Chapter 9
#10 of The Mating Season: The Years Inbetween
Chapter 9
"Zalia," Aliona said the moment her daughter walked in the hut, "you're having sex with that boy."
Zalia froze. She stood at the curtain, guiltily rubbing her arm. It was true that she had been sleeping with Keeno. After that first night a year ago, they had kept their distance from each other, frightened that someone would learn the truth. But now Keeno was seventeen, his first mating season was drawing near and with it, his first marriage. Keeno would have to take a wife and become an adult, leaving her behind. They both dreaded what would happen, and in the heights of their dread . . . they made love in the woods behind the grazing fields. Every single day.
Aliona was kneeling beside the barren fire pit, knitting a shawl when Zalia came in. Zalia knew the shawl was for her: when she was claimed at the age of seventeen, she would cover her breasts, as they would then belong to her husband. Zalia swallowed hard. Her husband. A husband that would not be Keeno . . .
"Come here," Aliona said calmly. She didn't stop knitting.
Zalia bowed her head under the sweep of her long curly mane and came to her mother. She sat on the deerskin at Aliona's side and glanced around the hut, wishing she was dead before her mother had figured out the truth. It must've been the fight with Fielle. She wasn't foolish enough to think Aliona had not at least suspected her. But the fight with Fielle seemed to confirm everything. Zalia bowed her head and closed her eyes.
"How long," Aliona said, not looking up.
Zalia bit her lip. "All year."
"It was last year as well. Don't lie to me, Zalia."
"It was only once last year . . ."
"Do you realize what you are risking, doing this? Do you realize anything? Or are you too swept away by your horny teenage body to comprehend what it is you risk in having sex with that boy?"
Zalia's ears flattened. "Mom . . . you know I want to be with Keeno."
"I do know, my Zalia. But this is not the way to do it."
"What am I supposed to do?" Zalia said sullenly. "Just be without him? You wouldn't understand, Mom! Dad was able to claim you because you were his age! I am too young for Keeno in the council's eyes. I am a child - a child, in spite of the fact that I am only two years younger than him!"
Aliona sighed. She set down her knitting, and looking over at Zalia with her ears back flat, she cupped her daughter's face with one sympathetic paw. Zalia's lip trembled at her mother's soothing touch and her long lashes lowered. She hated herself when a tear escaped over her cheek. Her mother wiped it away with her thumb.
"Dad could give me in marriage to Keeno," Zalia went on, holding back a sob.
"Oh, honey." Aliona sighed again. "You would have to leave our home much earlier than your father would ever agree to. You would move immediately into Keeno's home."
"But if I had an early mating season, I would have to stay here another year. With you."
Aliona shook her head. "You expect your father to agree to that, Zalia? Kel doesn't want his little girl growing up." She laughed and went back to her knitting, her head bowed over her work. "And do you really think I will agree to it either? You are in such a rush to run out and leave us. You do not know what might happen if you simply waited until your first mating season. Perhaps a male would claim you the way your father claimed me."
"Mom . . ." Zalia said miserably.
"You never know," Aliona went on. "You think I do not understand, but I do, Zalia. I do. When I was seventeen, I was terrified of my first mating season. Your father took me . . . and he was so sweet. Little did I know . . . he was the love of my life." Aliona paused and blinked into the distance, smiling to herself.
Zalia watched her mother warmly, forgetting for a moment her own troubles.
"And besides," Aliona continued and bowed her head over her work once more, "Keeno could always take a second mating season and claim you. It's not that the two of you can't be together, it's that you must wait."
"And if I wait," Zalia said angrily, her fangs flashing behind her twisting lips, "Keeno will have some other wife. I will be his second wife in his home, getting bossed around by her -- looking after her pups!"
Aliona sighed a third time, and Zalia smiled in quiet triumph: sigh number three usually meant she had won.
"I will talk to your father about this . . ."
"Oh, Mom," Zalia moaned at once. "No!"
"Yes," Aliona said. She looked at her daughter seriously. "Do you really expect me to go to the village council without him? Do you really expect me to make such a decision without seeking your father's opinion?"
"Mom, we both know Dad will go crazy if he finds out that me and Keeno . . . and before our mating season . . ." Zalia dropped her forehead in her paw and her pretty curls tumbled. "Oh god."
