A Beautiful Sacrifice

Chapter Thirty Two

That night Lily went to bed alone. The Soldiers were outside talking to the hounds. A treaty was being drawn up – and it wasn’t a nice one. The vampires were claiming dominance over the hounds for the war and trying to take part of their territory. The hounds however were saying that because the vampires technically provoked them they didn’t deserve it. In the end a compromise had been reached. To punish them for their declaration of war Perttu had taken control of their land but allowed them a secluded spot away from human and vampire territory. It was big enough that they could breed as families do and run as the animal in them needed to but it was far away. There would be no contact between the species. Their broken bones were a reminder of what happened when Perttu was crossed.

                The treaty took the rest of the night to draw up and when the sun came up the hounds hobbled away but the soldiers did not come back for the women. The reunion was to take place the following night; it was to be a ritual of sorts. Lily didn’t like waiting but the men felt dirty from their war. Unclean from their killing and their wild, unleashed, forms. To the men they felt contaminated by the act of war, too much so to be around their beautiful women. The day was spent in cleansing.

                They bathed in the dawn hours and slept in the high mid day sun. Lily knew all this from the women, some had seen many battles and the same process was always repeated. They were healing as they slept but the wounds would still be there by night time. Then the women would take their men and tend to them with the gentleness of their gender. Lily didn’t sleep either. She wanted to be ready to see him, she wanted to be seen as beautiful in this form as she had been in the moon’s magical form.

                She worried about his health. The safe chambers still held the women, they weren’t locked in but it was just easier that way; it kept male and female separate without the need to go to any great lengths. So Lily found herself in a bath of warm water scrubbing at her skin as she awaited the night. She got out and dried her hair, curling it as best she could and letting Berneice help her into corset and dress. The war had taken its toil on her, she felt as if she had been thrust into a world that was even darken than she imagined and she wasn’t pleased she had flaunted her body for men other than her mate. She faffed with her dress fastenings and re did her hair twice while getting nervous to see Perttu again. She vowed to help clean up the garden as well. It was a project she started to look forward to. Once the bodies were removed then she would be able to dig for better soil and plant flowers. She wanted to plant trees as well. She wanted the beauty back so her life started to look pleasant again.

                Eventually the sun went down and a hush came over everyone. In a line Lily followed Berneice up the stairs to the entrance hall were, stood in a long line, were their mates. Every one of them stood to attention, their feet together and their arms by their sides in fists. She looked at Berneice.

“They stand on ceremony for us - they won’t move until we tell them to. It’s our way of accepting them back into our lives willingly after their acts of violence.” Berneice explained.

                The seriousness of the situation dawned on Lily, “A mate can refuse to let them stand at ease?”

“Yes. If a mate feels he has acted in a way he shouldn’t have then he can stand, as we say, ‘on ceremony - he is asking his mate to accept him, to forgive him if he has done wrong. If a mate refuses she simply walks away and the mate will stand like that throughout the night and the biggest torture is through the day as well. He stands like that until the following night where his mate will come back to him. She can either accept him then or walk away and that signals that they were to go about their lives separately. It very rare not to be accepted back in though.”