Vedikus took quick stock of his injuries and found them all well and on their way to being healed. There were no new marks felt or seen on his flesh.
Aldora pursed her lips.She’s hiding something.“Only the vial and its contents, that and the conveniences of dress and this food. She offered me nothing else.”
He did not believe her. “And you did not ask for a way home?”
Aldora startled and looked away. He followed her gaze to her clenched hands. “I thought about it, but did not.”
“Why?”
“I realized there is nothing for me there now. Like there is nothing for a woman such as the hag, who could enter Savadon if she so chose. I would never be accepted back.”
That gave him pause. He knew very little of the ways of humans beyond the barrier but knew they ruled in large numbers over vast lands. “You could not go elsewhere?”
“I could, but they say those that make it back from the mists come back marked. They’re shunned and often removed out of sight, to be forgotten. They’re never spoken of or seen again. I have not met one, but I have heard the stories.” She chuckled suddenly, softly, briefly. “So many stories.”
“And you believe this even after all you know has been untrue?” His curiosity was piqued. Vedikus knew some humans made it back, if only because the centaurs used such means as leverage.But a mark?He reached for Aldora and pulled her close, momentarily forgetting his suspicion, and pulled up her shift. The female shivered in his embrace as he trailed his fingers over her skin, making his own tense to react.
He tempered his sudden need to flip her over and bury his cock deep when she spoke. “I don’t know what I believe, but I did not ask Calavia to go back. We only spoke as women, as women often do, and she gave me the cure.”
Vedikus pressed his outspread hands over her smooth back, remembering how her pale spine moved as he mounted her hours earlier.Like silken thread.And lowered his mouth to her ear. “I know you’re lying.” She stiffened further, but all he did was hold her naked body against his. “Do not deny it or find my wrath. I rode you hard, I can ride you harder still, Aldora.” Her shallow breaths warmed his chest. His bulge stirred to lengthen and rest upon his thigh. New seed brewed deep in his loins. “Tell me,” he warned, raising her chin.
Her clothing was still bunched up between them and he lowered it to cover her, wanting to stop her shaking. He found he did not like her discomforted, even by his own hand. Vedikus restrained more than his body’s need for her at that moment.If she is not cold, she’s afraid.His threats against her were shallow at best, but it reminded him of the hundreds of times his sire had handled his mother.
There had always been firm, simmering heat between them, and when it boiled over, curses filled the stable of their home. His parent’s fights were as heated and as deep as their love for each other.
Vedikus stiffened, dropping his hand back down to Aldora’s back. He found he wanted to touch more of her, and if he couldn’t, he wanted to hold her impossibly tight against him. She was safe in his embrace, and the idea that she had left his side, even when she had the freedom to do so, made him nervous.
The centaurs almost took her from me.
Never again.
If he had to tie her up, tie her to him for the rest of their lives, he was willing to do that if it resulted in giving him peace of mind.
“The hag asked for one thing...” she murmured, her head resting under his chin.
Her body? Her blood? Locks of her hair?He would not have her barter her own being after all that she had already lost. His anger flared again. “What?”Everything she owns belongs to me. How dare she assume otherwise...
“Protection for her and her thralls.”
Vedikus wrapped his mind around her words. “And how do you expect to give her something like that? You may be able to save yourself, but another? And one who is not me or part of our clan? That request is void upon asking it.” His confusion grew. Whether it was a lich, a witch, warlock, or hag bargaining their services, one thing was always the same. They never gave their services unless they had received their end of the deal.
“She will not use it for anything but strengthening her defense of Prayer.”
“She will not use what?” He pushed Aldora back and searched her face. It was less sun-kissed than before. The mist’s pallor had begun to take the color from her skin. She gripped his forearms and her nails bit into him. “Use what?’ he asked again, wracking his skull for any possibilities.
“Your seed.”
Vedikus peeled his hands from her and shook her off. “You gave her my...” He could not finish the words, dropping his gaze to the crux of her thighs.
“It was the only thing she wanted. Please.” Aldora wrung her hands. “She would accept nothing else, and I tried. I offered her all that I could, but she knew it was still fresh between my legs. I thought she meant to bargain for our first child! Anything asked was better than that, anything. I would never make a child pay for the sins of another.”
He barely heard her words. His eyes stared where the cloth of her shift was bunched up in her lap.
Trickery.
“Vedikus...”
“Do not!” he snapped. “Do not say my name in such a way, female. And what may I ask, did she want with my lifeforce?” His muscles tensed and he ached to break something. He imagined the worst possible outcome. Vedikus saw Aldora’s belly grow with his offspring. It all flashed through his skull in quick succession.