Aliona smiled. "I trust your father to keep his sanity," she said, though Zalia could tell that she was trying to convince herself more than her daughter. She looked at her knitting again and frowned. "I will discuss this with your father. It's unthinkable that I would not. The council would like to pretend that females are the slaves of their husbands, that our role is merely to serve and obey." She drew herself up. "But your father knows different. He and I are a team. We will make this decision together. And hopefully, my Zalia, one day you will marry a male who understands that a female is to stand beside her husband. Not behind him."
Zalia groaned. "_Keeno_understands that," she said pointedly.
Aliona laughed lightly. "I think if you married Keeno, he would be the one standing behind you, my daughter."
Zalia laughed as well, wiping away her tears with her wrist. A lick of black mane fell in her slanted eyes, and Aliona lovingly pushed it back. The mother and daughter smiled at each other.
"Thanks, Mom," Zalia whispered. She sniffed and more tears came. She didn't know why. She should have been bursting with joy that her parents were finally considering helping her. But she knew how Kel would react. She knew her father all too well.
"The truth is . . ." Aliona shook her head as she went back to her knitting, "your father already knows."
Zalia's head snapped up. "What!" She jerked as if she would spring to her feet. "Oh god - Mom, we have to --"
"We have to what?" said Aliona in amusement. "Run out and hide Keeno in a hole?"
Zalia slumped. "How could you tell him? He'll go crazy. He will!"
"I trust your father," Aliona insisted, but she looked nervous, and looking at her, Zalia knew she had every reason to be. "But I don't trust Keeno's father. In fact, I'm going over there to speak to Hye in a little, make sure Yzlo hasn't lost his senses. If you insist on taking an early mating season with Keeno, his parents should have a discussion with Kel and I . . . though I would rather you simply married Keeno. For all we know, you could be pregnant even now." Aliona cast her daughter a worried glance.
Zalia hugged herself and squeezed her thighs tight. She didn't even want to think about that.
"The thought of you taking a mating season while you could be pregnant . . ." Aliona shook her head darkly. "Oh, Zalia. Why couldn't you just listen to me and wait until your first mating season!" she cried, suddenly angry.
Zalia's ears flattened guiltily. "I was going to wait!" she protested. "It's not like I planned to . . . to . . ."
Aliona smiled sadly at her daughter. "Why am I scolding you? Love is never planned. And when you are in love, neither is sex."
Zalia blushed miserably when her mother touched her face.
"He was pulling out?" Aliona said, returning to her knitting.
"Yes . . ."
"Good girl."
"You . . . aren't going to whip me?"
Aliona laughed flatly. "Why? It's already done!" she said, almost angry again. "I told you once, Zalia, that I was not going to waste my energy whipping you again and again for your foolishness! The best way for you to learn is if I let you be a fool! You want to throw away the last years of your childhood and become an adult early? Fine! Your father and I will go to the village council! And I hope you are h-happy . . ."
"Oh, Mom," Zalia moaned, rubbing her mother's shoulder, "please don't cry!"
Aliona dropped her knitting and fell into Zalia's arms. "My little girl is growing up!"
"Mom . . ." Zalia said miserably. She held Aliona in her slender arms and smoothed her mother's mane.
Aliona wept desperately. "Both my children," she moaned, "gone at the same time! At the same time!"
"Oh, Mom . . . don't . . ." Zalia begged wretchedly.
"Yes, I hope you feel terrible," laughed Aliona through her tears. She pulled back and regarded her daughter in triumph.
Zalia's blue eyes squinted up with sudden girlish laughter. "Mom! You guilt tripped me!"
"Serves you right!" Aliona sniffled. She dabbed away her tears with a corner of her shawl. "It's bad enough your brother is leaving me. Now you want to leave me too?"
"If the council says yes, I'll be here another year."
"You are fifteen! You should be here another two years! Those two years were supposed to be mine, so I could yell at you and scold you and watch you grow . . ."
"Oh, Mom," Zalia said, smiling. She took her mother's paw. "I don't want to leave you either. But this is the rest of my life! If I don't take charge of what is happening, I could lose Keeno. Or become his second wife - which is just as bad!"
"I know," relented Aliona as Zalia rested her head on her mother's shoulder. Aliona put her arm around her. "And I'm very proud of you, my girl," she said, dropping her cheek on Zalia's mane, "for taking charge of your destiny."
