries, had been unable to overcome him.

Hazel eyes flicked up to hers. “I’m sorry.”

He had apologized yesterday so Leah shrugged it off. “I forgave you.”

“Do you, though?” Bran asked, some of his usual dryness coming through. He smoothed his hands over her robe, over her thighs. His thumb cruised over the curve of her knee and then over, between her thighs. She shivered. “A monumental thing to forgive me for, Leah. I’m not sure I would be so sanguine.”

“I’ve forgiven you greater things,” she whispered, after a moment of thought, allowing herself to cruise close to a topic they never discussed.

Bran took her hand, pressed it to his mouth, a courtly knight to his lady. She watched, frowning. He turned it over and repeatedly kissed her palm, thumbs massaging the base. “I do not want to lose you.”

Unusual for him to surprise her so often in such a short space of him. Her mouth parted as she sought for something meaningful to say in response to such a sweeping declaration. “I… don’t want to be lost.”

He nodded, fervently as if Leah had just agreed to something significant, and then slid his arm under her legs, his other going behind her back. She was lifted in the air, bridal style.

As Bran carried her to the bed, Leah had the strangest thought that she was about to be made love to. It was a ridiculous, fleeting thought, as he laid her on the bed, as he pressed kisses to her hairline, her temple, the tip of her nose and his nimble fingers untied her robe. Bran had never made love to her in her life. No one had.

Still, his hands were so gentle, his mouth so tender. His skin was burningly hot against hers as he lay above her, as he caressed her breasts, as he marked a trail of opened-mouthed kisses down her belly and thighs, sending muscles jumping in their wake.

Apology sex, her logical mind offered up in explanation as he spread her legs and licked her core. Leah writhed against his mouth, noises of pleasure falling from her lips as he expertly worked her to her peak. That was the only explanation. Guilt wrought in sexual form. They’d come together the previous night but it had been nothing like this. A fast, hard coupling, the usual way. Not like this.

Never like this.

Her body bowed as she came, her hands tangling in his hair, grabbing handfuls as if it would help her keep a hold on to the reality he had created with his lips and tongue. He kept going, licked and sucked her through this orgasm, three fingers sliding inside of her, moving with forceful purpose through that initial, unbearable sensitivity, building her towards her next climax. She whimpered and cried, torn apart by complicated pleasure and the strangest weight of heavy emotions – grief, twisted with confusion, the distant press of remembered unhappiness.

Leah knew her body well enough to know she wouldn’t come without him now, and he knew it too. He worked her until she was frenzied, then he crawled up her body and kissed her fervently, the salty tang of herself on his tongue. He slid home in one swift movement, her body supple and ready for him. She keened as Bran moaned, kept making helpless not-her sounds as he thrust hard, her body inching up to the headboard, her hands scrabbling for purchase.

Urgently, Leah kept him apprised of her situation as soon as it became clear she would be lost soon. “Going to come,” she whispered, panicked at the huge sensation. A behemoth of an orgasm, rising up like a tidal wave. Uncontrollable.

Bran met her eyes, dark, close. His lips brushed hers. “Let go,” he instructed. “Let go.”

There was little choice in the matter. Her orgasm broke and her vision blackened with a wave of white-hot pleasure-pain, body falling in on itself. She heard herself, distantly, cry out. Bran, oh God, Bran, like they were one and the same.

She did not recall his finish. Just the weight of him, when she returned to her senses. The feeling of his deep breaths above her, the press of his chest against hers. The trickle of sweat she tasted from his temple.

She touched his damp hair, strangely moved.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Bran slurred again, against her neck.

She didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t say anything more than she had said before. “I don’t want to be lost.”

5. I am not proud of what I did. I bound her wolf to mine by force.

Leah was tired for days. For no good reason, too. Running across two states was hardly trifling but she’d experienced far worse. She had expected that a couple of days of reduced activity and a meal every two hours would fix her.  

Instead, she lolled about on couches and chairs, slept late and retired early. She felt sluggish. Strange.

She presented herself to Bran on the twelfth day of this feeling, unhappy with her progress. “Am I sickening for something? Is that at all possible?”

