She flinched. “Are you sure you did not come back because my thralls saved you? That you did not hunger for my blood? You’re free now. You’ve seen what awaits us out there. Death. You shouldn’t have come back.”
He growled. “And leave you to fight this battle alone?”
Her eyes dipped and briefly flared. “Centaur heads?” she asked suddenly, refusing to acknowledge his words.
He released his hold on her neck and knelt at her side.She is hurting.He forgot how different humans were to the beasts borne of the mist. Their emotions were softer, their thoughts kinder. They were so easily broken.
“Calavia,” he said with sudden reverence, never hearing his voice speak in such a way. He knew what he was about to do was wrong, but his submission felt right. The need to bow his head and show her his most weakened, vulnerable self, to demonstrate that she was not alone in this, threatened to overcome him. He longed to tell her that he had wanted to find her the moment she appeared as a wraith in his cave. That he had wanted to claim her even then, and that he was going to save her no matter the cost.
“Your blood is gone from the air, your thralls are fearsome to behold.” Astegur rolled his tongue in his mouth, finding the appendage heavy and burdensome. With his loins primed, his prick began to lubricate itself, and he was overwhelmed with the need to submit to her.
Astegur bent over and placed his spread hands on the floor before her.
He had never laid himself out before another with an inescapable need to pledge his strength, his life, so fervently. He knew he should be rallying and preparing for the imminent attack—he felt the quiver in his tendons to fight the threat that hovered over him and Calavia—but he could not stop the soul wrenching urge to prove himself to her.
That, if she asked, he would abandon his brothers for her. That, if she needed it, he would fight to the death for her. It was beyond lust for her body and her humanity, beyond the power she could give him in spades, and beyond the power their children would be born with. He wanted what the thralls had.
He wantedher.
He just didn’t give a mistfuck about Prayer. He never had.
Chapter Fifteen
Calavia wanted to fight off the numbing chill in her chest when Astegur appeared, but it was hard to eradicate something that kept her protected from the world. Something had happened to her when he’d walked away, and the image of his back fading into the mist would forever be burned into her mind. She closed her eyes and tried to shake the image, but it remained, like a waking nightmare. The fear was unwarranted, and yet, it was there.
When she reopened her eyes, they met and locked with his. He looked away first, lowering his head to the ground where the tips of his horns grazed the side of her dress.
“Astegur?” She drew back as he leaned forward. “What are you doing?”
He reached behind him and pulled the heads from his belt, dragging them forward and placing them to the side. “I killed those who tried to harm you. There would be more if your thralls had not torn the others from limb to limb. I have never seen anything like them. But those kills were not entirely mine.”
She licked her lips and pressed a hand over her heart where it pounded. He was prostrating himself before her. This fearsome warrior who had all the power in his grasp to kill her on the spot was yielding to her. “Why are you bowing to me?” The sense of it still eluded her. But her pulse quickened seeing him in such a position.
The silence that stretched between them felt like an eternity. She outstretched her hand to touch his head, his horns, but stopped short when he spoke.
“I have not seen such devotion in a leader since my father was head my old tribe. If you will have me, willingly this time, I would beg for such devotion to be extended to me.”
Her hand began to shake. She could not believe her ears. She wanted to lower her hand and touch him, but a sudden fear stole over her. A niggling whisper told her that if she gave him that power, he would use it against her. Her loneliness caught in her throat, and she swallowed it down. Beasts such as him do not submit willingly.
“I will give myself to you, guard you and yours, if you would mount me.” His words ended on a soft whisper.
Calavia looked around at the thralls surrounding them, and the weapons they infused with her power. Her wax dripped off them. Somehow having them here, as witnesses to Astegur’s submission, gave her the courage tohope. It was an emotion she hadn’t felt since she realized her magic and wax supply was dwindling.
From the corner of her eye, farther back than the rest, she saw her mother watching from the shadows, her arms still bleeding. But then her mother stepped back and vanished from Calavia’s sight.
Calavia turned back to Astegur and gently placed her hand on his horn. A rumble escaped him as she caressed up the bone to pet his head. She pressed her legs together as the noise he made filled her with longing. He sat up to his knees slowly, and her hand dropped from his head to fall upon his chest.
She discovered the fresh wounds he had sustained. She dug out the arrowheads still within him, making him hiss, and let his warm blood flow over her hands but did not hesitate. She took some of her wax and spread it across his skin, willing the wounds to heal.
When she was done, she met his dark eyes and understood he was hers.
“Mount me, female. Claim me. Finish what you have started.” His voice darkened in her ears.
A tremor shot through her, and a deep, dark ache coalesced in her core. The smell of his cum overshadowed her thoughts. “Not here.”
It was the wrong thing to say, because in the next moment, he was standing over her and she was thrown over his shoulder. Calavia scrambled and tensed as she grasped at his back, but all her blood flooded her head and made her dizzy.
He released her just as suddenly, and she looked around, dazed, at the hearth and old kitchen. The knots grew and tangled between her thighs as her now familiar emptiness burst inside her. She righted herself. She didn’t have long before he pulled her down to straddle his thickly furred thighs. His large hands tugged her skirts up around her waist.
