Fae Wolf

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

I somehow made it out of the audience chamber on autopilot. Looked tough enough so I wasn’t messed with by any of the fae I stalked past on the way to the quarters I shared with my mother.

But my brain was a mess. Aiti. I’d picked the honorific off a list when I first grew into my human skin over a decade ago. I’d thought no one would ever guess what it meant.

“Why can’t I call you Mom?” I’d asked, my mouth contorting as it tried to work itself around sounds I’d heard spoken all my life yet had no ability to spit out of my lupine snout. Newly two-legged, I finally had the requisite human anatomy...and the words still had trouble emerging from my flexible lips.

My adopted mother understood though. “It’s not safe for either of us to let the world know the depth of our connection.” She’d pulled me into her side, turning the wooden spits we used to cook campfire dinners out in the Between where few fae traveled. One turn to her vegetables, an endless gentle spin to my hunks of meat to make sure there were no burnt spots.

“The Queen,” she continued, “could take advantage when we’re at Court. She thinks affection is a weakness. She’s wrong...and she’s right.”

We had to go to Court to sell our goods, so I knew what my mother meant. Court-dwelling parents sent their children off to be raised by others for everyone’s protection. The one set of fated mates I’d met—fully bonded and unable to live apart—were constantly terrorized. Caring, in the Unseelie Court, was like displaying an open wound and begging for it to be poked.

Still, before the border closed, the time we spent in Court was short and infrequent. My mother’s argument had seemed irrelevant at the time. “I could call you Mom when we’re traveling. I just won’t use a name when we visit the Queen. That’s not strange. Fae dance around their true names all the time.”

In lieu of a reply, Aiti cradled my face just like she used to when I was four-legged and she was the center of my tiny universe. She’d found me as a pup when I’d been tossed aside by shifter parents unwilling to raise a bloodling—a wolf-form baby. Ever since, she’d nurtured me even though I wasn’t fae or even the right kind of werewolf.

Despite our differences, it had been the two of us against the world from that moment forward. I fully expected her to accept my naming compromise.

Instead, she’d murmured: “And if you slip up? What then?”

So I hadn’t called her Mom. Instead, we’d agreed upon a better solution. So many cultures, so many languages. It wasn’t hard to find one where children addressed their mothers with a name that sounded nothing like Mom.

I’d thought we were clever. A few times during Court visits, I’d twisted Aiti until it sounded like “Cruel Mistress, must I really obey you?” Fae had tittered. I’d known word of my antipathy would travel to the Queen.

But what had proven effective during short stays in Court hadn’t stood up under a six-month travel ban. The Queen was as clever as she was cruel. No wonder she’d sniffed out how much I loved this fae woman and how much Aiti loved me back.

Had sniffed out our weakness and understood how to use that formerly hidden c***k in my armor against both of us. Aiti wasn’t mortal. She could be tortured without risking permanent loss to one of the Queen’s useful tools.

All of this went through my head as I rushed down the corridor. Thrusting open the door to our quarters without knocking, I found my Aiti curled up on the window ledge reading one of the books I’d snagged out of the discard bin. Reading wasn’t quite travel, but losing herself in story was close enough.

Any other day, I would have curled up beside her, offering the comfort of my presence while taking the same from my Aiti. It was hard on both of us being cooped up in Court.

But snuggling wasn’t going to fix this problem. So I closed the door and padded closer. Then, speaking quietly so no one in the corridor could hear, I told her, “We have to cross over. Tonight.”

***