Bran duly pressed his hand to her forehead, as if he was checking her temperature. He moved to brush the backs of his knuckles across her cheek, then cupped his hand around the back of her neck. “No, it’s not,” he said with a smile and she knew then that he had just used this as an excuse to touch her. He did that now.

Leah lifted her eyebrows. He didn’t let go of her neck and he didn’t stop smiling. Uncomfortable with this level of attention, she looked down to the left. He looked at her a great deal now. Looked and… whatever he did with the mating bond that felt like his fingers pressing on her brain. She pushed that aside. “Well, I don’t know what the matter is, then,” she muttered. She just wanted to feel normal.

“I think—” He paused and reconsidered. “I don’t think you’ll like what I think.”

“Oh Lord.” Leah stepped away from him, allowing him to return to cooking. Garlic and ginger and chili peppers tickled her nose. Stir fries were one of Bran’s specialties. It was easy to make, the recipe could be multiplied. She and Tag had at least one a day since they’d returned.

She made herself a Nespresso, which had no effect on her other than the psychological beliefs installed in her from marketing, then sat at the table with her coffee and braced herself. “Go on then.”

Bran’s lips twitched. He turned off the heat under the wok and wiped his hands on the dish cloth. He very carefully re-folded it, looping it through one of the handles on the range. “Well. Firstly, you are…grieving. That can be draining.”  

That he didn’t look at her as he said this told her how heavily he thought this weighed on her. She had thought of Zander much over the last few days. She had even shed a tear or two. Not for him. Not even for what she had done. Taking the life of her child had been undeniably necessary to finish the job Sherwood had started all those years ago. No, the tears had been for the child he had been. The potential that had been lost to the Singer’s warped care. His brother, too, had weighed on her mind, long gone though he was. Some part of her had always known that she’d had children. The loss never went away, even if she’d not had the tangible memories of her children to hold on to.

Yes, she did grieve.

“And second?” Leah prompted, for she did not think grief could be the only reason why her bones felt so very tired.

Bran stopped fussing with the towel. “I suspect you have been fighting off the Singer for two hundred years and that might have been exhausting in a way you did not truly see until he was gone.”

That he would so bluntly say the Singer’s name out loud was one thing. The concept of what he was suggesting was something else entirely.

She stared at him. Not knowing what to think or say. “I…” she tried. Then stopped.

It worked. In her mind, what he was saying worked. He was right. Damn it.

Her mate took a water glass down from the cupboard and filled it. “Based on what I understand, that creature spent two centuries recovering until he was strong enough to begin again with the people of Wild Sign.” Bran drank and as he did so, he gazed out of the window in thought. “He must have been pulling at you, all this time. You belonged to him. You were probably a source of energy for him, too.”

Saliva pooled in Leah’s mouth. She couldn’t swallow it quick enough. She slid her hands under her thighs to stop their tremble. Leah Cornick did not tremble any more. “I belong to you.”

Bran’s mouth pressed together. “You do. More than anyone else.”

And Leah relished belonging to Bran. Relished a powerful being, the most powerful werewolf in the world, standing before everyone else for her. Protecting her.

She did not have to like this side of herself, the side that wanted a man such as him, but she accepted it. There were many things she did not like about herself but had grown to accept. It was the only way to survive.

“You know,” Bran said in his familiar tones of imparting wisdom, “I belong to you, as well.”

Leah ‘pfffed’, halfway to being amused by this puffery and certainly distracted for the moment. “Nonsense. You belong to no one.” No other being could tame him, not Bran or his wolf.

Her mate’s sudden smile could have lit rooms with its brightness. Bran dropped down opposite her and stretched his legs out, tangling with hers. “Ridiculous woman. You are my mate and wife. It is only right that I belong to you, as you belong to me.”

Other women might be flattered by such a statement, might take it at face value, but Bran was a manipulator and words were one of his tools. Perhaps he thought he was being – ludicrous though it seemed – romantic. He was romantic, a bard in his heart of hearts, though he had certainly never applied these skills to her. If this truly was a new attempt, it was an unsuccessful one. Leah was not romantic. 

She finished her coffee and pushed the cup aside. “So your theory,” Leah would not repeat it out loud, the prospect of the Singer’s fingers in her long life too much to absorb, “leaves me, what, magically exhausted?”

He nodded, returning to seriousness. “His summons have been their most potent since April.”

