Chapter Fourteen
Asher checked the bindings on his sled. Somewhere between a stretcher and a cart, Asher had used the sled whenever he had a large load that needed carrying. He was glad he had decided to put the sled up rather than use it for firewood years ago.
He could drag more on the sled than he could carry and it also kept his hands mostly free. The wolves had never offered to haul the sled and Asher had never bothered asking. Though, it would have been handy. He could go fast enough and was reasonably certain that he would remember the path he used to make a couple of times a year down the mountain into Riverside. Going, loading up and returning back would take him less than a few days.
Right now, a few days sounded too long to be without his mate. He'd been seconds from suggesting Caleb come with him when Caleb had told him that he hadn't felt right. Almost like he thought he was coming down with something. Asher wasn't about to risk it.
The trip couldn't be delayed. Right now, the weather was still nice, but it was bound to turn rainy and soon after that it would freeze. It was much harder to pull a sled over mud than it was solid dirt and waiting for the freeze was too dangerous. They wouldn't make it through the winter on the supplies they had.
Technically they would, because Asher would do anything to protect and care for his mate, but that job would be loads easier if he had more supplies.
Asher approached Caleb quietly. His mate sat at the workbench outside. He'd moved the bench so that the sun's rays shone through the branches and onto his face, instead of getting blocked by the tarp. Asher enjoyed watching the young man do just about anything.
Asher had given him some leather strips, a large crochet hook and a small knife and he had gotten to work constructing a larger blanket out of the odds and ends of fur that wouldn't fetch them a price in Riverside. Caleb seemed content to sit and work doing anything as long as he was helping.
Asher grinned, watching Caleb curse quietly as he tried to work the leather strip through one hide and into another. He picked up the knife and tried making a new hole, slipping and nicking his finger. He brought it to his mouth as Asher rushed forward.
"Let me see it," Asher said as Caleb pivoted away at first. He gave up with a huff and presented his finger, it had already stopped bleeding.
"It's fine. This thing won't cooperate," Caleb muttered, going back to the task at hand. "What were you doing? I thought you were checking traps?"
He had and had caught a few rabbits. He'd already slaughtered them and would deal with cleaning them before he left. "I need to go into Riverside," Asher said.
Caleb set his tools down in his lap. "Awesome, when do we go?"
"I don't think you should come. You said you were feeling sick and there is no telling how many coyotes are still searching the mountainside. I want you to stay here with the wolves."
"What? No way! I want to see Riverside. I want to go with you." Caleb stood up, facing off with Asher, igniting Asher's need to establish dominance. He held back. "What if the coyotes come here?"
"The wolves will handle them."
"Then why don't we just have the wolves come with us?"
"Because they aren't my pets to command, you know this," Asher kept his responses gentle even while his mate's tone rose.
"I'm not even feeling sick anymore."
Except, Asher saw the sheen of sweat over Caleb's face. His body was warmer than normal. "I won't risk it, mate."
Caleb sat down in a huff. "I don't...I don't want to be away from you," he said quietly.
"That is the first reason I actually believe."
Caleb looked up at him hopefully.
"But I still won't risk it. You will be safer here with the wolves. They can defend a single cabin much easier than they can defend any single spot in the forest. You are hidden up here as well. More than you would be with me and my sled. Besides, I won't take very long. I'll even run the whole way for you. It will be a day and a half."
None of what he had said was enough to appease Caleb. Caleb grabbed his tools and began angrily stabbing away at the animal hide.
"Stop it, you are going to hurt yourself that way."
Caleb turned away. "Don't tell me what to do. When you are gone, I will do it however I want to." He sounded like a bratty child but instead of spanking him, as Asher wanted to do first, he walked around to the front of him, putting an arm on either side of his mate to cage him in and give him nowhere to turn. He ducked his head down since Caleb wouldn't look up at him and saw the first big tear drop fall on the fur in his lap.
"Caleb," Asher said lovingly. "I don't want to be without you either. Baby, don't cry. I will be back in thirty-six hours."
"I don't know why I am acting like this," Caleb said, brushing his tears fiercely.
