“Hi, Sasha. Hi, Micah.” His long white hair hung in a braid over one shoulder, and Micah saw that the clasp for his cloak had been carved to look like a wolf’s head, mouth open in a smile. “I wanted to check in. How’s Viv?”
“Tired!” Viv shouted from inside.
Zev smiled warmly. “I don’t want to interrupt your preparations for winter, but I needed to check on Micah. Is it okay if we talk for a minute?”
“Sure,” Sasha said. “Lots to talk about, eh, Micah?” He winked, and Micah felt his cheeks burn as Zev raised his brows in surprise. Micah looked down and pushed past him, heading up the steps.
“Make something for Viv for breakfast,” he said, letting his dominance slip out a little, heavy and sharp.
Sasha straightened up, but he was still grinning. “Whatever you say, boss.”
“Boss?” Zev whispered. Micah ducked his head and bumped shoulders with Zev, who bumped him back and started walking across the grass. “Okay, we definitely need to talk.”
Micah didn’t say anything until they were a good ways from the entrance to Sasha and Viv’s house. It was strange, walking with Zev after so long with Sasha and Viv. “We had sex last night.”
Zev shrugged, then stopped. “Oh.Shit. I forget, sometimes, what that means to people from the village. So you’re mated?”
Micah felt like his face was going to burst into flames. “Not really. I don’t… I’m not… I know everyone else follows that rule. I know it’s the rule that helped us survive. But I tried that a long time ago—you know, courting a mate—and it didn’t work out. And Viv and Sasha feel like… They’re different. The rules don’t fit them.”
Zev gave Micah a curious look. If he was cold, with his chest and legs mostly bare in the autumn breeze, he didn’t show it. “You know I didn’t grow up with those laws, Micah. I’m not going to judge you. I guess I’m just surprised it happened.”
“I’m allowed to be interested in people. Other people are allowed to be interested in me.” Micah was surprised by the harshness in his tone, but while Zev blinked a few times, he didn’t look upset or disappointed.
Zev was quiet for a few seconds, watching a cardinal hop across the grass. “Are you interested in them?” Micah turned away, and Zev’s voice went soft, gentle. “Are you?”
“They’re already mated,” Micah said. “I just fell into their laps, and… I’m not them. I can’t be Viv to Sasha, or Sasha to Viv. They invited me into their bed, but I can’t be their mate.”
“Why not? And do you want to be?”
Micah looked out over the wide field. There was mist rolling over the grass, and the sea beyond was hazy and indistinct. “What I want doesn’t matter. It’s just how it is. Sasha said there would never be anyone like Viv. Viv was telling him… he shouldn’t be alone, if she dies, and he made it clear no one could replace her.”
Zev crouched down, picking an herb and trailing his fingers over the spiky leaves. “Dragan’s first mate died, you know. Elena’s mother. We talk about her, sometimes, when he misses Elena or when he’s cleaning one of her knives. I’m not a replacement for her, either.”
Micah twisted to look at him. “But Dragan loves you. That’s different.”
“Not really. You can love more than once in your life, Micah, or more than one person at a time. The love Dragan has for me isn’t less because he loved his first mate. Elena’s love for Aleks isn’t less because she loves her other mate, the one she told us about in her last letter. Viv can be irreplaceable and you can be loved as well.”
Micah groaned. “She is irreplaceable. She’s clever, and she’s kind, even if she doesn’t admit it. She doesn’t think I’m broken, but she doesn’t act like that’s a big deal, either—it’s like it’s a given, like everyone should feel that way.”
“They should. There’s nothing wrong with who you are, Micah.”
Micah glanced at Zev. Zev understood. The man who raised him—his captor, more like—had taught Zev to be afraid of himself, terrified that the wolf inside him would make him violent and wild. That only his captor could tame him. Zev had told Micah how difficult it still was to banish that voice from his head.
“I’m starting to get that,” Micah said. “I think… I think I do want to be their mate, Zev. It would be so nice. I want to cook for them. I want to build things that make their lives easier. I want to enjoy the way Sasha looks at me sometimes, like he’s happy I’m around. But if they just want me because I’m convenient…”
Zev got to his feet again. “Have you talked to them about this? Sasha needs things spelled out sometimes—otherwise he’ll assume. He’d apparently decided we were friends way before I knew it was possible. And Viv likes things to be straightforward. She spent so long trying to analyze her mom, you know, to figure out if she really loved her or not, that she doesn’t do well with uncertainty.”
Micah kicked at the grass. “I don’t know why her mom treated her that way. It doesn’t make sense.”
Zev looked uncomfortable, his shoulders going tight, gaze drifting to the side. “Evgen told me a little. I mean, he was a monster, so he might’ve just been talking shit about them because he knew I liked Viv, but… it was really sad, Micah. Sickness runs in her family, on her mom’s side. It skipped her mom, but her mom’s first kid was sick for three weeks before he died. Everyone still talks about it. It was like a piece of her died, too. She was making a scene, Evgen said, constantly coming to him about it. He said he had to kick her out of the house once—she wouldn’t leave, because she was pregnant and was so afraid it would happen again. Then it did, but it didn’t take three weeks that time. It was sudden. One day she had a daughter, then she didn’t. Happened like that with the third child, too.”
Micah struggled with pity. Children were precious. It was devastating to lose one, let alone more. But it was worse to neglect the children you had. “That’s no excuse for how she treated her.”
“No, it isn’t. But I think the experience broke something in her. When Viv and I were kids, her mother acted like she didn’t even have a daughter. Viv was always running after her, and then, after a while, she stopped trying. She started healing people for supplies of her own, and when I asked about her mom, Viv said she was just a woman who lived in her house. Her dad had left when Viv was a baby—has another family now. Sasha was the first person who looked at Viv and saw someone worth fighting for. He told her he loved her after courting her for three days.”
“I can believe that.”
Zev lay a hand on Micah’s shoulder, and Micah felt a surge of affection for him. He, too, had been neglected, but here he was, opening his heart for other people, giving them a chance. Being vulnerable. “If you love her—or Sasha, or both—you need to tell them. They need to see you’re willing to fight for it. Not physically. I mean face the difficult part of love. The part that requires giving someone the chance to see who you are. They might say no. It might hurt. But if it’s real, you need to take that risk.”
