Wild Watchtower: Shield & Claw Book One

Chapter Nine: A Claim

Mother welcomed Aoibhinn into our home as if she were any other visiting lady; that she’d claimed no land or title didn't seem to matter at all. In fact, my mother smiled more warmly at the strange female, who still had fire in her eyes and defiance in her expression, than she ever had with the distant cousins who’d occasionally come to stay with us. After all, those distant cousins arrived under a pretence of kinship, manufactured to maintain friendships in the hope of one day making an advantageous match, binding a son or daughter to one of my father's offspring. We all understood the game, even though we didn’t always like it. But unlike with those lords and ladies, Mother led Aoibhinn to the hall as if she belonged, and guided her to sit between Fiáin and Éiri.

The position was one of privilege, but it still drew drew a growl from my throat. Not because I disagreed with it, but because I didn't want the female sat so close to Éiri. I snapped at my brother, even in my human form, a warning that he'd best heed if he had any sense.

“Cróga!” Mother snapped in response to by snarl, shaking her head at me. “You've trailed more field in here with you than you've left outside; you're in dire need of a bath. Go and get yourself cleaned up, and we will look after your guest while you're preparing for tonight’s festivities.”

“Mother...” I began, though I didn't have a valid reason to argue.

“Yes. Do that! She'll be fine here with us!” Éiri interrupted with a mischievous grin.

I lunged for him, reacting before my brain even recognised that my brother had goaded me for his own amusement. If Fiáin hadn't leapt to her feet, stepping between us before I could pummel my sibling, I might have instigated my third fight in as many days. To be honest, the fact Fiáin stood at all caught me off guard, and at my look of surprise, she smiled and winked.

“It's a game,” she reminded me, then shook her head at Éiri. “I'll keep an eye on him, and make sure Aoibhinn’s needs are attended to. No one will overstep.”

While I doubted my sister had it in her to intervene if Éiri or Ion really wanted to sniff around our guest, I appreciated that she made the promise. A few days earlier, and she would’ve stayed silent, blending into the background, rather than implying she had any power within the pack. Either way, she wasn't the one I had to trust...

“No one touches me without my permission, Lord Cróga,” Aoibhinn announced, looking up at me with her breathtakingly determined gaze. “I'll be right here when you return, then you can escort me to the First Harvest celebrations, and perhaps I’ll even let you ask me to dance.”

“If I want to ask, then I'll ask, female,” I retorted, then glared at my brothers and cousin. “But you three will not. You keep your hands to yourself.”

“You haven't claimed her yet,” Éiri teased, then yelped in shock as Fiáin clipped his lug, with a sharp blow that must have stung. He scowled at our sister, rubbing his ear as he muttered, “Alright, alright. I was only joking!”

Even I paused, staring at my sister in surprise, but then I smiled, nodding at her before I backed out of the hall again. Maybe she could keep Éiri in line. Part of me suspected that my brother had no intention of stepping over the mark anyway, but another part of me was driven by instinct alone, and presently my instincts demanded I protect what was mine.

“She's not even yours,” I grumbled to myself as I climbed the stairs of the watchtower, resenting every step that took me further from the strange, over-confident female from the glade. “You've only just met her.”

That didn't seem to matter, and by the time I pushed open the door of the bathroom, my mood had sunk to a new level of frustrated irritation. I wanted to be in the hall, sitting next to the female whose body I still longed to claim; to have pressed tight against my own. I wanted to get between her and any too-curious eyes, and while I suspected Taibh knew better than to try my patience, Éiri found the whole situation far too amusing. And Ion...

Well, at fifteen, Ion had started to show signs of becoming a man, filling out and quickly catching up to Éiri in height. Our cousin tried to defer to us as much as possible, because he was his father's heir, my not my father's heir, and so he had no right to the watchtower or even a place in our pack. He lived with us only because we allowed it, so his position balanced, more precarious than ours. All the same, occasionally, his expression hardened and he tensed, as though he fought against the very instinct that would’ve made him a beta wolf in his own right, if only Aonair had started his own pack rather than returning to Father's.

I wanted to trust the cousin who had grown up like a brother to me. I really did. But the presence of the female downstairs had rubbed my nerves raw, and I found it hard to trust anyone, except, perhaps, Fiáin. It dawned on me that even my father felt like a threat, even though I knew he remained fiercely loyal to Mother. My brain knew he posed no risk, yet my body hummed with the urge to fight every male in the vicinity, until they were all incapable of making a move on Aoibhinn.

