It was a few weeks later when Valentina interrupted a Sunday with the family. She’d gone by herself into the woods that morning, as she was doing more and more often those days. Kain forced himself not to worry about it. That there was no way she would go back to Herta without telling him. But he also couldn’t make himself ask her about it. Somehow he felt like bringing up the subject would force it, and she’d leave even sooner.

He knew there was no way that she would stay on Earth. It was so clear to him that she wasn’t of this place. Just like it had become clear over the last weeks how much he wanted her to stay.

She was fully integrated into his life at this point. The little glass jars and bottles of homeopathic medicine that she’d made herself rested on his bathroom shelf. Her clothes were hung on the line in his backyard. It was food that he made that filled her belly. He’d taken to buying a single dark beer when he picked up the groceries, because sometimes before dinner, when they sat on his back deck, she liked to split one. He didn’t think he’d even set foot in his bedroom in weeks.

Yeah. He was good and thoroughly wifed.

He was enjoying every second of it. Except for the fact that every morning he woke up and wondered if today was the day she said goodbye.

So it was with an almost embarrassingly large leap of relief that Kain watched Valentina come out onto Ansel’s back porch where the rest of them were lounging. The first time they’d come to a family gathering separately, Kain had puckered his lips meaningfully and she’d kissed him quite passionately. It had had John Alec clearing his throat and the rest of the family raising their eyes. But no one had questioned it. And the tradition continued.

    Today was no disappointment. She crossed the deck and kissed Kain, but he sensed something just a tiny bit different. Not distraction coming from her, but a certain kind of awareness.

He pulled back from the kiss with his eyes slightly narrowed but her focus wasn’t on Kain. It was across the deck, on John Alec, who was rising from where he’d been leaning on Milla’s lap, a spark in his eye.

“What’s going on?” Inka asked, looking back and forth between the two siblings.

Neither of them answered. But they were stepping off the deck and into the yard, their eyes on one another.

“Seriously,” Kain called. “What the hell are you guys doing?”

John Alec cracked his fingers and swung his arms once as he started to circle his sister. “Valentina wants to fight.”

Instantly Kain was on his feet. Not to interfere, but to get a better view. The entire family moved to the steps at the edge of the deck, all of them curious as heck to see the warriors spar.

If that could even be called sparring. Valentina unsheathed two katanas that had been hidden under the back of her shirt and John Alec took a blunt knife and a length of rope from his cargo pants.

Bing, bang, boom. Three hits. Just like that. It was impossible to say who’d struck and who’d defended. But there was the clash of steel, a quick whirl, and the two separated. Still circling, but now John Alec had a joyous, snarly smile on his face.             

One, two, three, four, five. The hits were barely visible to the eye until John Alec tried to sweep her legs and Valentina backflipped neatly backwards. She immediately charged forwards, leapt atop his shoulders and whipped him to the ground. He rolled and was back up immediately and this time their steel clashed seven times.

The rope in his hand whipped out and caught Valentina around the neck. Kain took three steps forward when it tightened quickly enough for her frustrated gasp to be cut short. But he needn’t have worried because Valentina’s steel flashed and then both of them held a separate half of rope in their hands.

In a flash, Valentina had John Alec belly down, his neck circled in rope and his face purpling. He made a sign with one hand and she grinned, stepping off of him.

“Again!” he shouted. Obviously she’d won that round.

Kain slowly lowered to the stair to sit again. It was natural to be worried, watching your woman fight pretty much to the death. But as their sparring match went on, Kain found himself fully enjoying himself. It was Milla who was wincing. None of them had ever seen John Alec get his ass handed to him.

Finally, John Alec stalked over to her, in between sparring bouts, and yanked the rope from her hand and one of her katanas. He tossed them to the side and fully ignored her smug grin. He was evening the odds. He couldn’t beat her when she was so well armed. So it was a particular hit to his pride when she immediately disarmed him again not twenty seconds later.

“Fuck!” he screamed in rage, crouching down and gathering calm.

“It’s good for you to lose, brother. In this way you learn. You better yourself.” It was said in a funny, deep voice from Valentina and Kain wondered if she was repeating something that their father used to say.

John Alec laughed, and it was only half feral. Kain was amazed to see how much affection he had for his sister even as he tried so hard to land any blow to her small body.

“Fuck learning,” John Alec snarled at her. “I want to win. I get another man.” He flicked his hand toward the deck, summoning one of the other warriors, as if he didn’t even care which one. Milla was up and next to her husband in a flash, picking up Valentina’s discarded Katana.