They sat in silence for a while, mother and daughter. Zalia held her mother's paw as she leaned against her, thinking with a sad heart of all she was leaving behind. The warmth, the safety of her parents' home - she would walk away from it and into the unknown. She would have to clean and cook, have pups, sew, do the laundry. And she would do it on her own. She secretly hoped for many daughters to help her. If she had sons, she would have no help whatsoever.
"Mom?"
"Hmm?"
"You really think Dad is going to handle this well?"
"Oh, honey. I have every confidence that your father is going to handle the situation with the maturity and wisdom of an adult."
"Ack!" Keeno choked as Kel slammed him by the neck into a tree. He had been in the middle of training under Loryn with Kilyan and the other boys when Kel came storming up to the group, grabbed him by the ear, and marched him away, glowering as he ignored Loryn's laughing protests. He dragged Keeno into the northern forest, and when they were a good way in, he grabbed him and slammed him into a tree.
Keeno's head was spinning. He looked up at Kel, at those menacing green eyes, and he thought he might piss down his tail. Yzlo was a hard-ass, but Kel simply terrified him. The tall male leaned close with his strong musk and his rippling muscles, and his large fingers squeezed on Keeno's throat as he demanded in a growl, "Is it true?"
Keeno couldn't answer. He choked.
Kel's ears went back, as if he had only just realized how roughly he was handling the young male. He let go and watched as Keeno - slightly shaking and gulping for breath - hunched over and sputtered for much-needed air.
Kel's eyes narrowed, still snapping rage as he repeated, "Is it true!"
Keeno massaged his throat, convinced he would never take a full breath again. He could still feel Kel's hard fingers there, and looking up at the older male's flashing fangs, he wanted to bolt and run. Silently admonishing himself, he straightened up and tried to get his bearings. "Is what true, sir?"
"Did you - with my daughter!" Kel sputtered and tossed a paw.
Keeno moaned. Uh oh.
"Answer me!" Kel roared, and his body tensed as if he would spring.
Keeno held back the urge to flinch under that roar of a voice. He straightened up again and admitted solemnly, "Yes, sir. I did - ack!"
Kel bopped him at once on the forehead - so hard that his head hit the tree behind him.
Keeno rubbed the back of his head, wincing with pain as Kel paced before him.
"If she is with child --" Kel began angrily and pointed a finger at Keeno.
"I would claim her, I don't care," Keeno protested at once.
Kel continued to pace. "You foolish boy," he said contemptuously. "It's one thing to mess around with every girl in the village, but now we are talking about my daughter - my little girl, do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Keeno said, more miserably than he intended.
"No," said Kel at once, "you don't understand. All you think about is your dick! And look what could happen, look at the consequences! She has been taken from me! Whether she is with child or not, she will have to leave my home - and because of you!"
Keeno straightened up again, determined to maintain some dignity. "It was her choice, sir."
Kel halted his pacing and stared at Keeno as if he might hit him again. "Her choice? She is a child! She doesn't know how to make smart choices - neither of you do! And now her parents must dig her out of this mess! And don't think your father isn't somewhere tearing his fur out --"
Keeno's eyes widened.
"Oh, yes, that's right," Kel said with a nod. "Yzlo is on the warpath. He's just waiting for the right moment to smack you over the head."
Keeno gulped. Yzlo had returned from his lunch break in a foul mood, and his many glares suddenly had significance. Keeno closed his eyes, deeply grateful that he was moving out of his father's house in only a few weeks.
"If I give my daughter in marriage to you," Kel said, and Keeno's eyes snapped open, "you will care for her, do you understand? Look at me, boy."
"Yes, sir," Keeno answered readily. "Of course, I would care for her. I love her."
Kel's eyes softened to see the serious fire in Keeno's eyes. He came to him, and Keeno was surprised when he put his arm around him. They walked through the trees for a time in silence, and glancing at Kel, Keeno could see the older male thinking calmly. He was suddenly relieved. Maybe Kel would not hit him again.
"You . . . love her?" Kel said after some time.
"Yes, sir. I do."
Kel halted and faced Keeno, and he stared at him for such a long time that Keeno nearly withered under his stony gaze. Finally, Kel clapped him on the shoulder and said, "I will speak to her mother of this. We will go to the village council." And with that, Kel abruptly walked away.
Keeno stood staring after Kel, unable to believe how easily he'd gotten away with doing something that would have gotten him whipped years before. Then he felt the blood trickling down the back of his head and realized he hadn't gotten away at all.
Keeno's eyes crossed and he collapsed in a dead faint.