“What is wrong with you?” I demanded of myself as I crouched next to the bath. “You are acting like a fool. You know you are. You have to stop...”

Turning on the faucets, I started to fill the bath. The taps spouted both cold and hot water, brought up from below, from either the natural cold-water spring under the tower, or from the heated tanks that filled one of our cellars. The copper hot-water tanks themselves sat over permanently lit fire pits, and a network of pipes carried the hot water they produced throughout the tower, keeping it warm, even when icy, winter gales blew down from the north. The pipes provided us with a luxury not found in most houses, where people went without any running water, never mind heated running water.

Right then, I felt grateful for the privileges of my position. If I'd had to heat pails of water brought from the well before I could bathe, I might have gone mad with impatience. I would have ducked into a bath of cold water and been done with it, because I needed to get back down to the hall...

I resented that Mother had a point; a day in the fields hadn't left me at my finest. No wonder the female had seemed so surprised when I gave my name; I knew I looked like a farmer. A badly beaten farmer, at that. While I didn't regret standing up for Fiáin, I did regret that Aoibhinn's first memory of me would be one of bruises and part-healed cuts, on dirty and sweat marked skin. Hardly an alpha-in-waiting, and hardly the great commander that prophecy told of.

Frowning into the clouds of steam that billowed under the scalding hot tap, I tried to push that errant thought from my head. I didn't care what I looked like. I never had. I didn't care about the scars that littered my skin, from the claw marks left by a mountain lion to the puncture wounds left on my thigh by the very first stag I attempted to take down. Yet I wanted the female to be impressed.

“You sound like Aisling deciding which silk brings out the colour of her eyes. Stop it. You look like a wolf, exactly as you're supposed to. And you're even beginning to irritate yourself, so the gods know what Aoibhinn will make of you,” I griped.

By the time the bath had filled, my mood had spiralled completely out of my control. Anxiety and frustration warred, for once not directed towards some hidden enemy fleet approaching through the mists, but instead turned inward, tearing myself apart with doubts. Even when I sank into water which was really too hot, I still couldn’t relax, scrubbing at my soil smeared skin with such force that some of the cuts on my chest re-opened, dripping red.

“Great. That's just amazing,” I stated, dabbing at the bleeding wounds.

The blood allowed my scent to permeate the air, more noticeable now the old sweat had been washed away, and with some surprise I realised it had altered subtly. The spice of lust still added to it, but there was something else too, something I didn't recognise. I couldn't place the fragrance, not even from nights when I had tried to picture my future mate, when desire for an imaginary female let my younger, teenage-self experience lust for the first time. No, this new scent was unfamiliar, a subtle note which seemed exotic, rich, like imported herbs or some distant forest, but I had no idea why the change had occurred. At least it smelled pleasant, and I found myself hoping Aoibhinn would feel the same.

Once clean, I pulled myself from the bath and dried in haste, throwing on the first clean britches and shirt I could find, solely because I felt obligated to attend the celebrations. On another night, I would've forgone clothes... I might’ve even persuaded myself that I wanted to be naked because of my wolf biology, and not because I wanted to finish what Aoibhinn and I started in the woods.

Clean and dressed, I dashed back down the stairs, taking several at a time and at risk of tumbling down them, eager to return to the hall and keep Éiri far away from our guest. Only when I got back to the hall, I realised I shouldn't have worried. Éiri was sitting, quiet and sullen, a good two foot from the female, who was deep in conversation with Fiáin. The two women were laughing together, at ease in a way I rarely saw my sister be. Something about the easy camaraderie that Aoibhinn offered Fiáin made her even more attractive, and I paused at the door to watch her as she whispered something to my sister that made her laugh out loud.

When I headed towards my seat, Éiri wrinkled his nose, looking up at me with a frown and asking, “Did you even bother to wash? You reek.”

Frowning too, I inhaled deeply, but I couldn't smell anything untoward. The pleasant, exotic scent had grown more potent in the few minutes it had taken me to get downstairs, but I certainly didn't smell bad. But my mind quickly diverted course, because another aroma caught my attention, like the fragrance wild flowers and heather on the moors, their scents carried by fresh mountain air. It drew me towards the female, my female, and I realised the scent was coming from her, more delicious than the food laid out on the tables, or anything else I'd ever experienced.

