“We will try.”
Calavia caressed her fingers over the point of the giant stake and slipped out from beneath it. She had made her choice and there was nothing left to do but see it to the end. She had given protection of Prayer to a minotaur who planned for war years before it even turned up on her doorstep. It took some of her guilt away but haunted her all the same.
If I had done nothing, and Vedikus and Aldora had died, Astegur and his brothers would have sought vengeance, andIwould have been in their path.She had helped them, and now she and Prayer were in the centaur’s path instead.
She grabbed several candlesticks of wax from a nearby table and sourced out her supply of dried vilevines from one of the shelves along the far wall. With the wax and the vines in her hands, she sat back down on the linens Astegur prepared.
She crushed the vines with her palms and set them on the floor beside her, leaving the seeds intact. She then rolled the wax candles in her hands until they were soft enough to press into the crushed vilevines and kneaded them together. Once she was satisfied, she pulled the stake into her lap and massaged the mixture onto it, breathing over it, willing it to harden and petrify and poison.
When she looked up, Astegur was still watching her. Not even the cove could stop her skin from prickling under his stare.
What would he do if he knew she hid the purity of her blood from him? What would he do if he found out? Her mother denying her protection was not a scenario Calavia thought would ever have happened.
A warmth bloomed over her chest and cheeks as his gaze pinned her. She suddenly imagined the two of them in an entirely different scenario, one much like a couple nights ago with his battleaxe poised over her head. Her blush deepened with that spark of fear.
Instead of killing her, he had taken her innocence. And she had invited him to. How could she still imagine him taking her head when he had cooed her to comfort and held her while she slept? Beasts did not do that.
His eyes hooded, and she pushed the stake away from her, sitting upright and pulling her long hair back. Maybe she could trust him with some of her secrets.
If she knew for certain she was doomed to die...
She parted her lips to answer his question from the morning before when he abruptly stood and moved from the hearth to join her on the linens. He picked up the stake she had pushed away and studied it.
“Why did you coat it with your wax?” he asked.
She canted her head and then realized he did not know her magic.His mother used bones?Perhaps their base abilities were different? She did not know. One could not coat items or people with bones, not without having a way to liquify them first. It would make sense that he didn’t know her like she thought he originally would.
“Your wax will dull the point,” Astegur said accusatorily. “I cannot win a war with dulled sticks.”
“You know that I have an affinity for wax. You have seen my altar, my summoning grounds. I showed you the centaur hoard within its fluid depths. I assure you, these stakes are stronger now. Wax will coat the wounds they inflict, and the poison from the vilevines will prevent the blood from thickening to stem the flow. Their blood will trigger the intact seeds within the vines and make them take root. During battle, there will be no time to cut them out before they begin to grow. I have made your dull sticks true weapons of destruction.”
“Can this be done with my horns?” he asked with a terrifying intensity.
“Would you allow my magic to coat you so?”
“I have been coated with many things, hag or otherwise. Any advantage in the coming battle might be the difference between life and death for both of us.”
She moved to his side, rising on her knees, with her hands still wet with the poisonous mixture. She reached for his horns, but he caught her wrists midway. He snared her with his dark glare, squeezing her wrists almost to the point of pain, stopping just before her magic triggered. A lick of smoke trailed out of his nostrils and she tried to draw her hands out of his grip.
“I mean you no harm,” she said.
“You should mean all the harm in the world.”
She remained calm, unnerved by his sudden intensity. He released her wrists, and she brought them to her chest, rubbing the feel of his warmth off her, as if she could rub away the many things he made her feel—fear, uncertainty, pain, as well as desire, safety, and just a sliver—a will-o-wisp sliver of hope.
Calavia picked up the edge of one of the linens beneath her and lifted it to his horns. His gaze followed her every movement.
She pressed it to the tip of one of his horns and slowly worked her way down to where it was rooted into his skull. The cloth in her hand slipped across its smooth, rigid surface with a silken ease that surprised her, and as she continued to clean and polish the surface, Astegur’s head lowered.
When she pulled away to move to the other horn, a humming vibration met her ears. She tilted her head and studied his hunched form with curiosity. “What does it feel like?” Her hand rounded the thick base this time and she worked her way from the base to the tip instead. Heat pooled between her legs as she imagined cleaning and polishing a different appendage of his.
“It feels good.”
She hummed with him in response, finding his lack of description amusing, and her reaction to handling him in such a way pleasant. His horns were deadly weapons used to gore and stab at an enemy’s weakness. She dropped the linen she held and pinched one of his sharpened tips with her fingers.
Astegur shook his head slightly from side-to-side as his growling purr became louder. Calavia hid her smile as she coated her fingers with the waxen mixture. With careful precision, and using just enough to not make a mess, she coated his already dangerous horns with her additional protection and poison.
Once she was finished, she sat back slowly, moved her legs under her, and pressed her heel hard against the warmth of her sex. Astegur’s purring stopped shortly after, and he raised his head.
