~ TARKYN ~
He told her everything. The beauty of the WildWood when you were a child. The way he'd sensed he could have his choice. The freedom he'd had.
And then, the way he was chosen by the former King. The way he grew through the ranks of guard, to shift leader, to fist leader, to Captain under arms, and then, finally, Captain of the Guard. How he'd always found his purpose in protection and strategy. The way he'd been so terrified early on of being a weak link against the former Queen, that he'd dedicated himself to his training even beyond the grueling hours of work.
How his entire life had been measured and directed by the hours of the sun and moon, by training and strengthening first himself, then others, and then ultimately… by war.
"In the year or two before the war, I'd turned my mind to finding a mate. I'd always thought it would just happen," he said quietly, picking at a scrub of grass peeking through the rocks next to his knee. He could feel Harth's gaze fixed on the side of his face, but he couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes in case he found disapproval there. "For a while I thought… I thought I had found her. But it soon became very clear she was created for someone else. And I think… I think that's when it suddenly hit me that… I might never find her. Might never find… you," he said softly.
Harth's breath caught. She shrugged the fur higher on her shoulder then tightened her hand on his thigh, but he rushed on. He wanted her to know. "But then we learned the humans were in Anima—or coming to Anima—and everything else fell aside. There was no time, no room to think about any of this. I had a job to do and people to protect and a Queen to guide and…"
He trembled remembering the weeks of discovery and planning when the humans were identified in Anima. He shook when he recounted the decisions he'd fought to determine, then the nights he'd spent being unable to sleep in case he'd made the wrong one.
Harth leaned against his side, holding his arm, stroking it, hugging it when a shudder rocked through him.
"It might have never happened, Harth. So many times I might have died… so many times I might have given in to the urge to take someone who wasn't a True Mate, just to have the companionship of any mate at all…"
He turned finally to meet her eyes—wide and shining in the moonlight.
Her brow furrowed, this was a part of his story that she didn't understand. Couldn't. And it grieved him, now, that he did. He wished he'd been as patient as her. He wished he'd been willing to wait until she appeared for any of it. All of it. He wished he knew nothing of mating or females.
Just sitting there with her, feeling her hold him, his heart was fuller than it had ever been in the arms of another female.
"I'm sorry, Harth," he said roughly, remembering how horrified she'd been when she'd learned he'd taken many females before. "I wish I'd known. I wish I'd understood. I wish…"
"Don't wish this away," she breathed.
He blinked. "I don't. It's the opposite of that. I wish I'd discovered nothing without you. I wish I hadn't lived until you were here." It sounded ridiculous, but it was pure truth.
But Harth shook her head and lifted one hand to cup his cheek, his stubble catching on her soft palm. "But don't you see, Tarkyn? You wouldn't be who you are if you hadn't lived this life. I wish I'd grown up here. I wish I'd lived like you lived as a child. But I didn't. But if you hadn't, you wouldn't be here. If you hadn't fought the enemy—our enemy—I wouldn't be here, right?"
Tarkyn's head jerked back. "What do you mean?"
Harth gestured down, towards the WildWood below them. "The woman, the human woman… Reeka?"
"Yes. Gar's mate."
"She said that the humans made us… made me… because they were defeated by you. Right?"
Tarkyn gaped at her as his spinning head took him back to that conversation. He hadn't thought it through when Rika said that Harth came from the future, that the humans must have developed the Chimera when they couldn't get their hands on the Anima…
Creator's fang… she was right.
She must have seen the truth click into place behind his eyes, because she smiled uncertainly. "It all happened… it all had to happen… otherwise we wouldn't be here," she said.
Tarkyn shook his head. "How did you see that so quickly?"
Her eyes dropped from his then and her smile faded. "I was thinking when you left the prison… when I was watching Zev and Sasha… I was angry. I was thinking… thinking that I wished they'd never come here." When he flinched her head shot up and she tightened her grip on his arm. "Not me! I didn't mean I wished I hadn't come… I just wished they hadn't had to go through that. Tarkyn, you have no idea the things he's been through—we all have. The humans… they're so cold. To them we were just resources. Cattle. We were something they did. They never really understood our feelings or how their actions affected us. I know in some ways Zev had it worse because he was different from the rest of us and… I just wished they hadn't been discovered, or hadn't come here, so he hadn't had to go through that because I know… I know it's going to affect him. And that will affect Sasha and…"
She took a deep breath, rubbing her hand up and down his arm as if she needed it to soothe herself. "I already couldn't stomach watching you hurt like that, and we haven't even completed the bond yet. I can't imagine what she's going through right now."
He stared at her, his chest aching. Her heart, her huge, soft heart was right there. He could feel it. He wanted to wrap himself around it and hold it close, keep anything ugly or dark from it, and yet… yet he knew, just looking at her—he knew from sensing her—that she already knew darkness of her own.
Putting one hand over hers on his arm, he held her gaze. "Tell me, Harth," he said. "Tell me what they did to you? What… what are you carrying?"
Her eyes widened and she shrunk away from him… yet she never stopped gripping his arm.