Something that was part groan, part growl escaped me, and my body reacted in a way that made me pleased I'd opted for clothing... Not that my clothes hid much. A fact emphasised by the way Aoibhinn's eyes travelled down by body, pausing at the telling bulge in my trousers. A pleased smile lifted the corners of her lips, and she stood, leaning towards me and inhaling my scent with a soft moan of her own.

“Well I think you smell divine,” she murmured, her nose brushing my throat while my hands went automatically to her hips, drawing her towards me.

I had no idea what was happening, why I felt such a powerful need to keep the female against me. I had never needed and woman before, but I needed her. I craved her touch, and when her hand skimmed down my chest, to lift the hem of my shirt and splay against my abs, skin against skin, my eyes closed in pleasure, my body heating further. I wanted to pick the female up, to place her on the table and get between her thighs. I wanted my scent on her skin and my seed in her belly... I wanted to see her swell as she carried my cubs.

The thought had my eyes popping open and I leapt back from Aoibhinn, alarmed. Where had that thought even come from? I wasn't ready for cubs; that was part of the reason I dreaded autumn when I'd be expected to find a mate. A war was coming, and producing heirs seemed to be the least of my worries. Anyway, we'd only just met. It was far, far too soon to be thinking about starting our own pack. Why had my mind even gone there?

Aoibhinn frowned as I jumped back, hurt in her expression as the hand that had been against my abs dropped to her side.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

Shaking my head vehemently, I insisted, “No! No, of course not. I just...”

My voice trailed off, and I didn't know how to explain, how to put into words what I felt or why I needed to resist it.

“He's panicking because he spent so many days learning battle strategy and warfare that he forgot to pay attention when we were taught about bonding,” Fiáin interjected, a teasing note in her voice and a mischievous twitch to her lips. “He’s been dreading the arrival of female suitors in the autumn, and you've taken him by surprise, arriving now. All his life, he’s expected to mate with the most advantageous female to show up here, whether or not any bonding occurred.

“You see, for us, bonding is less essential than making appropriate matches; matches that suit our station. I'm evidence of that. Just as I must go to Lord Físí, Cróga expected some titled lady to come his way, a lady wanting to lay claim to our tower. He expected Lady Bródúil of Camasfair, who's been trying to get his attention since their early teens. He didn't expect attraction. He didn't expect you.”

My sister then shook her head, looking past me to Éiri and adding, “You haven't paid attention either. He doesn't ‘reek'. Both of them smell worse to us because their bodies are warning off potential competition. To each other, they probably smell wonderful.”

Éiri's nose wrinkled again, as he demanded in disgust, “So you mean they're going to stink forever? And how do you know all this stuff?”

“I read,” Fiáin answered, her tone dour. “You should try it sometime, brother.”

A burst of nervous laughter escaped me at her snarky rejoinder, and Éiri growled under his breath.

Further down the table, my mother chuckled, adding, “But no, they won't ‘stink forever'. There was a time when you father and I, and Aonair and Eadránaí, could barely stand to be in the same room together, because or bonding scents deterred each other. Once we got over the initial need to claim and be claimed, and took control of our need to fight off all other adults to ensure our claim on our mates, the scent became less potent. It will fade once they're sure of each other, and once they're assured the rest of us aren't a threat. Or, if they discover they don't like each other as much as it seems now, then it will fade away as they lose interest.”

Mates. Bonding. The words echoed in my head and alarm shot through me. I wasn't ready. Yet every instinct in me screamed that I needed to claim this female, and that I'd regret it if I let her go.

“We can take it slowly, my lord. If you don't want me, I'll leave, and you can find your true mate in the autumn,” Aoibhinn whispered, and the thought sent a stronger bolt of panic through me.

“I want no other!” The words were out of my mouth before I could consider the implications of such a statement. I didn't even know this female, and I stammered, “I mean... I would like to get  to know you... Before making and rash decisions.”

Aoibhinn watched me with unnerving intensity, then nodded slowly. “I can agree to that. Why don't you come and eat, my lord, then you can take me to the harvest celebration?”

“I can agree to that,” I repeated whilst urging my potential mate back to her seat.

Taking my place between her and Fiáin, I finally began to relax, safe in the knowledge that I could keep an eye on my brothers and cousin, and in the knowledge that this female was prepared to bond with me. Only me. Despite Éiri's earlier remark, my body claimed Aoibhinn as my own. Not fully. Not yet. But enough for the time being.