Chapter Five
ARGHET WOKE TO find Skehl leaning over him, both of them bathing in a pool of crystalline water whileSkehlheld him afloat.
“What…?”
Skehl continued to run water over his face, his body, stroking him with a large hand covered in scars and calluses. That same hand moved with a tenderness Arghet was hard-pressed not to snuggle into. Not at all warrior-like.
He cleared his throat and glanced up at the mother moons over head. Night had fallen? “What happened?”
“Raia drugged you. Then she left.” Skehl shrugged and lifted Arghet to his feet, both of them standing thigh deep.
“Raia?”
“Our mate.”
Arghet blinked, wondering just how long he’d been out of it. Then memories returned, of him and Skehl, of the female he’d been searching for sucking from Skehl’s cock, of the amazing feeling of belonging and rapture as they’d been awash in one another’s orgasms. Ah, Raia.
Skehl put a hand over Arghet’s heart. “Feel.”
Arghet didn’t mean to, but at the command, a surge of energy flooded him, both male and female, and all of it feltright. Organic, as if it had always been thus. As if the voids in his spirit had been filled by the beings meant for him and him alone.
An odd sense of gratitude and worship for his Maker had tears filling his eyes, and he blinked them away, not comfortable showing, let alone feeling, such emotion.
“Yes.” Skehl nodded, apparently sensing the same.
“How…?” Arghet coughed. “In the village, we know of only a few who can share thoughts and feelings with mates. Lore and Zehn have been able to talk to each other, in here.” He tapped his temple. “As they talk with Mandy, their female. But we had thought that was due to Lore’s offworlder blood.” He frowned at Skehl. “You’re a barbarian. The marker on your face is different, but still, of this world. How is it I can hear you without words?”
Skehl shrugged. “I do not know. I do not share this bond with anyone else. Only you. And Raia.”
The sexy, stealthy female he was coming to admire as much as he wanted to throttle her. “She looks and feels like you, inside me. But her eyes aren’t barbarian. Perhaps she’s got offworlder blood.” But that still didn’t explain why Skehl and Arghet could mentally communicate. “Did you know her before you went with the Nasuhl?”
“Not went. Taken.”
No matter how much they’d tried, no one had gotten Skehl to talk about his past. “The Nasuhl took you?” At Skehl’s nod, Arghet asked, “Hold old were you?”
“I do not know. I think maybe I had passed my fifth year. I don’t remember much about being taken, only that I was sad, and that I did not belong.” Skehl sighed. “I tried, but I didn’t like the Nasuhl much. They were cruel masters.”
“Barbarians have no masters,” Arghet automatically responded.
“I know, but to the Nasuhl, no one stood as tall as their alpha. And to disagree meant discipline. I needed a lot of discipline.”
Arghet saw the many scars over Skehl’s back, legs, and arms. On his chest, his neck, and even a large one down his right cheek. They made him look even more intimidating, a fitting countenance for a Vyctore warrior.
Confused at his conflicting need to hold onto Skehl while also distancing himself, he hoped Skehl couldn’t read him. He had no desire to hurt his large lover, just because he didn’t think himself ready for a mate, and not a male one at that.
“You cannot read my mind, can you?” he asked.
Skehl shook his head. “Only if you project. Mostly you close yourself off. You shield well.”
“But the female, she was in my head. Somehow her energy is with me still.”
“With me as well.” Skehl looked pleased at the fact. “She called me hers. You too. We belong to her, she said.” Then Skehl frowned. “She tried to get us to go away with her, but I refused. She didn’t like that.”
“Where did she go?”
“I do not know. I brought you back here to rest. I didn’t think you wanted the others to see you asleep, so I told them you were practicing for tomorrow.” When Arghet would wield the scitia.
“Good.”