When she started singing. Which she had known and…not known. But Bran had. Bran, who had said nothing. Done nothing. Just, apparently, grown more and more afraid.

Funny to think of Bran afraid. Afraid of losing her. And himself, as a consequence.

“That is a long time to resist,” Bran continued. He wiped a hand over his face and up into his hair. “Your willpower is… quite something.”

Willpower was a polite way of putting it. Usually he called her stubborn. Pig-headed. Obstinate. She knew her mind and until recently she had thought she had known his. Nothing was normal any more. “It won’t take… months?” She winced at the prospect. “To feel myself again?”

“I shouldn’t think so. I can help with the physical effects.”

Her eyebrows climbed up her forehead again. “Oh?”

“I am your Alpha.”

Leah snorted. “I don’t need reminding of this.”

Bran shook his head at her dry tone and held his hand out to her with a small sigh, like she was a trial to him. It was believably affectionate, though, and she gave him her hand, willingly, if not automatically.

Instantly, Leah felt the trickle of his magic tug at the exhausted part of her. And lower.

After a moment, where relief from exhaustion warred with a growing sense of arousal, she narrowed her eyes. His gaze was vague, staring somewhere south of her left shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Bran’s hazel eyes focused abruptly and a shimmer of alarm flittered across his face. He pulled his hand back as if burned. “Ah…”

“Did you just— how did you—?” Unthinking, Leah held her hand out again, as if to grasp the feeling, and then snatched it back. “Can you do that deliberately?” A worse thought followed, words tumbling from her mouth in alarm, “Have you done that before?”

Bran stood, his chair scraping backwards. He could not have looked more horrified. “I thank you, I have never. Absolutely not. No.”

“Then what was it?”

“I—” Bran’s mouth opened and closed like a guppy. He was at a loss. He was never at a loss.

Shame trickled through the mating bond. His shame. And it was potent.

Leah tilted her head to the side, as if it would help her listen to this new feature of their long-standing marriage. This insight she’d never had before. She had not had the wherewithal over the last few days to really pay attention and she should have been. She felt like she had missed something crucial.

Bran found some words, his hands opening and closing at his sides. “It’s not— you’re reacting to me. My, ah, want. I can’t create that out of nothing. I couldn’t do that to you. And I wouldn’t.” His wolf shimmered to the fore and held, as if both of them wished to convey his earnestness.  

She nodded, accepting this for a fact. Calm in the face of his heady anxiety. “No. You wouldn’t do that. I apologize for suggesting it.”

His wolf disappeared and Bran looked down. The shame returned. “I am sorry I lost control.”

Lost control? She really was missing something. Once again, she was tempted to hold out her hand, to recreate the moment as if she might glean further inspiration from the contact. It had been a surprise but it hadn’t been unpleasant. Indeed, it reminded her that they had not been together for some weeks. Another thing she had missed.

She smiled, perplexed. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting, Bran.” They had always wanted each other. Perhaps she should have paid more attention to that, as well, rather than thinking it just a difference between men and women. Between werewolves and humans. That he could – and did – fuck her and dislike her had always been the strangest of concepts to her.

“Well.” Briskly, Bran began to tidy, cup and glass, tucking a newspaper under his arm. “It’s hardly the time, is it.”

Leah might be tired, and that might have made her slow, but realization dawned like a particularly beautiful sunrise. “Bran,” she said, unable to keep the smile from her voice, so touched by this unlikely behavior, “have you been— holding back? For me?”

His scowl of unhappiness was quite the thing to behold. The dishwasher rack rattled as he fitfully replaced things in the order which he preferred. “I would really have to be an absolute bastard to do otherwise, wouldn’t I? An absolute bastard,” he muttered, ramming a bowl into place. They both ignored the sound of crockery cracking as he shoved the rack back too violently and closed the door.

“Because I’m tired?” Leah suggested, tentatively testing her understanding.

Alphas were quick to anger and Bran no different than most, not when he was truly triggered. The scowl flipped to something far darker. “No, because you were horrifically abused and I never let myself ask. I— trapped you into a co-dependent, sexual relationship when you were barely more than a girl. I used you.”

She flinched. Not at his words, no, but at the wretchedness in his raised voice. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Leah.” He closed his eyes, his shoulders drooping. “It was. You just don’t know any better.”

