Stallion Mage: A Horse Shifter Mpreg Romance (COMPLETE)

The Road Ahead (3/3)

As they cantered toward camp, rain broke overhead, drenching them from ear to hoof. It was nice to be dry for a bit, Alvarr thought. As if in response, Laren snorted, a puff of white breath coming from his nostrils in the cold, wet air.

"We are responsible for the rain," the mage said. Though his mother had placed no blame, Alvarr had far too much experience with the stallions to believe that the mares would follow their leader's example.

But Laren flicked his ears. "In the same way that winter is responsible for the cold, and the sun is responsible for heat," he said. "We cannot be blamed, not when we were guided by the hand of Nature."

He sounds like an Elder. But that's why we need Elders. They are wise in ways the rest of the tribe is not. Alvarr slowed to a walk, and his mate followed suit.

"What is it, Alvarr?" Laren asked. "Are you tired?" he added with a teasing glance. "You did work hard."

The mage huffed, torn between happiness at having satisfied his mate, and unease. "What you say makes sense to us. My mother and brother understand. But frightened people..." His throat became tight as he remembered. So many times, he had become the target of the stallions' scorn and fear. "Frightened and angry people don't think sense. They blame the very thing they're afraid of for their fear and anger." He swallowed around the quaver in his voice, hoping he would stay steady. "They think, 'I want this to stop, so I'll run down the thing that causes this.'"

Laren stopped them and shifted to two-legs.

When Alvarr also shifted, Laren put his arms around his mate and pulled the mage close to his warm, comforting body. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "For all that happened to you in the stallion tribe. For all that I could have stopped, but was too blind to see."

Alvarr nodded, leaning his forehead on his mate's shoulder. The rain, which had grown heavier as they had gotten closer to their foal, streamed over them. Alvarr's long hair soon ran with water, but he did not mind. The memory of the stallions' long dry season was still with him.

The mage pulled away and looked into his mate's serious eyes. "However I feel about it, the stallions must join us," he said. "They will die without us, won't they? They will all starve."

Laren's brow creased down the middle. "I, too, feel called to help them. Though the bond of leadership is probably broken, they are still tribe-brothers. They are sires, sons, and brothers of the mares' tribe. I can't abandon them."

Alvarr tossed his wet hair back. "And neither can I, as an earth mage. I cannot let a person die if I can stop it."

"Mare-Mother Quirina knows this, of course," Laren said. He shifted back to four-legs and shook his wet coat. "I did not feel as though it was my place to speak to the mare tribe, but perhaps I need to do all I can."

Alvarr shifted as well, and they started cantering toward the camp again. They saw the dark gray shapes of tents and equines on the horizon. It was not home, not to him, and he didn't think it was home to Laren as well. Though he had ties with the mares' tribe, he did not have any ties to the land. Was it because he was a stallion, and always looking for a dwelling? The Elders might know.

Laren had started to speed toward the tribe, eager to check on Fara again, but Alvarr noticed a small blur that had strayed from the central camp area. "Laren," he shouted, and came to a stop, straining his eyes. "Do you see..."

"It's a child," Laren said. "A little far from camp, don't you think?"

Together, they walked toward the blur and found that it was a child, the first they had seen in two-legged form since coming to the mares' tribe. The child, a girl, did not run away, but was instead focused on something on the ground.