WHO SHE CHOSE

Elaris's POV

The horses vanish out of sight.

Their footsteps dissolve into the common creak of the wood and the distant stir of wind beyond the house walls.

Averic still stands near the doorframe.

I settle next to the cot and let my bones relax after the confrontation.

The small hands shift under my palm.

One more motion.

I exhale when I look down.

'You felt that as well?'

The man's gaze follows mine and pauses there.

This isn't a question for him.

This is a reassurance that I need to say to myself, that there is still something growing in me that has little to do with the wants of her Caedmon.

We sit in silence for several long beats as if the decision just made has yet to sink into either of our bones.

She has come back to the house, but the cost has yet to be paid.

Neryss comes away from the small window after casting a single look in either direction of the road.

'Nothing.'

The woman lowers the shutter and works the latch a few times before choosing, apparently, that pretending that the house is filled with normal business is preferable to listening to two stubborn wolves argue.

She begins to stack and reorganize the various supplies on the opposite table.

I almost laugh.

So close.

The movement in the room has reawakened the ghosts of habits once there.

The kettle has been shifted.

The firewood placed a little closer to the hearth.

The medicine lines up neater in a wooden box.

The illusion of domesticity reasserts itself.

I cast a glance at Averic as he still stands, waiting.

'You can sit.'

His eyes meet mine.

'I thought you'd rather I didn't.'

'You didn't say that.'

'No. I didn't.'

He takes the response and moves on, because the truth is firmly planted, and there isn't much else he can do about it.

I realize suddenly that this is the pattern between us.

For now, the truth is enough.

I break the silence. "Caedmon will use this."

Averic's gaze moves away from me.

'The council?'

'Not what they need him to be.'

I shift slightly on the cushion. 'He will take what he can from what they allow him.

If they want a shifter with no allegiance, he will offer his wolf.

If they need a man with an understanding of the old laws, he will remind them that his blood has rights.

If they search for someone safe and predictable to lead them to safety, he will ensure he is the most attractive option.'

Aveiric listens.

"He always knew how to thrive in corners other men have no concern with invading."

I can hear the weight of the unspoken words, the way the memory of Caedmon rebuilding his body after his sickness makes me remember everyone who assumed his survival was reward for the sacrifices they made, the way no one ever stopped to consider whose life should have been sacrificed to save him.

Now Caedmon has decided this house is a corner of interest.

Averic finally moves away from the doorway and takes a seat across from me.

I know it is expected, but I feel like I am missing pieces somewhere.

"When did you know?"

"Since the council asked him if he wanted to stay."

He presses his forearms against his thighs. "They didn't keep him because they wanted his advice on patrols."

"Because they know what they were doing when they named the previous alpha."

Aberic nods."The council realizes they have to get to know him first before anyone else will let them control the picture of who he is."

I follow his words. "Once his wolf is gone, there is always a hole."

"Caedmon has always been good at filling those."

"He has."

Aberic exhales, but there is no sting in that single, simple statement.

Doesn't hurt almost as much than it almost should.

' You're not angry.'

'Yes, I am.'

he says.

But his gaze moves slowly to the closed doorway.

'Anger won't bring back my wolf.'

Aberic is the first to admit that we are on the opposite sides of a situation.

We might both believe different things, but we both see the way things are.

If Caedmon survives this next battle, he gains both the postition Aberic lost, and the child.

If Aberic has his way, the alpha will have nothing left by the time he reaches the top.

And if Caedmon wins, he has suffered enough grief already, that nothing can keep him from taking what he believes he deserves.

All in all, I say almost dryly, I think it is ironic.

Aberic pauses beside me.

"What is ironic?"

I glance down at the floorboards.

"The fact that when it happened to you, you had no claim to anything but my life and the child's."

He says nothing to that.

Now the man who once kicked me out of his house after I sacrificed what I needed to live to save him.

His eyes go back to me.

' And now the man whose child my own body nearly swallowed, may take what you have given away.'

"Perhaps."

But that is not a fate I accept.

I look at Aberic.

Something about the man is not the same as it was.

The shift in him is not outward or obvious.

He is still composed and focused, always watching every entrance, listening to every sound beyond the walls, but there is no wolf waiting just beneath the surface.

He did this to himself, and he did it with surprising restraint.

A memory rises automatically from the back of my mind: the night Abirc came to the house after I had refused to let him inside.

He could have forced an argument into my memory, could have reminded me how I would have been a more profitable queen in her own right as the child's mother.

Instead he accepted it and emptied himself of his wolf, of his claim on his home, took the council's punishment and waited.

He does not need me to forgive him for staying, or to replace what was inside him with what I offer him.

He simply does not have it in him to waste any more of the time he has left fighting about something he can no longer control.