Kain bit down a little disappointment. He’d been enjoying seeing Valentina kick ass so righteously. But now Milla was in the mix and it was all gonna be over very—

“Ho-ly shit,” Ansel whistled between his teeth as Milla got kicked straight out of the air, rolling away across the grass with a frustrated scream. John Alec, meanwhile, was on his back again, a katana to his throat. He was tapped out. Valentina swiped his dagger from his ‘dead’ body and threw it. It landed three feet to the left of Milla’s neck, but no one doubted that was exactly where she’d been aiming.

“Again!” Milla screamed just like her husband had. And again, she was disarmed and bested in less than ten seconds. The steel clashed sparks as Milla didn’t hesitate between rounds, flying through the air at Valentina. John Alec flipped his sister backwards and then she was ricocheting off the side of the guest house, turning two perfect handsprings and picking up a pair of garden shears on the way.

The rope was cut to shreds in the process and what might have been a very useful tool lay on the ground as nothing more than an assertion of Valentina’s prodigious skill.

Griff joined in. Three on one. The battle took on a much less refined feeling. They surged and chased across the yard, spilling into the surrounding woods.

“Keep her out of the forest!” John Alec shouted. “She’s even better in the—shit.”

Valentina had her katana to Griff’s throat and Milla’s blouse pinned to a tree with a dagger, and John Alec was on his back with a dart in his throat. He plucked it out and ground it into the forest floor. “You better not have tipped that dart with anything, you little brat!”

She just grinned at him. The spectating crowd closed in around them. Matt held Carmen tightly in his arms, his breath in his throat. Even Inka, with her protruding belly, was leaning against a tree, unwilling to miss any action.

It took three more rounds of three on one for Ansel to decide he had to get involved as well. 

“Jesus,” he grunted as he was slammed to the ground, the hit rocking even his teeth in his head. “It’s like the more men you add, the better she gets.”

“It’s fucking annoying!” John Alec yelled, picking up a log and launching it at Valentina. She stuck out her tongue as she deftly dodged the log and lifted herself into a tree. Kain watched in amazed awe as she sprinted down the branch, hopped to another tree, swung herself down and annihilated Griff.

Ansel charged, getting one good hit in that had her grunting, but then her katana sliced the shirt clean off of him. Milla got Valentina from behind but was immediately flipped and smashed down onto Ansel. The two Ketos grunted in pain as their heads clanked together. Somehow, John Alec was curled over in pain again, removing another dart from his neck and one from his side. Kain hadn’t even seen her do that.

Kain figured he’d deprived himself long enough. He strode into the group, hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. Half a second later, his black hat was whisked clean off his head, nailed to the tree behind him by a tiny dagger.

He grinned even harder. This was going to be fun.

Five on one and the odds still weren’t evened. Valentina was a blur of action and movement. Graceful when it was advantageous and blunt and vicious when that was advantageous. She swung from the trees, flipped through the air, crawled like a spider, pounced like a cat. All of her opponents fell, but soon they stopped pausing. No matter what hits she got in, they didn’t fold. It was a full-on attack. Steel clanked and sparked, flesh smacked and bruised, there were grunts and screams and wild, fierce competition.

Kain realized, with a slicing pride for her, that when she was in the zone like this, he could barely get a hand on her, much less a kill shot. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as she used the dregs of Ansel’s shirt to ‘strangle’ Griff. Ansel she dispatched with the point of her katana to his heart. Milla went down less than a second later as Valentina landed her knees to her sister-in-law’s shoulders and ‘snapped’ her neck. And then she was coming for Kain.

He did the natural thing, the only thing he could do when Valentina was charging him with that concentration on her face. The second she was close enough, his hands were in her hair and he was tumbling her to the ground. He’d expected her to push him away, but her tongue invaded his mouth and he felt her laugh rumble through him.

“Damn it!” John Alec screamed from beside him. It was only then that Kain realized her knife was pressed to his own neck. When he rolled his head to the side, he saw that the point of her katana was at John Alec’s heart. Even when kissing Kain, she’d still managed two kills. She’d taken all of them out.

“Holy. GOD.” That was Milla, panting from ten feet over.

“What spawned you?” Griff groaned from where he was still trying to untie the garrote from around his neck.

Ansel said nothing. He just crawled to where Ruby sat next to Matt and Inka and laid his head in her lap.

“That was pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Inka said.

“Yeah,” Matt agreed. “She made you guys look like extras in Kill Bill.”

“Just once,” John Alec growled, frowning at yet another dart in his arm that he hadn’t even seen. “Just once I’d like to see you humbled, little sister.”

Valentina and Kain rolled up to sitting. “You’re out of practice, John Alec. Perhaps living on Earth is turning you into an Earthling? You certainly fight like one.”

