Page 22 of Fate Promised
Her lips quirked. “We’ll need to borrow some eggs for that.”
As he rolled up another one—more sugar this time—he asked her what she did with her time, hoping she didn’t mention the suitor he’d overheard her friend talk about.
She didn’t.
Triska talked about oyster fishing every day and spending time with Hazel and Chessa, and an evening here and there with her father.
She chewed and swallowed a bit of pancake. “When did you learn you were a vulk? Was it right after you left or later?” She busied herself with another flapjack, avoiding looking at him.
He sighed. “Right after I left here. I wrote to you and told you, but … they kept all my letters. I thought they’d been sent. Ma, too. She didn’t know they took all the letters, and it surprised her when you didn’t write.”
She nodded. “I know. I got the letter you sent me later. The one you bribed a brownie to send.”
Juri looked down at his plate. “Even after ten years, I wanted to let you know that I didn’t just … leave. I wanted to let you know I didn’t have much choice.” He swallowed. “I still think about you. Often.”
She crossed her arms, and her chin went up a fraction. “Why didn’t you visit?”
His stomach clenched. This was the question he’d hoped to avoid. “Once we take our vulk form, we’re supposed to leave our former life in the past. It was forbidden for me to return to Ryba. Even more so to see you.” He waved his hand. “I’m not supposed to be here now, either.”
He ducked his head and rubbed his hair. “I snuck around and checked in on you, though.”
Her arms remained crossed, her face set. “You visited your mother, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But you don’t understand—”
“You risked your vulk rules to see her.”
Juri stared out the window above the kitchen sink, where the hedge rippled in a soft breeze. “I thought about walking to your front door many times.” He locked gazes with her. “What would you have done if you got a knock on the door in the middle of the night? It would have to be the darkest part of night, so no one would see me. When you’d open the door, what would you see?” He gestured to himself. “A towering beast. You would have screamed. Or run. Besides,” his hands fisted, “if I visited you, you’d become a target for every one of my enemies. Like you are now.”
She said nothing, continuing to stare. Frost could have formed from her gaze. “You’ll never know how I would have reacted. And your mother kept herself safe all these years, I could have too.”
He stood and paced. “This is why vulk are raised in the wolfwalker clans. So when we leave, everyone understands we’ve left for good. I’m the only vulk in the pack who grew up not knowing what he was.”
Triska uncrossed her arms. “Why didn’t she ever tell you? I mean …” Her hands fell to her lap. “You got upset so many times because you thought you were a wolfwalker and you hadn’t gotten your pelt yet. She must have considered telling you?”
“You have a good memory. I mean, it’s been over a century and a half.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Time seems to stand still here.”
“That’s what I like about it.” He thought about his mother and how sad she’d looked when she’d told him he was a vulk. “She wanted me to grow up with a normal childhood. Back in her clan, she said the vulk kids were treated like little princelings, but they still weren’t really a part of the clan, you know? She wanted me to live normally. That’s why she raised me here until she realized I had to know.” He’d always suspected his mother had also seen his attachment to Triska, and knew nothing could come of it in the end.
They stared at each other a long moment. Finally, she sighed and patted the seat next to her. “Come back.”
As he sat, he searched her face. “I wish things could have been different.”
She picked at the flapjack on her plate again.
“Every time I saw something beautiful or funny, I wanted to tell you. Every time I told a story to someone, I pictured you. Even after all this time, that’s never stopped.” He shut his mouth. More words were waiting on his tongue, but he held them back.
Her expression softened. “I’ve changed too. I mean, everyone goes their own path. What we think and say when we’re ten … it’s not going to last. It was probably best for us to drift apart.”
Yeah, no one married the girl they proposed to when they were ten, even if they weren’t a vulk, and it was forbidden.
“Did you meet your father when you joined your pack?”
His shoulders tensed. “No. All the older vulk died during the Territory Wars, including him. There’s only ten of us left.” He ran his hand over his head. “Shit, Kyril’s going to kill me. That’s one of the vulk secrets I’m not supposed to tell.”
What he hadn’t told her was that even if his father was alive, most likely, Juri wouldn’t have ever known who he was. The vulk had children with females from the wolfwalker clans when a wolfwalker in heat wanted to partner with a vulk instead of one of her own kind. Demi-immortals like wolfwalkers didn’t go into heat often, and it was even less likely a wolfwalker would want a vulk child, but those who did understood that the vulk didn’t stay with the clan to help raise their offspring. When a vulk child—always a male—reached twenty and took vulk form, he would join the vulk pack and leave his original home behind forever. Never to return. Father and son were reunited, but it was verboten to acknowledge it. In the pack, all were brothers—warriors united in the battle to protect Ulterra.