Unfamiliar Territory - Chapter 4 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Chloe feigned a confused noise. "Aaah." She climbed back up to her feet and began to straighten the table cloth on her tiny dining table. "That's..." She couldn't look Tove in the face anymore. She wanted to talk about things that weren’t true some more. To learn about werewolves and their ways. More than anything, she didn’t want to confess to a naked stranger that she had bound them together, body and soul. "That is my fault."

"As long as it can be reversed, there is no harm done!"

Chloe swallowed.

"Witch Chloe?"

"It's not the area that you are tied to," Chloe murmured. "It's me."

Tove was at her back when she turned from the table, too close. The blanket had dropped when she rose and Chloe forced her eyes upwards, hoping her spectacles wouldn’t fog and mortify her any further.

“As long as it can be reversed,” Tove repeated slowly, staring her down with intensely dark brown eyes. She didn’t need her added height to be intimidating, the eyes said it all.

Chloe winced.

“As delightful as I’m sure you are, I have a home to get back to.” Tove’s tone had turned serious for the first time since Chloe had found her. “You must undo whatever it is you have done, little witch.”

“It cannot be undone,” Chloe whispered. Her throat burned again, threatening to tighten and choke her. “It is a bond that cannot be broken, not by any magic.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought… I…” Her face burned and she squeezed her eyes shut. “I thought fate had brought a wolf to me to be my familiar!”

“And a familiar is what? A friend?”

Chloe peeked up at her through a pained squint. “It’s… a pet.”

Tove’s mouth twitched, somehow still finding humour in a dreadful situation.

“But more than just any pet,” Chloe continued with a sigh. “It’s an animal that is bound to a witch for life.”

“For life?”

“Would you like some more stew?” Chloe offered hurriedly. “I’m going to have some, I think.” She snatched another bowl and spoon up and ladled in a portion for herself. The stew was not enough to tempt Tove away from the topic at hand, she folded her arms over her chest at Chloe’s insistent ladle waving.

“Little witch.” A light warning to cut the nonsense.

“Tove,” Chloe answered, hoping she sounded as apologetic as she felt. She couldn’t bring herself to actually take a bite from the bowl in her hands, holding it more as a reason to keep her fingers from fussing and fiddling.

“You need to explain this, whatever it is, and how it has happened. Is this something witches do? To trap werewolves as their… pets?”

“No!” Chloe gasped. “Goodness, no. I swear I thought you were a wolf - a real one! On the moon and the stars.”

“What do the moon and stars have to do with your promises?” Tove questioned, not unkindly. Still as curious about Chloe as she was about Tove.

“It’s swearing on my parents’ power,” Chloe explained, while desperately trying to ignore the bowl shaking between her palms, on the verge of spilling stew on the old wood floors. “They harness cosmic and nocturnal magic. Magic folk swear on our power to show we are being honest. Those of us who are still young tend to swear on our parents’ instead.”

“Interesting. We swear on our parents’ lives,” Tove offered with a shrug.

“That’s… intense.”

Almost teasing, Tove replied, “We value honesty.”

“S-so do we!” She didn’t mean to sound so close to tears, or so defensive. “I’m sorry. I really am telling the truth.” Her words were coming out faster and faster. “I thought you were a wolf and I wanted to help you but healing magic isn’t a strong subject for me. I read all of my books and used everything in the kit but it was no good. The familiar bonding spell heals both parties so it was the only thing I could do to… well, to…”

“To save my life,” Tove finished, a small, sad smile playing on her lips.

Chloe took a deep, much needed, breath, before nodding.

“I believe you, and I’m grateful for your help.” While Tove’s smile had turned sincere, it didn’t ease the anxiety shaking Chloe all the way through. Tove stepped away suddenly, displaying the writhing muscles up and down her back. “We need to go back to the pack,” she announced, plopping her hands on her hips.

”The pack?” Chloe squeaked.

“If you don’t know how to reverse this, I at least need to go home while we plan out what to do next.”

The problem wasn’t that she didn’t know, it was that it wasn’t possible. Instead of trying to explain again, Chloe asked, “And me?”

Tove glanced back over a light-brown shoulder. “You come, too.” Said as though it were simple. As though a witch of her generation had entered a wolf pack before. “I can’t stay away from my family any longer and we’re stuck together now, right?”

“I suppose.” It was true that they couldn’t separate, but bringing a witch into a werewolf pack was… asking for disaster. There was a reason that the different species of the world occupied their own territories, mixing brought fighting and fighting brought death. The Sleet Valley War had taught them better than to mingle if it wasn’t necessary.

However, Chloe didn’t have a better plan. Chloe had no plan. There was no way to undo what had been done, and she didn’t have the emotional capacity to even try picturing the rest of her life bound to a person instead of the cute, furry animal she thought she was getting. What would her family say? Her peers? Her teachers? She would never find a partner willing to overlook her idiocy, or the third person glued to them. Only twenty-years-old and already she needed to begin preparing for spinsterhood.

“But I have to return to school when Autumn arrives.” It was the only excuse she could think of, and she knew before it was out of her mouth that it was weak.

“We worry about the future when the future comes.”

“But I am worried now,” Chloe argued, feeling pathetic.

Tove’s wide grin was back. “Don’t be!”