“Hey!” Milla bristled at the insult.

But then John Alec was laughing and hauling his sister to her feet, dragging her into his chest. “That was fun,” he said, clapping her hard on the shoulder.

“Very,” she agreed. “You almost had me when you tore the garden shears apart and used them as two.”

“Yeah. You owe me some garden shears, Alec,” Ruby called.

The group headed back for the house, everyone limping except for Valentina and the bystanders.

They agreed, unanimously, that it was Valentina’s turn to make dinner for everyone.

 

***

 

Several hours later, Valentina and Kain drove back to Kain’s house. He held her hand across the console and stared quietly into the night while he drove. Valentina’s blood still thrummed from the battle that afternoon. It had felt so good to fight. So good to do what she’d been trained to do.

Fighting on Earth was just as satisfying on Herta, she noted. But it wasn’t simply happiness she felt. She kept sneaking looks at Kain who’d looked sadder and sadder all evening.

“Your thoughts are loud, bear.”

He turned and looked at her.

“But I can’t hear what they’re saying,” she finished.

He lifted her fingers to his mouth and sighed. “I’m just thinking about this afternoon, seeing you fight like that.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“Are you kidding? That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen someone do. The way you fight, it’s–it’s superhuman. I’ll never forget it.”

“But…”

“But it made me realize that John Alec was right. Something must have been very wrong if three hunters were able to wound you so badly.” He glanced at her. “If they were able to sneak up on you. Get a hit in. Not once but twice? And you were so thin, so serious and sad. For a long time, I just thought that was who you were. But now? Now I’ve seen you happy. Healthy and smiling at Carmen. You’ve fallen asleep in my arms. You laugh with my brothers. And you fight like it was a gift from God. And it makes me realize how off you were. And that worries me.”

If he had been Williams, she would have evaded. Maybe even lied. But it was Kain sitting there in the driver’s seat. With his silvery scar and straight nose. His hat tipped low on his brow, one hand on the steering wheel. And he saw her. He really saw her. He was telling her that he’d seen her sadness. The sadness that had almost killed her. The sadness that she hadn’t felt since she’d come to Earth. She couldn’t hide the truth from him. She didn’t even want to. She hadn’t realized that she’d been waiting for someone to ask. For someone to know her well enough to just ask.

“I guess it started about two years ago.”

“What did?”

“This deep thing inside me. That told me I was alone.” She watched the darkened landscape passing by. She loved the speed of a car. She’d miss it badly. “I was very sad when John Alec left Herta for Earth four years ago. But I understood. He had a wife. And an opportunity to get free of our lifestyle. It’s a lonely lifestyle. And I didn’t blame him for wanting warmth and love.” She turned back to Kain. “And then two years ago, something changed. I was so lonely I stopped eating very much. I cared about so little. I started making mistakes here and there during rescues. Very little mistakes that never ended up mattering, but I knew they were there. And that made me even more down.”

“Two years ago?” he asked, tightening his grip on her hand while they drove. “That’s when we started the caravan. When John Alec started returning regularly. And you met all of us. It seems like your life would have gotten less lonely at that point. Do you think what changed was that you don’t like working on the caravan with us? All the fighting? The hiding? The portals? You don’t like fighting for the shifters in that particular way?”

“No!” There had been no judgment at all in his tone, but she was mortified that he’d think that. “That is the greatest honor of my life. It completes me in a way I’d only hoped for in the past.”

His words filtered down to her and a thought was born in her mind. Two years ago was when she’d met the Ketos, when the caravan had started. But more importantly, two years ago was when she’d met Kain. She’d met silly, handsome Kain. With his lazy hands and jokes aplenty. She’d been annoyed with him instantly. But she could recognize now that she’d also been drawn to him. But she’d had Williams. And she’d only seen Kain maybe every four weeks for just a few days. And even if he’d been flirty and funny, the gulf between them had been so deep, one shore on each of two worlds, that there’d been no dreaming about him even. There’d been no point in fostering a feeling. It hadn’t been love at first sight. But maybe it had been longing at first sight.

“Then I wonder what it was. Maybe you have depression? I hope that’s not harsh to wonder that. But we could go see a doctor or a therapist. I just never want you to feel that way again if we can help it.”

“That’s not it,” she whispered, staring at him with something like horror. Her realization was racing through her bloodstream, making her palms tingle.

He glanced at her, at her claw-like grip on his hand. “Are you alright? Val? Val!”

He pulled the car over quickly when her face went white. She was out of the car like a shot. The road leading up to Kain’s house was dark and secluded. It was public, but he was almost always the only car on it.

