Unfamiliar Territory - Chapter 19 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Tove sighed, and sunk down into the water, raising it to the very brim of the tub. Her dark eyes stared up at the rocky ceiling, her mouth a tight line.

"Tove?" Chloe whispered.

One long, slow blink was the starting flag. "I don't know if it's entirely true that I remember nothing of meeting those magic folk when I was a child,” Tove told the ceiling. “I remember the after effects of that meeting very clearly - my parents trying so hard not to cry in front of me - but it was clear they were devastated. I was too young to have ever felt anything like it, and it scared me to see that such an extreme feeling was even possible."

"What did the magic folk do to you?" Chloe croaked.

"Hmm?” Tove’s face tilted down, finally looking at Chloe again. “Oh, nothing. That was the problem."

"You parents were looking for a magic solution for something?"

"Mmm.” She let her head float back again, talking to the craggy rock above. “I started having these... odd turns when I was just old enough to toddle about. I would freeze, stare at nothing for a long time, and sometimes drop to the floor like I had fainted, except my eyes were open."

"A condition of the brain?" Chloe guessed.

Tove nodded, it sent ripple rings out from around her. Otherwise, they were both eerily still. "Our healers could tell what was wrong, but they had no solution, and with no solution..." She sighed, laughed awkwardly, and dragged herself back upright.

"How..." Chloe faltered, uncertain of whether it was offensive to ask. "How long did they expect-"

"Not this long, that's for sure." Tove laughed again, like it hurt her chest to do it. "That's why I needed to get back home. While I have no expectations, and every day is a welcome gift... when I go, I would prefer for it to happen in the den, with my family."

"You didn't seem very concerned about moving quickly, only that we kept going."

"Mmm. I don't like to worry over things that aren't guaranteed,” Tove explained. “Would it be nice to reach home before I pass on? Yes. Will dragging myself and a witch through the wilderness without a single rest ensure that I do? No. Why ruin the time you have? If any one of those days of travelling was my last, would I rather spend it ambling along with you, or running myself to exhaustion?"

Chloe tried not to take offence to the use of the word ‘ambling’ to describe travelling with her. "Why leave at all, then?" she asked softly.

Tove looked away with a sigh. "I can't bear the thought of waiting for it. I want to enjoy myself, and do everything that the others get to do.” She broke off to splash some water on her face, rubbing it in with more force than was necessary. “It's all a balance of the odds,” she said. “The odds that I'll live two more days instead of one, for example. Always balancing risk and reward.” She spoke as though she were giving a lecture to a student, that these were facts, and there was no emotion involved in the situation. “And hopefully, living my time in a way that will leave me fulfilled when it's time to go." 

Chloe opened her mouth, but Tove wasn’t finished.

She scrubbed at her elbows harshly. "And hasn't it done me well? I found a lovely little witch, and brought her home!" She winked, although her smile had turned bitter. "Knowing my family and alpha couldn't send you away, because that would send me with you. And unlike me, they fear my death."

"You're not afraid of dying?” Chloe blurted. “I think it's quite normal to be."

"No... I feel more... sad. It doesn't overcome me or ruin my days, but sometimes I feel like I've had something stolen from me, and that leaves a little grief in my chest. Nothing like the grief my parents have felt since that meeting with the magic folk, though." She put on a reedy, rough voice: impersonating an old woman. "Magic can only do so much. And there's only one cure-all, but it's not for us werewolves."

Chloe tilted her head, confused. "Well, I think we've proven that wrong."

"I don't mean that healing cannot be performed on werewolves,” Tove clarified. “I mean this one spell they told us about, it's magic folk only."

"Magic folk, and their familiars, Tove."

Tove's eyes were hesitant, her mouth opening slowly, as though too fearful of the answer to ask the question.

"The familiar bonding spell," Chloe explained. "That's the one cure-all we have. It fully physically heals both the magic folk and their familiar when the bonding takes place. Usually, that's just a bonus you get, but I know some people have bound themselves to a store-bought animal as a last-medical-resort. And-"

Tove leapt up, splashing water over the rim of the tub. She hooked over Chloe, eyes wide and wild. "Are you sure?"

Chloe laughed, although it came out a little shaky. "Of course, Tove. It cures all ailments, diseases, conditio-"

"Swear it," she pleaded. "On your power or your parents' or whatever it is you do."

"Tove." Chloe spoke as calmly as she could with a naked werewolf hunched over her also-naked body. "I swear, on the moon and the stars, that any affliction you had prior to the bonding spell, you no longer have it. It doesn't mean you won't catch new illnesses in the future, but anything before we were bound is no longer present."

"I'm not going to die?"

"Well, at some point, probably. But not any time soon."

Tove laughed, a new one, Chloe was learning so many more of Tove's mannerisms tonight. This time, a manic chuckling, gripping the bath and letting her head fall forward until the overhang of her hair was dipped. She gasped and laughed and shook and dropped to her knees, throwing more water out onto the ground around them. Chloe slid forward, cupping Tove's face in her hands and lifting it.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, and the laughter stopped. "You thought you only had to put up with me for a little longer."

Tove grinned up at her through wet strands of hair. "I've been gifted time, and a beautiful woman to spend it with, how could I ever accept an apology from you?"

Chloe was already pink from the warm bath, but she felt the flattered flush run over her skin all the same. And then there was one of those lovely kisses she had been hoping for, Tove’s warm and wet fingers massaging into the back of her scalp as though washing her hair for her as she worked their mouths together, deeper.

They sunk, a pair of stones tied together, until their bodies were curled against the tub floor. Their arms tangled and clutched each other close. The water lapped up against the sides of their faces, threatening to swallow them whole, if they didn’t swallow each other first.

The kiss broke, with gasps that disrupted the swirls of steam rising around them.

“Are you warm enough?” Tove murmured.

The question seemed so strange to Chloe’s kiss-addled, bath-soaked brain. Of course she was, encased in Tove’s arms their body heat was fluid, shifting between them. She nodded, blinking the bleary film from her eyes.

“Then, shall we get out?” Tove watched her, uncertain, as Chloe thought the suggestion over. It was so lovely and relaxing in the tub… “Unless, you would prefer to wait until marriage.”

A shock shot up Chloe’s bare back.

“Well, um-” Chloe looked away for a moment, mind racing, pulse throbbing between her legs, cheeks burning.

“I won’t be offended i-”

“I think you were right, before, about the familiar bond.”

“Oh?”

“We’re bound for life, what more would marriage mean?”

“Sex,” Tove answered proudly.

Chloe didn’t bother to tell her she had been asking rhetorically. Instead, she nodded, and stood from the bath, baring herself fully and front-on to her… familiar? Mate? Wife? The lines were so blurred.

What was clear, however, was the ravenous look that overtook Tove when she stared up at Chloe’s body. It was both gratifying and mortifying. She stood as well, and offered her hand to lead them out of the tub. Rivets of water raced down her tanned, toned and tall body, and once Chloe could tear her gaze back up, she accepted the palm held out to her.