The boys explode.
SEVEN
“I honestly don’t knowwhat you expected, Rath’a,” I say.
He hasn’t spoken for a day other than to shut down my argument over sharing a horse. Real Orcs run, we don’t ride beasts like we’re tamed City creatures or feeble. I’d lost the argument—so much for the so-called contract.
“It was only a half-hearted assassination attempt,” I add, trying to comfort him. “If she wanted me dead she would have waited and done it herself, not sent second rate thugs when she knew you and the boys would be with me. I’m not even angry.”
I’m more upset about the horse.
Rath’s arms clutch me like I’m an Orcling who’ll break if I take a tumble. “I will deal with my mother,” he says.
I wince. That “deal with my mother” sounds more like “bury her in an unmarked grave.”
“Then why the brooding? Not that I mind—males are best enjoyed silent.” I’m poking him now, trying to get something besides a frosty,sullen response. “Naked, too. Not all this shirt nonsense—Fiuthen looks ridiculous, by the way. How could you let him do that to himself? All that. . .cloth. It’s unseemly.”
Rath, on the other hand, like a proper male wears well fitted black leather pants tucked into quality boots, and his chiseled chest and abdomen are bare except for his clan jewelry. I’d made him take off the weapon harness because it poked my back. His arms—and his marriage scars—are on display, showing his strength and discipline. His dark waist length hair is thick, the slightly textured strands brushed out and interwoven with beaded braids. He draped it over one shoulder and I occasionally have to blow some of it out of my face.
He really is a handsome male. It won’t be a hardship to look at him, order him around. . .maybe other things, for the next year. Before I get rid of him.
There’s no way he’ll keep his word and take the clan. He’s a good boy at his core, trying to please all the females in his life. Mother, sister, best friend then wife. It’s why we all suffered. An Uthilsen male can only have one mistress, or things get ugly.
I endured the brunt of that ugly. Never again.
“You let down your guard,” he says, “at the fuckingSorting.You ordered me to remain behind and I obeyed, then you almost got yourself killed.”
Maybe now I regret poking him to start talking. “So I got drunk and high and let some half rate beat the crap out of me.” I shrug. “It happens—” I wheeze. “I need to breathe!”
When he loosens his grip—after too long in my estimation—I continue.
“Besides, almost doesn’t count, or I would be out of a job. Females almost die all the time in childbirth and no one gets huffy about it. It’s a fact of life.”
“It will not be a fact of our life. You won’t order me from your side again.” The hand resting lightly on my thigh tenses, then slides up my torso—and twists my nipple.
I freeze, taking a moment to make sure I can speak without lust turning my voice into a syrupy mess. “I understand. You’re starting to enter the find out phase, and it chafes. You never should have tricked me into a contract like that.”
His lips brush my cheek and he massages my breast, slipping under my vest to find bare skin. I bite back a moan. I shouldn’t allow this, shouldn’t allow his warm breath on my neck and his fingers kneading my flesh until my breast is swollen and aching and between my thighs begins a slow, pulsing desperation.
Not on a horse. I will not do this, in broad daylight, on a horse.
“Every word you speak, I tally,” he says. “I add those words to the sum of all the minutes you spent away from me. Your debt is deeper than a crater, but still you keep digging.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Only with a good time, Ky’a.” His voice purrs in my ear—then he bites.
I choke back a yelp. “You’re trying to manipulate me with your masculine wiles.”
“The wile I want to use remains in my pants.”
He must feel how his words kickstart the tempo of my heart. My breath is coming faster and I squirm in his arms, unable to keep still. I swear at him.
Rathhur chuckles. “Command me, wife. I can ease you.”
“You’re doing this on purpose.” A thought occurs to me. “Where did you learn to flirt?”
My desire, and the faint tinge of amusement coloring my outrage, evaporates. I grab the hand now sliding down my stomach, fingertips slipping underneath the band of my rough trousers, and dig my nails in. They aren't talons, they never will be, but they are long and strong and sharp.