She felt her wolf nature rise with the offense. “I thank you not to patronize me.” Leah rose to standing as well. She would not have this conversation seated below him. They would see eye to eye on the matter. “Neither of us knew what we were getting into. You did not plan our mating.”

Bran was resentfully silent. He couldn’t deny it. He had claimed, to others, that he had sought out a woman to replace his mate but it had been a carefully worded lie. If he had been looking for a woman, it certainly wouldn’t have been along the western territories of the not-yet United States. Nothing about Leah’s presence in his life had been planned.

“And I might not have known better,” Leah continued because it would be truly foolish to think otherwise, to forget what it had been like, “but I do now. You never asked. I was…happy not to be asked because I did not know the answers.” She held up a hand when he moved to speak, to deny. His mouth shut with a snap of teeth. “I was maybe wrong to be happy not to be asked and you were maybe wrong not to ask. But, my God, Bran, I have my memories now and I can absolutely assure you there is no comparison between what happened to me and what we do together.”

“Leah—”

“There is no comparison,” she insisted sharply, tempted to wave a finger at him. “You erase that from your thinking, if you please.”

Bran’s answering smile to her fierceness was wan with reluctance but she could see she was winning. “I could have done better by you. From the beginning… I— there were deliberate acts—”

She flung up her hands to stop him. She didn’t want to hear about his deliberate acts. She had lived through them. It was done. “Oh, for certain. And I as well. But…” Leah tilted her head to the side, seeking desperately for the cornerstone of her marriage and mating. The sense that they had worked well together, despite it all. “It’s not all been bad. Has it?”

Leah could see he did not want to admit it, so she pushed him. “By modern standards, perhaps I should have much to complain about but— we are not modern. We survived. I don’t think that is something that can be dismissed just because… because…”

“Because I made you a monster.”

Leah smiled. It felt sad, for she knew this was how he felt about himself. Despite everything. “You say ‘monster’ like it’s a bad thing. You know I love what I am.”

Her husband exhaled through his nose, shaking his head like he didn’t know what to do with her. “Leah,” he sighed. He approached her silently, his hands lifting to her face. His fingers were light, just points of warmth on her cheeks. “You do. You did, almost immediately.”

“Bloodthirsty, you said.” She had seen it as a compliment. Perhaps there really was something wrong with her.

“You are that.” Bran kissed her, just a light brush of his lips against hers. He did not entirely pull away, his eyes a blur of green and gold before her, his whisper against her mouth, “I may never forgive myself, Leah.”

“Then I will just have to keep forgiving you. For you belong to me,” Leah said then, using his ridiculous phrase against him, she thought, quite cleverly.  

She thought he was amused. “Exactly so.” Bran kissed her again, and again, just a whisper of a thing, holding her face loosely. “I would still like to give you… time and space.”

Leah pursed her lips and touched his arm, circled her fingers about his wrist. “Hmm,” she said, not sure now that this was for her and not instead some kind of punishment of Bran himself. As it turned out, it was very like him, to deny himself the things he wanted.  

She tilted her head to the side and kissed him properly, their way. The way they had always kissed, from the very beginning. Her body’s response to him was immediate, the way it always was, and she looped her arms around him, pulled him close so she could feel him the way she needed. He had always liked it when she took control and though he responded, eagerly, she sensed clearly the tension thrumming through his body. His fingers on her face flickered, as if he would grab hold and then he dropped them, pushing against her shoulders, pushing her back.

They parted and he pressed his cheek to hers. “I just want to do right by you, this time.”

Part of Leah was amused that Bran thought that withholding sex was the way to do that. Part of her, the practical part of her, could acknowledge that two centuries of habits were hard to break and sex had always been the foundation of their marriage. Maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous to think that Bran would purposefully remove that, so they could focus on other things. Like touching her, simply for touching’s sake. Like talking. Like giving her time to heal.

No, maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous. Leah turned her head and kissed his cheek. “All right. But there is a limit, Bran.” Though it had not been top of mind recently, she thought there would come a time quite soon when all she wanted was her mate, her husband, pressing her down into a mattress. Quite, quite soon.

Bran grumbled, his hands going to her butt to squeeze, his mouth to her neck. “No kidding.”

-end