After their pledging, Wick and Lora went back to McKell house with his parents to have a quiet dinner with them to celebrate. Lora thanked Alana for the loan of the dress and said, “Perhaps one day you will have a granddaughter to wear this dress on her pledging day.”
It was precisely the right thing to say because Alana got teary and hugged her. “That would be wonderful.”
“We lost a son, but gained a daughter,” Gregor said and gave her a hug as well, then he turned and hugged his son. “This may be better revenge than killing Vargan.”
Wick didn’t say anything patting his father on the back as they hugged. He didn’t know when, but he was pretty sure, Vargan would come for him when he learned Wick had stolen his woman. That was mainly why he did it---in the beginning.
But the first time he fucked her, he knew he wanted Lora to be his---not for revenge. Because the first time he put his cock in her, it felt like home, his comfort, and his passion. With her, he felt he belonged, and he felt loved. Even from the beginning, Lora held nothing back. All he had done was give her pleasure, and she gave so much more back.
As they rode out of Blue Summit the next day with a pack horse from his father’s stable, Wick thought of all the things he would teach Lora in the coming days. He thought the best way to keep her safe was to teach her to defend herself and to survive in the wilderness. Aside from Blue Summit, and the surrounding farms and ranches, the rest of the mountain territory was wilderness.
In two hundred years their population had grown, but not as fast as it would have if the subsequent settlers had arrived on schedule. With most of the technology of their forefathers gone, they couldn’t be sure they had even landed on the right planet. None of that really mattered anymore. They had made their life here, and their community had grown.
Wick had started his ranch with the gift of a few cattle, and a bull from his family’s stock descended from genetically engineered embryos Grant McKell had brought with them to start the colony on a world they called Demus. His people would not learn until three hundred years later that the world they found was actually Oltarin.
The plan for the colony was a simpler life of farming and ranching, raising cattle for meat and beautiful genetically enhanced horses for pleasure and labor. What they didn’t plan for was treachery and sabotage by Victor Rode, Vargan’s ancestor---and an ongoing feud that had already spanned two hundred years.
In the twenty-eight years since Wick was born, Gregor McKell had led the mountain clans in a peaceful co-existence with the lake clans, by merely avoiding contact. It was a ten to twelve-day ride to Diamond Bay, and there was no reason to go there when they had everything they needed in their mountains. Only the hope of reaching the star seekers sent his son to the desert shuttle to send the signal into space.
And Vargan killed him for no other reason than he was a McKell. Wick had said he would go the next year, even before he’d sought Vargan for revenge. But Gregory would not let him go. Wick was the only McKell left to carry on the line. He couldn’t dissuade Wick from going after Vargan. Instead, Wick stole his woman, who would bring genetic diversity to their line.
Wick was not wealthy, but his ranch was profitable and provided him and his hands, with most everything they needed. His house was large, but unlike McKell house, it was all on one level, built from logs of Stonewood trees which hardened to a stone-like density as they dried. A little way from his house where a cluster of ten smaller houses belonging to his ranch hands and partners.
All except the youngest had families or wives. Those without families or wives lived in the bunkhouse closer to the main barns. While Wick owned the controlling share of the ranch, each of the men and women who worked it with him owned a piece of it. She didn’t know it yet, but Lora would get her share when she gave him their first child. He would feel more confident she would stay when they had a child between them.
Finally, they came onto the rise above the ranch and Wick signaled Arracon to stop. “This is it,” Wick told her. “This is home, and the big house in the middle is where we will live.”
“Oh, Wick, it’s beautiful!” she murmured. “I never expected anything like that. I would have been happy to share one of those smaller cabins with you.”
“Nope, the big one is ours. We’ll have plenty of room for children,” he murmured close to her ear.
“A good thing, a much as we like to fuck, we’ll probably be making one soon…” she laughed softly.
“Or two,” he said. “Twins run in my family.”
“Now you tell me,” she laughed again, and he liked the sound.
“I’m sure the other women would help. Frank’s, wife is good at midwifing. She has helped deliver most of the babies born here---ten so far.”
“That many people live here?” she asked.
“Yes, and I think you will we welcome by all of them.”
“Even though I am from the lake clans?” she sounded a bit apprehensive.
“Even so my sweet,” he assured her. “Some of them have a parent from the lake clans. I’ve always been told its good to have genetic diversity.”
“I read that in the copy of the Schafer-McKell journal we had. I cried when I read Grant’s grief after Victor killed Wynne,” she said. “Victor deserved to die for it. I think Vargan is a lot like him. I never wanted to be with him.”
“And you won’t. He will have to kill me first,” Wick vowed. “And I sure won’t make it easy for him.”
Lora shuddered against him, and he let go of the reins and put both arms around her, hugging her tightly. He could hardly wait to get her alone in that big bed he had built to share with whomever he chose for his life mate.
But first, they would have to go through introductions and settling in.