Ayn's Healing

Chapter 38 - Kari

On a foggy fall morning, I get a call from Aidan. Aidan was Simon's son. He is eighteen and had just taken over his father's pack. Henry, his neighbour from the East, had trouble at his border. He had several rogue attacks in the last weeks and his scouts had actually found out that the throw-together of renegades had occupied an abandoned farm house, and had even formed some sort of pack. He asked for Aidan's help to end this, because the last attack had been extremely vicious and he had almost lost his Beta. Aidan called to ask if I could join them with some of our males.

I have little motivation to go on a raid, but I accept. I think it's a good opportunity to show my good will and secure further our alliance with the young Alpha.

For once, it is actually an advantage that - despite our diligent attempts, and her furious experimentation with fertility potions that would override her tree - Ayn is not yet pregnant. I plan to take her with us so that she can heal our warriors quickly, and hopefully make this a short affair. She is not in our quarters but I know where to look for her.

The cabin we used for a while as our private love den has slowly become a lab, a nursery for orphan forest creatures and, in general, a cave for all her witch needs. She even pimped up the bed with some of her favourite pillows after one memorable night when I told her that I couldn't sleep another minute next to a very small, yet very feisty, baby lynx who needed to be fed every two hours.

The baby lynx - which she initially named Zane, but I called him Zero and it had somehow stuck - has grown and, when he is not roaming the forest and trying to start trouble with my lambdas, he is lying on my mate's porch like a ridiculously oversized cat.

He is also here today, blocking the door, so I tell him to scootch over. He moves at the slowest and most defiant of paces, and I am thinking that I should maybe grant Storm the burning wish he has, to tear off Zero's throat and I could get Ayn a regular cat.

Inside it smells like lime flowers and sage and chocolate, some flasks are boiling on her desk and she is sitting cross legged on her chair, writing down her observations. I hug her shoulders and whisper in her ear.

"Have any plans for tonight, love?"

"I think I do now." she smiles and offers me her lips which I am happy to kiss for a while.

"Indeed, we'll go with Aidan to clean a house of rogues down East."

"Good luck" she tells me coldly, pulling away from me, and goes back to her scribbling.

"You are coming with us."

"Nope. I am not going to heal your warriors so they are fit enough to kill children" she continues to write in her handbook.

Rage suddenly burns through me like a wildfire. This is not training for her own good, this is a raid for the benefit of the pack, and it doesn't warrant any begging and cajoling from my side. Storm surfaces with a temperature matching mine. We are pack leaders, this is a no we cannot accept. I turn her chair towards me and I bend over so that she can look me in the eyes, while I press my fingers on her right shoulder that carries my mark.

"You are the pack witch, and I am your Alpha. This is not an invitation, it's an order. We leave at sunset."

After slamming the door for good measure, because her shrinking in her chair under my voice was not enough, I went for a run. I never had to order Ayn to do anything, except in bed, but there she also ordered me plenty.

Her being difficult about this raid was making me extremely furious because I didn't understand her reasons. I knew she wasn't bothered by killing per se. This was the woman who had planted the most deadly poisons in her garden, beyond the three that were in her Star of Five. She had lectured me with shiny eyes what symptoms each of them induced - from projectile vomiting to bloody diarrhoea and multi organ failure - and she had also explained to me with a satisfied smile, how she had managed to concentrate each of them to their very essence for faster acting and easy transport.