“Diala,” I say, and she flinches.
I turn to Sian. “Can you arrange for a bath and some new clothes?”
“Done.” Sian hurries off, closing the door carefully behind her.
I approach Diala.
“I should not have come here.” Her voice is barely audible.
Even though she’s slight for an Ulfarri female, I don’t have to kneel to lower my head to be her height. With her sitting stiff and straight and me standing, we’re eye to eye. “I know this is hard for you. But this is your home.”
“No. Not any longer.”
My heart twists. She looks so lost. “Diala, the people will—”
She leaps up, making me yelp. She seizes my forearms, bending to hold my gaze. “You must not tell them. You must not tell them who I am,” she says in a strangled whisper. “They cannot know.” She looks one second away from throwing herself through the windows to escape.
I gently draw back from her tight grip. Taking her hands, I squeeze them. “Okay. Okay. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise not to tell anyone who you are. But… won't they recognize you eventually?”
She releases me to cover her face with her hands. “Then I cannot go out. I must stay in here.”
There’s a rap on the door. Sian is outside.
“What is it?” she whispers when she sees my face. “Is she all right?”
“She says she requires a veil. She's seen many horrors, and is grieving.”
Sian’s forehead furrows. “Of course. I can have one made right away.”
“Omega!” There’s a growl from the hall. Hunter is striding towards me with Brokk at his back.
“It’s all right,” I say to Sian, who’s backing away with a small smile on her face.
“Omega,” Hunter growls again, and scoops me into his arms.
“I'm fine.” I wave to Diala, who’s shrunk into the wall by the bathing chamber. I don't want her to think I'm being abducted.
Hunter’s scent melds with mine and my mouth is watering for a different reason. He presses his face into my hair as he carries me.
“Hunter,” I gasp. “I’m filthy.”
“Mine,” he growls. Using my hair as a leash, he tugs back my head and kisses me hard.
I hear doors sliding shut. We’re in our room, and Hunter is attacking my mouth. His teeth drag over the healed bite mark on my neck, and shudders run through me. My heartbeat pulses between my legs.
“Wait.” I am breathless. “I need to get clean. I need this stuff off me.”
He carries me to the bathing chamber and sets me down in front of the steaming bath.
“Oh, thank god.” I tug at my clothes, impatient to get clean.
Hunter’s hands close over the collar of my tunic and he rips it clean off. I help him shuck the pieces away.
We end up face to face. At the darkness in his eyes, my breasts and sex swell. I climb into the tub before I jump him, and start scrubbing. The water turns gray with the silty, flaky mold. Snarled clumps of my hair fall out and float like chalk-colored, many legged spiders. I scrub harder.
