“Without clothes?” Olivia realized that she’d left her purse with the bullion lying by their bed. In her panic, she’d saved Forest Moss but not the money that would keep them both alive through the winter. “All our belongings are still in the house. We can’t just leave them.”
The Wyvern shook his head. “It is not safe for you to return to the house.”
Olivia growled out the one Elvish curse she knew, making his eyes go wide. “You destroyed the only place we had to live and now you’re going to steal everything we own? Leave us naked?”
He looked anyplace but her face as he considered her charge. In the end he slowly nodded. “We will do what we can to salvage your belongings. Keep him here. Keep him calm.”
They saved her purse with the bullion, the food from the fridge, Forest Moss’ clothes and her blue gingham sundress before the house groaned and collapsed in a sudden thunder of broken timbers.
The elf encampment lay beyond the enclaves, just across a stone bridge that was still under construction. A large clearing had been cut in the towering ironwoods, leaving only five massive oak trees standing. Elfshines drifted under the dark canopy, glowing bright enough for them to walk easily through the camp.
Prince True Flame of the Fire Clan was in one of the white silk tents that gleamed like a lantern from the outside. He was leaning over a table, studying maps, as the Wyverns escorted Olivia and Forest Moss in. He looked up and relief went across his face when he saw Forest Moss.
“Good, you found him,” he said to the Wyverns and turned his attention to the maps again.
“No, they terrorized him,” Olivia snapped.
“They were in a bed together,” the Wyvern reported. “They’d had intercourse…”
“I’m his domi.” Olivia tried not to shout the words.
“And she is not naekuna,” the Wyvern finished.
Forest Moss started to wail.
“Tell me what is wrong,” Olivia said. “Can’t you see that you’re torturing him? You’ve shut him up in silence with his grief and his guilt until you’ve driven him mad! He needs me.”
“It is against our laws for domana to have half-caste children. It’s for the protection of their entire clan. If you were fertile when he coupled with you…”
“I was already pregnant when we met.”
“She is perfect!” Forest Moss wailed. “Beautiful and fearless. I can drink deep and fill my thirst. Perfect! Perfect!”
Prince True Flame sighed and looked to the Wyvern beside him. “I do not want to start the clan war again over the idiocy that the Stone Clan is committing here. You are our moral compass, Red Knife. What say you on this?”
“She quiets his madness,” Red Knife murmured. “If she was with child prior to their union, then there has been no harm done. I say allow them to continue until she bears the child.”
“That will buy only a little time.”
“He has offered. She has accepted. There is no risk she will bear a half-caste child. Those are our laws. We cannot deny him what we’ve allowed Wolf Who Rules.”
“She is human,” Prince True Flame pointed out.
“We determined that humans were intelligent creatures with souls when we first found our way to Earth. For that reason alone, we have trusted them to enter into a treaty with our people. We cannot recognize that they are as we are—with souls and minds—and not treat them as equal—for to do so would judge them on their bodies alone. If we deny them equality, then we can’t claim that our souls and minds are proof that we are shaped by God. To diminish them is to diminish ourselves; one follows the other as day follows night.”
Prince True Flame nodded and sighed. “What is your name?”
“Olivia.”
“Olive Branch above Stone,” he translated her name to Elvish. “We need him sane and fighting. See that it happens.”
She grabbed Forest Moss by the wrist and dragged him from the annoying elf before she said something angry and got them both into trouble. The set of five Wyverns followed cautiously at the distance. Knowing that they were safe for now, she ignored them. She didn’t stop walking until they were back to Pittsburgh proper, comforting in its familiar human city streets.
“What are we going to do?” Forest Moss asked when she paused in the shadow of the Heinz Chapel.
No one had ever asked her that before. She’d always been told the shape of her life, ignoring what she wanted. She hadn’t come to Pittsburgh to escape sex, marriage, and having a baby. She hadn’t been running away from anything. She’d been running to the right to choose such things for herself.
Maybe some would scorn the shape of the life she was building, pointing out that Forest Moss was a tormented, scarred, one-eyed insane elf. But he gazed at her as if she was clever and good and wise and strong. He stood waiting patiently to hear what she thought. She leaned her forehead against his chest and marveled at how comforting it felt to be with someone who believed that his life was better if she had her own thoughts and desires.
“I need to find someplace to live,” she said.
“Together?” he said with such fear that she realized that, unlike “wife,” the term “domi” didn’t come with the expectation that she had to live with her mate.
“Yes,” she hugged him tightly, wanting to heal him. Wanting to be as strong and powerful as he believed her to be. As she always could have been, if just given the chance to be herself. “Together.”