Page 29 of Sanctuary
T he sun climbed over the horizon and one particularly determined beam of light shone directly in Patton's eyes, poking him rudely until he woke and opened them to his and Ori's campsite. A light coating of dew had settled over them during the night, a cool dampness that made waking up easier than Patton had expected. Ori was still curled up inside the protection of Patton's body, his back warm against Patton's front. He smelled of sleep and exhaustion and Ori, and Patton put his head back down on his bent arm and closed his eyes again. It was going to be a long day--might as well grab what rest he could. Especially since his mate was so tired.
Mate. He rolled the word over his tongue, silently mouthing it to himself. It felt big and scary and entirely right, but also fragile, like someone could come along and rip it from him without thought for the consequences. But he'd fight for Ori with everything he had, which his sleepy brain decided was what a mate did in these situations. He wrapped his arm more tightly around Ori's waist and let himself drift off to sleep again with the golden brown curls tickling his chin.
The sun was well up above the horizon when he woke again and Ori was limping back toward him from the grove of trees, his arms filled with more branches. "Morning," he called cheerfully, and the branches fell to the ground to sit beside fire pit. Ori lowered himself cautiously to the ground beside it and started breaking some of the branches into small sections. "You sleep well?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Perfect." Ori leaned in to kiss him and they lost another few minutes in their enjoyment of this new stage of their relationship. For a moment, Patton considered asking Ori if he was sure he wanted to keep moving, since a day spent resting in camp and, uh, entertaining themselves, would be a nice way to get used to this mates thing. But that tiny niggling fear--or perhaps not so tiny, now that he looked more closely at it--wouldn't let itself be dismissed. Ori was right about the chances of capture, and reluctantly, Patton made himself push Ori away.
He half expected disappointment or anger, but Ori only laughed and rubbed his cheek against Patton's shoulder. "You're terrible for my self-control," he said and hugged Patton tightly. "I'm going to start the fire again and make tea and oatmeal. Might as well have a hot meal while we can."
"I like that plan," Patton told him and helped Ori shred a few of the drier branches to make tinder for the pit. They'd banked it well and after they’d swept the dead ash away they found enough coals still gleamed feebly at the bottom that they didn’t need to dig the lighter out.
With a bit of assistance from Patton's lungs and Ori's careful introduction of wood shavings and dried leaves, they soon had a little fire going. Not much, but enough to boil some water for tea, and then make oatmeal with a few dried berries that Ori had spirited out of his Maw's pantry.
They packed while they waited for the water to heat and Patton watched Ori from the corner of his eye as Ori walked around the campsite. He didn't seem to be limping as much this morning but that could have Ori hiding the pain, knowing that Patton would be watching him. One positive thing was that when he peeled the sock off his heel, it had stopped bleeding and had crusted over, though it still looked raw and painful to Patton's eyes. "You sure you're going to be able to walk on that?"
Ori paused and gave him a startled look. "Sure. It's not that bad. I think having it out of the shoe all night helped."
"Okay." But Patton wasn't so sure. In the light of day, the blister looked bigger than it had last night, an open wound covering almost all of the back of Ori's heel. They still had a month and a half of walking to do and if his shoe was rubbing that bad, how would he ever travel? He opened his mouth to argue the point, but Ori’s expression stopped him. It reminded Patton of other times he’d tried to talk Ori out of something that Ori was determined to do, and he shut his mouth again, to Ori’s satisfied nod.
Maybe a day’s walking on it today would cool Ori’s determination to make it Mercy Hills in the least amount of time possible. He could only hope.
Ori took a few moments to carefully wrap a thin length of cloth over his heel until it was smooth, then cautiously pushed his foot into his sneaker. He did his best not to make a face, but Patton saw the wince as his heel scraped down the inside of the sneaker and settled into place. Ori tied the laces with quick, assured movements, then leaned over to pluck the pot off the fire. “You have the oatmeal?” he asked as he poured the water into the two plastic mugs he’d unearthed from his bag.
“Right here.” Patton dribbled it slowly into the pot, stopping when Ori nodded, then closed the package up and tucked it back inside Ori’s backpack.
They sipped their tea while the oatmeal slowly cooked and Ori curled into the shelter of Patton’s arm, their bodies fitting together as if made for one another.
“What’s the first thing you want to do when we get to Mercy Hills?” Patton asked idly.
“Hmm,” Ori said. “I don’t know. Right now, a bath would be fantastic.” He laughed and Patton laughed along with him. “No, really?” Ori said after their chuckles had died away. “I think I’d like to sit down and talk to their omegas. I want to know what it’s like to be an omega there. If they really have a whole pack of True Omegas and if they really do have magic.” He sipped at his tea and his voice, when he spoke again, was both wistful and filled with longing. “I wonder what it would be like to be a magic omega.”
“I heard it was all lies,” Patton told him. “That they were making it up to gain power over the rest of the packs.”
“Yeah, I heard that too. But Maw was real curious about how I felt in the spring the past couple of years, and she kept me close like she’s always done in the fall, around my time of the year.” He squirmed a little and a flush of pink rose in his cheeks. “And I heard that Holland’s cousin had a pup in the fall, and so did one of the other omegas there. So it stands to reason that they got pregnant in the spring.” His hand rested on his belly for a moment and then he snatched it away again. The movement was odd and this time Patton had enough attention to spare to wonder about the nervous twitch. He shouldn’t think he still needed to hide the baby, if there was one.
“You sick to your stomach?” Patton asked. He’d heard that sometimes people got sick when they were pregnant.
“No,” Ori said in a low voice. He squirmed again and put his hand back on his belly. “Just hungry.” His stomach made a grumbling whine as if it was listening to their conversation and Patton laughed.
“Is the oatmeal ready?” Patton reached over to pat Ori’s belly. “Sounds like you already have a demanding little pup in there.”
Ori laughed and crawled out of his lap to check the pot. “Not quite yet,” he said, and reached into the bag of dried berries to sprinkle a handful in. Patton’s eyes fixed on the curve of Ori’s ass, so close and so undeniably attractive. How did he get this lucky? Unthinkingly, he reached out and put a hand on the curve of muscle in front of him. Ori squeaked and then laughed and crawled backward to sit in Patton’s lap again.
“We do have a few minutes,” he said and tipped his head back to kiss Patton invitingly.
Patton lost himself in Ori’s mouth until his stomach growled. Ori laughed against his lips, then said, “Oops!” as his own stomach made its disapproval audible again.
“Maybe we’d better eat. But I’m voting for stopping to camp earlier than we did last night,” Patton said, leaning in to steal a quick kiss. It was a good excuse to get Ori off his feet a little earlier too, he told himself to assuage his guilt at lusting after his childhood friend.
“Whatever you command, my mate,” Ori said, and pulled Patton into a longer, deeper kiss.
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - E I G H T
T hey didn't make it far after all. Once they'd eaten and packed everything up, hidden all traces of their camp as well as they could, they set off toward the east, keeping the road just barely visible to their right. And had only made it as far as the town before Ori had to stop and sit down again.
"I'm sorry, I can't keep going," he said. His face was white and the skin around his mouth had gone grayish, the corners of his lips drawn tightly down with pain.