He jumped out and skirted the car, coming to stand in her space. His arms went around her because that’s just what his arms did whenever he was within reaching distance of this woman.

“Valentina,” he said into her hair. “What is it?”

“It’s you,” she spoke into his chest, her words muffled by his T-shirt.

“What?” Was she saying that she was hurting because of him? The thought made panic tighten in his throat. He tipped her chin up with one hand. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that it was you that made me feel that way two years ago. You started all of this!” She stamped one foot and pushed him slightly away from her.

“How did I do that?” he asked, holding himself perfectly still, his eyes following her every movement.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” she demanded.

“I— yeah. We were further up in the mountains. We rescued a deer shifter and goat shifter.”

“No, do you remember the first time you and I met? The moment? The exact moment?”

His eyes searched hers. “Sure. You didn’t say anything to me. Not even a hello. Alec said, ‘This is Kain, my brother-in-law. And this is my sister, Valentina.’ And you just stared at me. Like I was an idiot. And then you walked away. And Alec said, ‘She’s as gentle as a spring rose once you get to know her.’ And we’d laughed.”

She nodded. She remembered all that as well. “Do you know why I stared at you like that?”

He shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. She was calming down outwardly, but he had the feeling that the storm wasn’t over. “Because of your smile. None of the other shifters ever smiled. Herta is so painful. But there you were, hands in your pockets and an easy grin on your face. You played cards with Alec that night. Made him laugh. He was always chatting with you and you were always joking or playing or whistling or singing. Or spitting pistachio shells.”

“Wait. Slow down, Val. I’m confused. Are you saying that you felt like I took Alec away from you because I had his attention on those trips? That’s why you were so sad?”

“No. I’m saying that I wanted your attention on those trips.”

“Oh.” He blinked as the realization dawned on him. “Ohhhhhhhh.”

He took a step forward and she took a step back, a little frown on her face. “What is that dumb smile on your face for?”

“I’m relieved.” The dumb smile went even wider.

“Why?” Another step back for her and another one forward for him.

“Because I thought I’d done something bad to you by accident. But turns out you just had a crush on me.” His arms went around her and she batted him away.

“That’s not what I was saying.”

“Oh, really? Because it sounds like you are saying you were sad because you wanted me. But we weren’t together yet.”

“I was sad,” she said fiercely, almost viciously. “Because there wasn’t any light in my life and you’re practically made of light.”

He immediately sobered. A flash of her lying on the ground, covered in blood, slammed into him. She’d been so alone in Herta. So alone she could have bled out on the forest floor. They probably never would have found her. So alone that she’d longed for a sweet word, a smile, a joke. She’d longed for love and it had made her waste away.

There was a volcano in his heart and it was about to erupt. He couldn’t stop it. He took two steps away from her. And then another two. He was eight feet away when he turned back. What he saw broke him even further. She was staring at him, wearing his hoodie, her braid over one shoulder, and her eyes so big and fierce and fragile all at once.

He couldn’t think. He could only erupt. Love was in his heart like fire. Like lava. And then it was all up in his chest, in his throat. His tongue burned. He opened his mouth. He couldn’t keep it in. He couldn’t swallow something this hot back down.

“Don’t go back.”

He heard himself say the words and almost didn’t recognize his own voice.

She pulled back as if he’d slapped her.

“What?”

Part of him screamed at himself to take it back, Kain, you selfish bastard. But he didn’t. He took a step forward and said it again. “Don’t go back.”

“To Herta?” She was looking at him like he’d just spoken Greek. Like she couldn’t believe what he was saying. Hell. He couldn’t believe it, either.

“Yes. Don’t go back to Herta.”

She was like a rag doll when he picked her up and put her in the car, put her seatbelt on. She stared at the side of his face as he clicked the belt.

“Let’s go home.” His head was buzzing. “We’ll talk about it there. Let’s just get home.”

His legs were like rubber as he walked around the hood of the car and slid into the driver’s seat. He’d know what to say when he got home. Everything would make more sense and then he’d be able to better explain—“Don’t go back.”

Damn it, he’d just plowed through it again.

His hands gripped the steering wheel and he didn’t turn the car on. He just stared at her through the blue-black light of the car.

She stared back, completely still, until he heard her seatbelt click. And then they were reaching for one another. Tugging at each other’s clothes as he dragged her onto his lap. He had her shirt up and her breast in his mouth as she fought one leg out of her pants, tangled but free. Next were his pants which they just shoved down enough to get them out of the way.

