Stallion Mage: A Horse Shifter Mpreg Romance (COMPLETE)

A Distant Dream

Alvarr awoke to a dim gray light, and the sounds of hoofbeats splashing on the sodden ground. The floor of the tent was wet. He sat up. "Laren," he said, gently shaking his mate's shoulder. "We need to go to the gathering."

He roused Fara, who unfolded her too-long legs and blinked. "It would be wonderful if you could not rain," the mage told his daughter. "If only for one day. What do you say?"

Large, long-lashed brown eyes blinked back at him.

"You don't even know you're doing it." Alvarr sighed, then kissed the top of Fara's mage-stripe and held the flap open for his mate and daughter to exit. When they had gone, he stayed for a moment in the silence of the tent. The warm, humid air closed around him.

This is it. The mares were going to vote on having the stallions join the tribe. He glanced at the simple interior of the tent, the miraculous white cloth that the mares had preserved for generation upon generation. It was as though he were standing on one bank of a stream and was about to step over the water to the other, and on the other side lay a life that he could not truly imagine. A life that held many changes for them all.

"Alvarr?" Laren called softly.

"Yes, yes," Alvarr said, leaving the tent.

The younger children dashed off to play with one another, too young to understand what was happening. The mares and older children again assembled into that half-circle that served as their meeting area. Mare-Mother Quirina's heavy, purposeful hoofbeats sounded, and all their heads turned as the mare leader cantered to the middle.

"My faithful people," she began in a clear, confident voice. "As leader, I must do your will. It is my hope that you have had a chance to consider bringing stallions into our tribe, and the many changes it will bring."

Alvarr held his breath. Changes were usually a bad thing for stallions, a way to make them fearful and closed to any ideas. He did not know if it was the same for mares.

"Having stallions join us will make our tribe larger. Grass will be in shorter supply. But mates will live with mates, and foals and parents will not be separated when they come of age."

"And, the stallions' land is becoming unfit," Larea said with a toss of her mane. "We cannot send our sons there, anyway."

"This is true," the mare leader said with a grave dip of her head.

"But our young mares will be bothered out of season," an older blonde mare said. Her muzzle was white with age, and she walked toward the center on slow legs. "It's bad enough that the mares have to endure the attentions of some of them during the Time of Mating. But if they join us, they will press our mares any time they want."

Murmurs of unease swept the tribe. Alvarr could not argue; he knew only too well what some of those stallions were like. Heads turned toward Laren, and some of their eyes held a challenge.

Laren stepped forward. "As a stallion, I know that this is true," he said, his voice quiet but strong. "Though I have never been one of them, some of my tribe-brothers have acted against Nature on the Breeding Fields."

Alvarr shivered; he knew Laren spoke of Nassor and Thane.

"But if the tribes join," the large gray stallion said, "I will do my part to stop this behavior and bring those acting against Nature back into the right." He looked at the crowd. "They may still answer to me. I believe that any harm against a tribe-sister or tribe-brother harms us all. We are only as strong as each other."

"Well said, stallion leader," Mare-Mother Quirina said.

Sakol came forward to the speaking area with small, nervous steps. He cast a look around at the many mares turned toward him. "I am a colt," he said in his high, clear voice. "And when I come of age, I will be a stallion. I... I want to remain with the tribe, since the stallions' land is dying. I want to continue learning healing from my mother. And... I want a mate, and I want to see her more than once a year, and care for my foals just as Laren cares for Fara."