Asher inhaled deeply, wondering if perhaps his little mate was pregnant. He smelled the same, though it was still likely the chemicals from their mating that were making his emotions run high. "We can spend the rest of the day and night together. I will leave right after you go to sleep. That way, I will arrive before you go to bed the next day."
Caleb nodded and sniffed. Asher stilled Caleb's hands, setting his tools down on the bench and pulling his mate into his arms. It was as if he could feel his sadness like it was his own and he needed to hold him and kiss him, anything to make the feeling go away. He carried Caleb out to the lake, to the shore that got the most sun and they laid in the soft grass in the sunlight, kissing and rubbing each other softly.
"I'm being ridiculous. It isn't like you are going to the moon," Caleb said, though he had not lifted his hand from Asher's body the entire time. "Basically, you are going to the grocery store."
Asher's memories of a real, large grocery store like the ones Caleb was most likely used to were fuzzy. It had been so long.
"Do you have friends in Riverside?" Caleb asked, drawing a lazy pattern on Asher's bicep.
"It has been at least two years since I last visited. Maybe three. When I went regularly I had…not really friends, acquaintances."
"Acquaintances? That sounds like a hook-up."
"Some were."
"What?"
"I lived up in the forest and visited civilization twice a year if I was lucky. What else do you think I went down for?"
Caleb tried to sit away from Asher but he held him close. "Let go of me. If you think I am going to let you go hook up with some back water, one toothed, hillbilly--"
Asher claimed Caleb's lips in a kiss that was as passionate as it demanded respect. "Careful. That is not nice, to yourself or the people of Riverside. I traveled to that town with needs, they fulfilled those needs. I don't have that particular need any more, my mate fulfills it quite well."
"If it takes you so much as thirty-seven hours--ouch!" Caleb yelped at the small swat Asher gave him on his bottom.
"Don't pretend like our bond is so low as to be threatened by infidelity. You are mine, Caleb. But I am yours as well."
Caleb's frown cleared. "Of course. Can I blame being new to all of this?"
"Yes," Asher said, smiling indulgently. He settled Caleb so that his back was nestled against Asher's chest. Together they looked out onto the lake.
"Tell me about the young you, little Asher. What was that kid like?"
"Scared."
Caleb tensed and Asher ran his palms over Caleb's arms.
"My pack was small, compared to other wolf packs in that time," Asher began speaking as if from a distance from himself. He didn't enjoy this story, had never told it out loud, but his mate deserved this knowledge. As long as he was holding on to Caleb, he could do it. "My mother was very active, the pack master's right hand. That was very uncommon in that day for shifters as much as it was for human women in the human workforce. She was, ambitious, my mother, and took her position in the pack very seriously. She raised me like a shifter soldier so that when I came of age, I could also be of use to the pack."
Caleb nuzzled back as if sensing Asher needed the contact. He held on, determined to say what he needed to say next.
"Something happened. Drugs, maybe? An offer they didn't want to refuse? I don't know. They started a new business venture, one that made them a lot of money very quickly. Child slavery. At first, they would kidnap kids in the area, using the children from our pack as lures. I always refused which got me several beatings from my mother. After the police presence was too hot, they started selling the kids off in our pack and then neighboring packs. Orphans, children of parents who were addicted to something enough to trade their child. I begged my mom to stop, for us to leave and let the police handle the pack. She beat me so badly I woke up in a hospital. She'd said that she would rather have no son than a son who would choose the police over his pack." Asher took a shuddering breath. "They weren't going to stop, Caleb. Calling the police would have just made them relocate."
"What did you do?"
"I was a shifter soldier," he said bitterly. "I crept in one night and killed every adult that had a hand in it. Every member of my pack."
"Your mother?" Caleb whispered.
Asher nodded. Caleb wouldn't be able to see it but he could feel it. "What kind of a mate would I be, what kind of a man would I be if I had let that continue to happen? I could have leftt, sure, but what about the innocent lives they stole after my escape?"
Caleb turned and pressed his lips against Asher's, kissing him at a near frantic pace. He continued, brushing his lips over every part of Asher that he could touch. "You did what you had to do. You saved so many lives."
"That night I walked away from my pack, from the only home I knew, and into the forest."