Chloe’s mouth opened, shut and opened again. How could she argue with that?

“We have a few days of walking ahead of us, what supplies will you need to prepare?”

Chloe paused, empty spoon hovering. Reality was settling, and it was terrifying. Living in the woods, in a pre-built cabin, stocked with supplies, was very different to living out in the wild. A few days of walking meant a few nights of sleeping.

“I don’t have anything suitable for sleeping out in the woods,” she realised aloud.

“You can’t bring your wood home with you,” Tove chuckled.

Chloe pulled a face. “I know that much… but don’t people need tents to sleep outside?” She put her own bowl aside on the dining table and began opening up her many trunks that lined the walls of the cabin.

“I don’t know why you’re asking me, I sleep in my fur.”

“What if it rains?”

“I sleep somewhere with cover.”

Chloe raised her brows above the rims of her spectacles. “How can you know which spots will keep you covered?”

“They’re dry.”

“Before the rain begins,” Chloe huffed, exasperated.

“Why worry about things before they’ve arrived?” Tove’s grin was wide and lopsided and delightful. It was all the reasoning Chloe needed. How could you worry about the what-ifs when someone could light you up with their smile like that? Her brain was hazy under the radiance of it.

Chloe blinked the haze away. She needed to prepare, because she wasn’t an animal, built to survive out in the wild. “I need to make sure I live to see the end of this journey and I don’t have fur to keep me warm,” she said carefully. She didn’t want to seem argumentative, or worse, rude, especially after being the idiot to put Tove in this situation… but she also wanted to see her twenty-first birthday.

“I have fur to keep you warm.”

Chloe flushed, her hands pausing their rifling. She was well aware of the fur that was not covering Tove then and there, stood straight and wide-footed and bare-ass naked. As long as she didn’t make eye contact with the bare ass, it would be fine.

“That’ll save us some bag space, then,” she replied, awkward and too hot and her clothes touching her in too many places. She put her focus to the task at hand instead of the uncomfortable burn.

After clearing her cupboards of all pre-made meals, stored in pretty glass jars engraved with stars and sparkles, she laid them on the table beside her safety kit, home made salves and only her most vital five books.

“Now for clothes,” Chloe announced, hands on hips. “For both of us.”

Tove pulled a face, but didn’t argue. One, and only one, time Chloe allowed herself to skim her eyes over Tove’s golden and glorious nakedness, purely for measurement estimation. Unfortunately, the estimate was that Tove wouldn’t get a leg in any of Chloe’s dresses, and if she did, that ass would still be bare. Tove’s legs looked longer than Chloe’s entire body.

A long skirt with a tie waist would be needed, and her biggest t-shirt. She handed Tove a few options to try on while she selected her own clothes for the trip. The items that could be rolled the smallest. All-in-one pieces like dresses would probably be most efficient…

“Is the top half necessary?” Tove complained.

Chloe turned to appraise her. The white vest was straining over Tove’s chest, and not entirely opaque. It defeated the point to wear it, really, but Chloe appreciated the cover all the same. The skirt was tied in a knot at her hip, riding low, and the frilled hem halted at her calves. It would have to do.

“You look lovely,” Chloe said politely.

Tove scrunched her mouth, but said nothing more. She padded to Chloe’s side to root through the material that Chloe was trying to choose between. Chloe let her satisfy her curiosity, wondering herself what werewolves wore at home. Deduction told her it would be nothing.

“What is this? It has buttons but no holes.” Tove held up a triangle of deep green velvet, embroidered with a fern leaf pattern along the trim.

“It’s a cape, but I only wear it if the weather is nice.” At Tove’s questioning look, she explained, “it was very expensive, I wouldn’t want to ruin it.”

“You wear clothes to cover you from the weather, but fear the weather touching those clothes?”

“Some clothes are just meant to look good, not protect you from a storm.”

“I think I look better naked,” Tove retorted with a laugh. Chloe agreed, but didn’t say so.

The afternoon was creeping in when Chloe’s backpack was filled for the final time. Credit had to be given to Tove’s patience with her unpacking and re-packing, she must have been eager to get home, back to her family, and Chloe’s faffing had to be infuriating.

She tied her boots tight and her hair high, and followed Tove outside. A momentary prickle of suspicion tickled at her neck. Following a stranger into the woods sounded like a poor choice in theory. But she had possibly ruined Tove’s life, she had no right to complain about how trustworthy the werewolf was. She was the one who tied them together.

A few steps past the tree line, Chloe gasped. Tove turned instantly, eyes wide and worried.

“I forgot toilet paper,” Chloe whispered.

There was a pause in which Tove seemed to be giving her time to think about what she’d just said, but the more Chloe thought, the more she panicked.

“Five minutes, I swear.”

Tove nodded and Chloe sprinted back to the cabin to tuck some paper in her pack. Back at the tree line, they began their journey again, this time getting much deeper into the forest before Chloe remembered something else she hadn’t brought. Too late now, she figured, keeping the announcement to herself.

Despite her bare feet cracking twigs and crunching leaves, Tove never flinched or scouted the ground to avoid further debris in her path. The forest was hers, she stomped through it as she pleased. The land would part for her or crumble under her feet. Chloe walked in her footprints, her leather boots dwarfed in the dips.