She bit his neck, hard, as she sat down on him, trying to take him in. He lathed her nipple and reached for her clit when she couldn’t take him quite yet. But she pulled his hand away from her and yanked his head back to get access to his mouth. They kissed fiercely, their tongues sparring, their head pushing into the other’s space. He tried for her clit again, but she held his hands aside, merely worked herself down onto him.

Her body was readying itself, getting wet and softening for him and she pushed down an inch and then another. She felt a little sting from the forceful intrusion of his size and she relished it. She worked herself onto him taking another two inches so fast he threw his head back and groaned, eyeing her wildly. He planted his hands on her hips and worked her in circles and together, they jammed her down so that he was seated fully inside her.

“Yes,” she whispered into his mouth and for a wild second, he wasn’t sure what exactly she was saying yes to. He clamped his arms around her and held her hips a few inches above him, fucking her from below. The car rocked from his intense movements and the windows began to steam.

He shouldn’t say it during sex. He knew he shouldn’t. He tried to swallow it down, the words. But then she let her head rock back and he felt the end of her braid tickle his knee and his love for her wasn’t something that left him any choice. This wasn’t a game. There weren’t rules. “Don’t go back,” he whispered fiercely and forced her down on him hard.

Her thighs trembled and he felt her squeeze around him, a surefire sign that she was close. She picked up her head and dropped her forehead to his.

“Tell me to stop,” he told her. “And I will. If you tell me, I won’t ask again.” Their gazes were locked and Kain felt like she could see right inside of him. She could see every embarrassing thing he’d ever done. All his mistakes. All his victories. She could see Kain Keto, everything he was and everything he wasn’t. This was what he was offering her in exchange for her homeland. He was giving her himself.

She saw it. Then, in that moment. What he was extending. He was offering her a life with him. Holding it out with those perfect, blunt hands. She couldn’t take it. She wasn’t sure her body would let her. But she didn’t tell him to stop either. And her silence was louder than a gunshot in the car.

He understood. Thrusting up and swiveling his hips, Kain forcefully checked his own need and concentrated on her. He tipped his hips and went from thrusting to grinding. He worked himself against that spot of hers that she loved so much. The one they’d found together.

“Don’t go, Val.” She tightened around him and her fingers tightened on his shoulders, threaded their way to his hair.

“Don’t go back.”

Her moans filled the car and he could feel her rhythmically squeezing him, still rising. He tightened his hands on her and suddenly pistoned his hips into her, giving her all the friction her body was screaming for.

“Stay,” he whispered in her ear and gave her everything her heart was screaming for. “Stay with me.”

Val’s world ended. Her life as she’d known it was over as that orgasm and his words destroyed her in equal measure. It was pleasure so arresting that her nervous system just gave up and surrendered. She wasn’t in control of her body. Of her hands or her noises or her face. She just gave her entire self over to Kain and let him take her to exactly where she wanted to be.               When the ecstasy waned, and her lungs were reintroduced to their good friend air, Valentina collapsed forward. She buried her mouth in the sweaty hot skin of his neck and felt him softening inside of her. She realized he must have come as well. His hands traced her back.

“Shit,” he murmured when she started to move off of him. “So messy. I should have waited until we got home. I’m sorry, baby.”

She didn’t want him apologizing to her. Not about this. Something that had been so perfect.

She didn’t say anything, though. Not until they were all the way back home and she’d dragged him into the dim kitchen. She nudged him forward until he was sitting on the counter and he gave her a quizzical expression but didn’t say anything about it. She rooted around in the fridge. “Cold lemon chicken noodles or cold pizza?”

“Both.”

She grinned at him and then smiled more when she saw that his pants were still undone from their loving. Actually his whole self looked undone from their loving. His hair was messy and his eyes were the least calm she’d ever seen them. His fingers tapped out a rhythm on his knee as she brought the food over and inserted herself between his legs.

She fed him the way he had before with the ravioli. Two bites Kain, one bite Val. They didn’t speak as they worked through the food. Valentina put their dishes in the sink, washed her hands and filled up a glass of water. She downed half of it and handed the rest to Kain.

Holding out her hand, she led him from the kitchen toward the bedroom.

“Val.” He tugged her hand backwards.

“Okay,” she said, before she’d already turned toward him.

“What?”

“I’m saying okay.”

His eyes searched hers, his pupils whisking back and forth like birds in the sky.

“You said ‘don’t go back’.” She cleared her throat. “And I’m saying okay. For now.”

“Okay,” he replied, his voice hoarse.

“Okay.”
Kain picked her up immediately, rushing toward the bedroom door and slamming it closed behind them. They didn’t speak another word that night. They didn’t have to.