It's quite frankly disgusting.

I look away from his gaze. "You don't deserve to have to fight this alone."

I know I should have stopped myself, because Aberic's mouth is open, about to refute me, but then he stops and simply listens.

"You've given so much already."

The words are mine, not his, but there is something in what I'm saying that isn't quite true.

Not the amount of my life.

The choice.

Aberic watches me.

Nothing in this man has changed, really.

He carries himself the same way he always has, despite everything that should have made him stop.

He still stands as if he has an army at his back, watching every corner of the room as if the walls themselves might take what he has lost.

But there is a strange peace inside him, one I could not have guessed at if I'd stopped to think about it.

It wasn't what I expected, I admit.

I expected a demand.

I expected to hear the words because Aberic thought of me as the means to an end that he was wasting time on instead of finding somewhere else.

Instead he says, quietly," I don't think you should have to fight Caedmon all alone, after everything he did."

Not because, suddenly, it's not nearly enough in his eyes for me to give him what he wants.

Nor does he think he deserves it.

Only that in fighting the man I chose, he has already lost everything he could possibly expect me to give him.

Aberic's voice is quiet now, not angry, but something close to it. "Not because I expect you to stay with me out of forgiveness."

"I know."

It doesn't mean he expects me to forget.

It doesn't mean he thinks he deserves it, even.

Only that now he has lost everything of value to him, and he is not leaving without the child.

The child shifts again in my arms.

I look at my stomach. "You've taken care of us better than I ever gave you credit for."

Aberic lowers his gaze.

"I shouldn't have waited until you needed protection before I provided it."

No, really I am not exaggerating this. It is hard to decide whether Aberic's disappointment in himself or in me is the worst of the two. But in either case, it doesn't change the reason I asked him to stay.

The walls I had put up around myself seemed safe enough, but they weren't, not really. They were built before the transfer, before the council demoted Caedmon and before he came to the gate.

I had thought distance would protect me, but distance cannot stop the appetitie of a Caedmon, it doesn't change the minds of the council, it won't protect my child from the choices they will make without my consent, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that Aberic has already gone too far to turn back.

The weight of these words presses down on me as I look at the man across from me.

Giving him the choice to stay is not giving up control.

Not yet.

But it could very well be starting to, if I give him this decision.

I straighten.

'Averic.'

His name is on my lips.

'You can stay in the house.'

His body goes absolutely still.

' Not as the Alpha.'

'Of course not.'

I exhale. 'Not as the man who thinks he can simply forgive me and pretend nothing happened.'

Aberic's gaze lingers on mine.

'Of course not.'

Of the many choices I made tonight, this is neither the worst nor the best of them.

I place my hand on my stomach.

'But you can stay at least as the father of my child.'

There is a long pause.

'And the husband.'

'The one who has given a hundred times more than I every asked of you.'

The words hang heavily in the air.

I add one last thing before sitting back against the cot.

'And you will not make the decisions from here, not without my permission.'

' I won't.'

'Not the ones that involve my child, anyway.'

'No.'

And, not to be sentimental or anything, but for once, that's a relief.

Averics nods slowly. " Thank you."

It's all very well meaning.

I'm tempted to tell him not to thank me yet.

Instead I leave it at that.

Distance will always remain between the two of us, but it's no longer a chasm that cannot be crossed.

Whether or not it ever will be is still uncertain.

Neryss clears her throat from the opposite side of the room.

"I assume you don't have to keep checking whether he is going to leave every ten minutes."

Aberic looks at the woman. "I wasn't aware you were checking"

"You where."

And no matter how serious this situation is, it almost made me laugh.

Neryss gives us both a meaningful look then turns back to sorting through the supplies.

The tension in the room lightens noticeably.

Averics is staying.

Not because he wanted it that way, but because I gave him the option.

Whatever else can be said about this situation, we are still far from equal footing.

Neryss grabs up another blanket and looks toward the small connecting room. "If he is staying, then the man needs another cot."

Aberic opens his mouth to protest.

Neryss holds up a hand.

"and a clear roster of shifts."

The woman turns to me.

"In addition, someone needs to think about what they'll do if the council names an interim Alpha."

Caedmon. I can already see his eyes on the prize of my child. Neryss continues. "Because he won't wait patiently at the gates while they decide what to do with him."

Aberic looks at me.

He hasn't had the position for much more than a few weeks, and already the title is slipping away from him.

His knowledge of the pack politics doesn't change with the loss of an animal spirit, Nor does his intimate knowledge of the people who decide pack matters.

As for me, I have been running from the pack long enough that I don't intend to let these strangers decide the next step for me, either. This decision tonight was not a difficult one to make, but tonight is only the beginning. The old future is coming fast, and this time we will have to get there first.