Thud.
When I turned to assess her final shot, my shoulders straightened.
“A deal’s a deal,” she murmured. Her eyes met mine, the bow hanging from her grip, her chin tilted up.
My cock was hard and pulsing underneath my fur coverings. Her hair was still wet from her bath and the bowstring had cut a vertical line across her cheek, stung from the cold. Her dark eyes gleamed, reflecting the light from the single barrel fire. I saw pride there, not the expected defeat.
Did it make me a monster to want her so much? To want her warming my furs? To want her on my cock, on my lips, to want her wherever and whenever I could have her?
“When do I have to start?” she asked quietly, the only question she would have answered that night.
Swallowing, I took the bow from her grip, noticing that a small shiver raced through her body despite my heavy pelt across her shoulders. An animalistic, primal part of me liked that my scent was on her now. A claim.Myclaim.
My voice was as dark as my need as I rasped, “Once the first frost comes,rei alukkiri.”
Chapter Twelve
Three nights later, the winds came, aggressive and punishing, scouring their way across the planet’s surface like crawling, seeking fingers.
A small part of me was relieved that my own tent wasn’t yet finished. While I’d lived through many cold seasons in my village—and many of those alone—being out on the plains of Dakkar was a different experience altogether. Though the encampment had the mountain at its back, protecting us from the south, it made the winds from the north—and east and west—seem even more violent, whistling around the ancient stone behind us so that a constant hiss reverberated around the camp.
It set my teeth on edge and made me tap on my wrist, though that tapping had extended down to my toes as well.
The horde king noticed my nerves that night and reassured me with, “It will quiet in the morning,thissie.”
Even the jarring sound of the wind wouldn’t stop me from eating my meal. Though the normally delicious fare tasted like ash in my mouth, I still chewed and swallowed mechanically. I’d already gained much-needed weight in the past week. I could feel it in my hips, in my thighs. No longer did my bones protrude almost obscenely from my pale skin.
“The winds last year went on for three days before the frost came,” I told him softly.
“Drukkar was punishing last year,” he said. “He was angry because of what happened in the east.”
He’d already finished eating, not seeming at all concerned about the winds. However, he was still sitting with me at the low table, his back to one of the poles that stabilized one side of the tent’s domed ceiling, one leg bent, the other stretching out towards me. In his lap was his sword, which he was sharpening and cleaning with efficient precision after his training session earlier that afternoon.
We’d done this every night for the last three nights. We took our meal together and he waited for me to finish, either looking after his seemingly endless supply of weapons or simply watching me, which always made me squirm. It was as if he knew my nerves were already on edge, so he directed his intense attention elsewhere that night.
After I finished eating, he would take his bath, which was already set up in the far corner of the tent. He would undress in front of me without a care and I would try not to look at his golden, sculpted flesh as he sank into the bathing tub. I would try not to hear his pleasured groan and I would try to ignore the strange sensation deep in my belly whenever I heard it.
After he was done, he would climb out, dry off, snuff out the flames, and tell me to come to bed, since he knew I would not bathe with him in the tent. In fact, I specifically bathed in the mornings, once I was certain he was gone for the day.
Then we would sleep. I would sleep fully dressed and he would sleep fully naked. And always—always—I would wake sometime in the night to find myself pressed close to him.
Last night, I’d found my face against his side, my lips brushing the hard edge of his pectoral muscle. I’d felt his heartbeat against my cheek—steady and strong and sure, everything he was—and I’d lain there longer than I would admit to myself, listening to it, imagining a life that I didn’t have as I smelled his skin before I pulled away. I could understand the appeal of bed partners and that knowledge made me uncomfortable.
“What’s east?” I asked, picking at a chunk of meat.
“The Dead Lands,” was what he replied, his eyes on his blade.
I frowned. “I’ve never heard of them. What’s there? What happened last year?”
He met my gaze then, his lips slightly quirked at the corners, and I knew what would come before he said, “More questions? You know our arrangement.”
Pressing my lips together in annoyance, I returned, “So the Dead Lands must be important. If you don’t want me to know the answers, you always bargain with me for them.”
Ever since the night in the training grounds, he’d been doing it. If I asked simple questions, safe questions, about horde life or what a word meant in his language, he would answer me easily and without hesitation. But for other questions, about his scars or about whether he’d been raised inDothik—which I assumed he was, considering he spoke the universal tongue—he threatened me with more time as hisalukkiri, whatever that meant.
“And I know what you’re doing,” I continued. “You bait me with the Dead Lands, knowing I need to know more, and then you won’t tell me anything. It’s simply cruel.”
“You gave me the title of demon king, yet you are surprised when I act like one,thissie?” he returned.
