5. Chapter 5

We were just about to my home when my mate stopped talking for a brief moment. Normally, I didn't enjoy chatter. I would listen because it was the polite thing to do, but my mind would quickly wander. Either that or I would excuse myself. My brothers understood my need to be alone sometimes and were decent about not making me feel like a jerk about it.

With my mate, though? Everything looked and felt different. My mind wasn't wandering. It was hyper-focused on every single thing he had said today. I still wasn't the most talkative of creatures in the world, not even with Walker, but I could listen to him forever. I wanted to hear everything he had to say and more. My mate didn't seem to mind that I listened more than I spoke.

When we woke up and the two of us just snuggled in silence, that had been amazing and wonderful and perfect. But so was this. I loved learning every little thing about my mate.

I treasured every word that fell from his lips. His sunshiny personality shone through with each sentence. His stories were funny and full of detail. Sure, he tended to ramble, and there were times I had a hard time keeping track of what was happening to whom, but that only made it more interesting.

I envisioned his face all animated as he spoke. I couldn't see him since he was astride my back, but I could feel his movements. He was animated and spoke a lot with his hands as well as his words. Walker bounced around topics, like he was taking me on a journey of how his brain worked, how ideas flowed through him. There was an intimacy to that.

"Are we almost there?" he asked. "Can you tell me about your home? I bet it's exquisite."

I smiled to myself. He had a tendency to ask several questions rapid fire and then pause to wait for a response. At first, he would get embarrassed. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the way he blushed. I loved this more, though—the way he was so free around me—the way he was just himself.

"It's not too far," I said. "I am sorry that we are a long way from my brothers' homes." I hoped he wouldn't mind the isolation, and it wasn't as if I could get up and move my home. Then again, I supposed if Terran focused, perhaps he could ask the earth to move my home from one location to another. He'd probably try too.

"I don't mind the travel," Walker said. "It's a nice walk… ride… journey. In my wolf form, I bet I could make it rather quickly. Tell me about your house."

This was what I wasn't used to: having to talk about things, explaining myself. But my mate did deserve to know. We weren't far from the clearing where I had made my home. I should at least give him some background.

"I picked this location over a hundred years ago," I began. "I liked how close it was to the river and how far it was from anyone else."

Walker laughed and his hand petted my coat.

"All of the trees that I cleared out from this area were used to build the house. I believe it's a called a ‘log-cabin style' home. Unlike my brothers' homes, I have a second level and loft area with one large room and a small one."

That small room was meant to be a nursery, but I didn't add that point. We hadn't yet talked about children. We hadn't even talked about what it meant for us to be mates. Heck, we hadn't even kissed yet. This was all new to both of us, and we might have been sure we had an always and forever in store for us, but taking it slow and not rushing to lay it all out felt right.

"Oh, wow. I guess I thought it would be like the ones near your brother's place."

"I liked the second story because I wanted to be able to see the sunrise better," I explained.

One of these days I would take him to my favorite place in the forest, the tallest hill that we had where I could sit and watch the sun, rise or set or both. If we were to wait there the entire day, which I sometimes did, we could watch a new day arrive and leave. There was something powerful about that.

"If your brothers don't know where your house is, did they not help to build it?"

"They did not," I said. "They offered, of course. But, well, when you're secluded in a forest with just your brothers for company and you have nothing but time, you might as well just make things on your own." Besides, it wasn't like I had anything better to do. Not that he needed to know that.

"I don't think I could do something like that. I mean alone. I'm not one to give up on projects because they are hard or anything." He leaned forward and hugged me. "I don't even know what I'm trying to say other than I'm impressed, and I can't wait to see the home you built for us."

Us. He spoke up the two of us together with such ease. I loved it.

Finally, we approached my home. I'd cleared out a circular area as a yard. It an unusual shape for one, I'd come to learn. I didn't care. I liked it… a lot. It felt more natural than the cookie-cutter rectangles humans seemed to prefer. But then again, they were also all about grass that was grass and nothing else, not even wildflowers. I couldn't imagine wanting to be around nature, but only nature that had everything natural removed from it. Humans were weird.

I'd used broken-down branches to weave a deadfall fence and had even built a gate. From a distance it looked like it had been there for eons. And I supposed compared to the age of my mate, it probably was considered old by many. But to me, it was a newer feature and one I was extremely proud of.

I stopped just before the gate, ready to open it. My mate swung off my back without hesitation. He wasn't at all trepid about riding on my back. I asked him if he was a horse rider and he'd said no, but you wouldn't have been able to tell by the ease in which he settled on my back and enjoyed the ride.

"Oh my goodness," he said as he took in the sight of my home. The dark red wood almost gave off a fiery air to the house.

The door was large enough to accommodate my centaur frame, and the porch was a wraparound style that went from both sides of the house all the way to the back. I had two chairs, neither one of which I could actually use, but I assumed that my human mate would enjoy them. I would enjoy them in my human form when I got it.

There was also the table built into the corner of the porch where I sometimes liked to enjoy my breakfast and tea. I didn't quite have the taste for coffee like my brothers did.

"You built all this on your own?"

I had looked at it for so long, it was hard to take it in with new eyes, but I supposed it was impressive.

"This is amazing," he said and grasped my hand, tugging me forward. "Show me the inside. I want to see all of it, and then I want to look at it all again slowly. And then you can tell me about each and every part. Like why the wraparound porch? Did you just like the style? How did you know to do these things? If you guys didn't have the internet before?"

"Trial and error," I said honestly. "I started with small models, building homes out of twigs and whatnot, before moving on to the actual implementation."

"Oh, wow. That's incredible."

"Thank you, mate." I walked side by side with him up the stairs and into the front door. The main level had an open-style layout. There were two bedrooms, or an office and a bedroom, or two offices, or they could be whatever my mate wanted them to be. In addition to the living area there was a large stone fireplace. The kitchen was pretty basic since a lot of my cooking was done outdoors. The dining table was large enough for many people, though I had been the only one to sit there.

"Just you live here?" he said. "You have quite a few spaces where multiple people could sit. Are you hoping for a large family?"

My cheeks heated. "Perhaps, if that is something that you want. But I also assumed that once I met my mate that his family might like to visit or my brothers and their children."

He smiled up at me and cupped my cheek. "You built such a beautiful, welcoming space yet haven't shared it with anyone."

"I wanted to share it with you first," I said.

He went up on his tiptoes and kissed me. "Thank you, mate. I do love it."