Avert your gaze! - Chapter Eight

Odin’s POV:

My mind began to wander as my beta Ure Ultreese slowly approached us, his deep brown eyes landed on Essen for a lingering moment as he seemed to absorb her very essence. Essen quickly averted her gaze as she pushed past Ure while taking a moment to glare at him, the look was brief and fleeting and would have been undetectable to the naked eye but I grew accustomed to picking up on their small gestures and the looks that they gave each other.

They were both keeping secrets from me, I had assumptions on what they were hiding as I would catch them lost in their world at times; the gentle graze that my beta would place upon my woman’s skin, the lost gazes as he yearned for something that didn’t belong to him. My grip on my new mate tightened as the moment seemed to pass and Ure’s gaze shifted from Essen to Caoimhe who silently resided naked within my arms.

“Why do I get the feeling you are the type to bring home women,” Ure said with a slight chuckle as his eyes roamed for a moment too long on my mate.

"That's none of your business," I grumbled as I felt Caoimhe’s body weight shift within my arms as she squirmed within my embrace.

I sighed with frustration as I could sense that she wanted down, although I did not want to release her just yet, I wanted to continue to hold her and shield her from the world. She was a gorgeous and intoxicating creature who would capture the gaze of anyone who looked upon her. I pressed my nose against her hair for a moment and inhaled her raw and exotic scent, she didn’t smell like the ocean like one would guess; Instead, her scent was like that of fresh May when the lands would be drenched with the rare seasonal spring with beautiful flowers arising from the cracks of the barren land.

Spring was the only rejoiced time of year as it was when Thallyn was at the peak of fertility, wolves would hold festivals to celebrate the darkened times now gone only for their celebrations to be cut short come July when the land grew too hot once more and destroyed all of the new life. Thallyn was a cursed land that had been forsaken by the gods centuries ago when they created Gliese. I was the future ruler of dead and barren land, a land no one wanted to inhabit and yet we had no choice as we had no way to reach another continent upon Gliese. Any attempts at fleeing Thallyn in the past have been thwarted by the raging sea as the sky would grow enraged and sink any vessel that attempted to sail it.

No, fleeing was not an option, we were stuck here, and we all knew it. Thallyn was the land where we would all live and die as if living in hell itself.

There are stories recited by word of mouth that was as old as the trees that inhabited Thallyn itself; They mention how Thallyn had once been a thriving oasis, a true heaven for those who resided there. The inhabitants were grateful for the blessings that the gods provided them and would even provide annual rituals to them as thanks. It was said that Thallyn was the first thing that the Goddess of Creation created as she made the land in her perfect image, with beautiful beings to inhabit it and to thrive upon the very thing that she had gifted them.

The wolves of Thallyn had been blessed with long lifespans that only extended in length if they found their mate by a certain age, once they found their mate the goddess herself would bless the united couple with fertility and grace. The first of my kind to receive her blessings were my ancestors, it was because of this they were able to become the reigning Alpha’s and Luna’s of their time and produce offspring who excelled in everything.

One day the Goddess of Creation came down from the heavens of Mara and disguised herself as a beautiful and enchanting creature and tricked the reigning alpha at the time Svarog into falling in love with her. The moment Svarog discovered her deception he took his dagger and plunged it deep into her chest, revealing the curse that she had secretly placed upon his people and presenting the ugly creature who hid beneath the façade.

I pulled myself from my deep thoughts and shook my head to scatter them to the back of my mind, I was not sure why the Curse of Creation suddenly came to my mind at that moment or why it was important.

Let me go, I heard the beautiful voice of my mate recite within my mind.

I glanced down at her and frowned after a moment before I reluctantly released the woman from my arms and sighed as I released her, the tingly sensations that had once coursed through my body were now gone as I released her. I watched her closely as she gently placed her bare feet upon the snowy ground and took a moment to steady herself as if she had not stood on her own feet before. Her long strands of ebony hair remained frozen during the walk here and clung to her back in thick waves.

I hated seeing her standing before others completely naked with nothing but her lengthened hair covering her nude body. My eyes quickly shot upwards and narrowed at Ure as he gazed hungrily at the young woman who was to be my mate. He licked his lips briefly as his eyes slowly traced along with every one of her curves. A possessive growl escaped my lips as I bore my enlarged canines at Ure and frowned at the man who now stood just before us.

I could sense the blood rushing to his head as my mate’s scent hit his nose.

“Look elsewhere wolf!” I sneered through the mind link as I glared at him and repositioned my body weight, so I was now standing in front of my mate and covering her nude body.

I was not in the mood for his mischievous ways or to answer any of the questions that he had built up within his mind.

“Get out of here,” I ordered Ure through our shared mind link as I sensed him attempting to resist the order.

I was not in the mood for his mischievous ways or to answer any of the questions that he had built up within his mind.