Chapter 183: No Scent To Keep (bonus)

Both males paused their bickering, but before they could respond, Tera was already walking towards them.

"Yes..."

She stopped right before them while Calis quickly got to his feet, confused.

Why was he just hearing of this?

"I am going to head back to my clan for a bit."

"You are leaving?"

Tera chuckled. "This isn’t my home. You don’t expect me to stay here forever, do you?"

Her light-hearted question made Calis’ eyes widen in shock. She wasn’t wrong, but hearing her say that saddened him.

Seeing the look in his eyes, Tera’s chuckle died down to a small smile. "I am not disappearing, Calis. I will be back. I am not done helping your pack after all."

He didn’t respond immediately. His crimson eyes held hers, and something pressed against the walls behind them.

He swallowed it.

But beneath all that he felt, a quieter ache surfaced that caught him off guard.

She didn’t have a scent.

He wished she had one.

When she left, there would be no trace of her. No fading warmth on the grass where she had sat, and nothing for him to breathe in during the quiet hours when his thoughts turned to her.

He wanted her scent.

The desire was so sudden and so fierce that it frightened him. He wanted to press his nose to her hair and learn what she carried beneath the nothing. He wanted to bury his face in the crook of her neck and find whatever hidden thing his senses couldn’t reach.

The frustration that followed was immediate and sharp.

She wasn’t his mate. She had two males who held her and kissed her and slept beside her. She was leaving to return to them, and he had no claim on her, no right to want anything from her, no reason to feel this hollow ache at the thought of her absence.

It started to irritate him.

What did it matter that she was shiftless? But for the first time, he wished she wasn’t just for the sole reason of having her scent.

"When will you be back?" he asked quietly.

Tera, who had been speaking with Bessier and Olaf, returned her attention to Calis.

"A week. Maybe less." Tera smiled. "I won’t be long. We still have a lot of work to do. I also intend to bring some herbs and medicines that will help your females."

Calis nodded stiffly.

A week felt too long.

"I will have the wolves prepare for your return," he said.

Tera studied his face for a moment, surprised by this. But Calis addressing his wolves over what they had discussed, especially regarding the females, would make her very happy.

The morning light caught the sharp lines of his jaw and the dark fall of his shaggy hair, and she remembered with unwanted clarity how that hair had looked slicked back and wet in the moonlight.

She liked it like that.

Putting her mind off the thought of the scrumptious male, Tera continued.

"Please, make sure the elders wash the animals in a few days."

[ಡ ͜ ʖ ಡ]

[Is that necessary?]

[Your clan doesn’t even wash your animals that frequently]

’I know. I just want to punish them.’

[༎ຶ‿༎ຶ]

[When did Host become this devious?]

Something crossed Calis’ lips at Tera’s words. It was almost a smile.

He glanced at the gathered elders in the near distance. "They will not enjoy that."

"They’d better start getting used to it."

- ※ - ※ - ※ -

The shelter was quiet back in the Dow clan earlier that night.

Ermin was fast asleep, with Nadia sprawled across his chest. One chubby fist was tangled in Ermin’s hair, and a thin line of drool connected her open mouth to his collarbone.

Althea was lying beside Xavi, and she was wide awake despite the late hour. His hand had been on her belly, securing her in place so she wouldn’t wander the whole shelter while he was asleep. But the panther cub had seized Xavi’s thumb at some point during the night and had been alternating between sucking and gnawing on it with the tiny teeth peeking out of her gums.

Tera had called it teething?

It was a strange description, but it seemed to fit.

Althea had been going at it for the past hour, and she showed no signs of stopping.

Xavi sighed.

He missed Tera, and he wanted to hold her in this moment too.

He missed her presence, her laughter, her voice, and the way she talked to the air when she thought no one was watching.

He had been surprised to learn how obvious his missing her had become. Earlier that day, two of the clan members had caught him mid-sentence and started grinning at each other.

It turned out he had been talking about Tera again, which he had done at every possible opportunity.

Ermin missed Tera too, but even he had been surprised by Xavi’s unconscious yearning.

But Xavi found it rich coming from the male whose tail instinctively curled around the empty space where Tera’s ankle usually was every time they laid down to sleep together.

Tera had told them she would be back in a few days. That was already feeling too long.

He was sure the cubs missed Tera too.

At random moments, Nadia or Althea would suddenly announce "mama" with the confident volume of cubs who expected the word to produce their mother from thin air.

When it didn’t, they would look around, confused, and then carry on with whatever they had been doing.

They missed her too, even if they couldn’t say it properly yet.

Xavi smiled softly and looked down at Althea, who was still determinedly working on his thumb. He curled his other fingers and gently tickled her stomach.

Althea squirmed, her tiny body wriggling as a giggle burst out of her that she immediately tried to suppress by biting down harder on his thumb.

Xavi did it again. Another giggle escaped, then another, and her small legs kicked against the furs as she fought between the tickling and her refusal to release the thumb.

Xavi chuckled quietly and stopped, careful not to wake Ermin or Nadia. He then leaned down to press a kiss against Althea’s forehead.

She yawned around his thumb, her eyelids drooping, and within seconds her jaw went slack, and her breathing evened out.

Xavi carefully extracted his soggy, chewed-on thumb from her mouth, wiped it on the furs, and closed his eyes, pulling her against him.

Sleep came slowly, taking him and the lingering thoughts of his mate.

Later that morning, Ermin left early with a group of males to gather fruits while Xavi remained behind to watch over the cubs.

The morning air was cool, and the settlement was stirring with the usual sounds of cubs shrieking and adults roaming around.

The bear male emerged from his shelter, ready to take them to the nursery and play with the other cubs when the air in front of him distorted.

The portal opened, and Xavi’s chest nearly swelled as he made out Tera’s frame on the other side.

She burst through the film like she had been fired from a cannon.

"XAVI!"