Stallion Mage: A Horse Shifter Mpreg Romance (COMPLETE)

Leader's Blindness

As Alvarr finished bathing, hoofbeats sounded far too close. His heart gave a terrified jolt. He should have stayed in his four-legged form, where his senses were sharper. He crouched down and tried not to make any sound. In four-legged form, even the Elders could hear grass grow.

"Our friend has to be in here somewhere. Look at all the green." The deep voice of Thane, a black stallion, scared Alvarr the most. Thane never teased or jeered like the others. Instead, a cold purpose always infused his tone. One of the Elders had said that Thane had wanted to become lead stallion before Laren took the herd.

"But I can't smell him." That was Barron, Thane's half-grown whiny sidekick. Alvarr had known Barron since they were foals, and they both crossed over to the stallion tribe at the same time. But Barron had never been pleasant, and time had not improved him.

"Then stop eating romeya. You stink of flowers."

Alvarr clenched his hands into fists. Not even those three deserved the effects of romeya. The drug was a terrible plague. Its small red flowers gave the tribe members energy, but stole vitality with each mouthful. Does Laren know?

"Come out, little mage. We only want to talk to you." Nassor was the brute of the bunch, with impossibly wide shoulders and a hoarse, grunting voice. The rumor was that he had sired more foals than any other stallion last year. If that was the case, Alvarr hoped they were all mares, so he wouldn't eventually have to live with them.

They jeered, encouraging each other. While they were distracted, Alvarr stepped out of the pond, and silently shifted to four legs. He started walking away from them. Erase me, he willed.

The earth shifted, smoothing out his tracks. More vines and briars grew behind him, barring the way with plants dripping with unfriendly sap and thorns.

He traveled miles outside the herd's territory to a set of small hills. He had crossed them when he left the mares and joined the stallions. Now, he stood on top of them and looked at the wide expanse of empty grassland. Somewhere in there was the nomadic mares' tribe, and with them, the Mare-Mother Quirina. It has been a year, Mother, he thought, wondering if she could somehow hear him. And I am friendless and feared.

He watched the waving grass over the plains and thought of nothing until he saw a small shape plummet toward the ground.  What was that? 

It was a little beyond his instinctive territory in the no-man's-land between the stallions and mares, but Alvarr shook off the discomfort and cantered toward the place he thought something had fallen. 

It was probably just a hawk hunting, he told himself, but it hadn't been the graceful dive of a bird of prey.  As he slipped into the wild grass, his lips curled at the smell, a flowery, rotten sweetness. 

Romeya.  Stamping his front foot, Alvarr sent his power arrowing out until he found the destructive plant.  By Nature, there's so much of it!

He sensed the weed growing in thick clumps among the grasses, and slowly touched his power to its roots, withering it into dust.  He was so intent on his work that he stumbled on a rock.

No, not a rock.  A large black bird.  That was what had fallen right out of the sky.  With horror, the mage realized that this one had been long dead, which meant that there was more than one bird death.

The reek of death and decay covered this bird.  Alvarr searched the field until he found the freshly-fallen one.  It was a brown speckled bird of prey, and he bent his head to sniff it. 

The sweetness washed over him.  Romeya.  The birds were eating the cursed weed and dropping out of the air.  Mare-Mother, what can I do?