When my gaze caught on his cock, still hard and erect and bobbing as he walked, I felt my belly tumble, though it wasn’t…unpleasant. It was the opposite, in fact, and I didn’t know how to feel aboutthateither.
He stopped in front of me, drawing my eyes away from his cock, and I tilted my neck back to look into his eyes. He reached for me and helped me stand as I clutched the heavy furs around my body.
Whatever was in his hand, he looped it around my neck and I felt something familiar settle just above my breasts.
When I looked down at his gift, I sucked in a shocked breath, my nose tingling with tears as unexpected emotion flooded my chest.
My vision went blurry as I gently reached for the pendant of the necklace he’d given me.
They were Blue’s feathers. Cleaned and soft and shining. The bases of the whitened, pointed shafts were embedded in a spherical gold clasp, keeping them secured to the chain of the necklace.
I’d thought them burned, gone forever, but he must’ve taken them from my old clothes when I’d been sick with fever.
“Now you will not lose them,” he said.
A tear fell down my cheek and I dashed it away with the back of my hand before I looked up at him.
“I would have given them to you sooner, but they were brought back to me just yesterday. There is an older female in the horde, one who crafts jewelry and trinkets. She made it.”
I smiled up at him, overwhelmed that he would give me such a precious thing. When he saw my smile, something in his expression changed.
“Thank you,” I whispered, delighted and happy with the gift, reaching out to take his hand, lightly squeezing his palm. Before I pulled away, he threaded his fingers between my own and kept me close until the furs I had wrapped around me brushed his chest. “I thought they were gone.”
“Why are they so important to you?” he asked softly, his eyes flickering to the feathers.
“She was my companion for a few years,” I told him. “I found her in the Dark Forest with a broken wing, fluttering on the ground. I took her back to my village and fed her and cared for her for a long time. I named her Blue because of her feathers. She couldn’t fly anymore, but I think she was happy and so was I.” I looked down at the pendant, feeling his fingers tighten briefly. “Then I woke one morning and found her dead. I don’t know why. But I took some of her feathers to remember her and then buried her in the Dark Forest because that’s what we did with Jana when she died.”
His hand came to my cheek and he tilted my face back so I met his grey, stormy eyes. It was then I realized I was growing used to his touch. It was then I realized I could easily grow to crave it, toneedit.
“Thissiesprefer the mild seasons towards the south, so it is very abnormal to find one so far east. But perhaps you were meant to find yourthissie. Perhaps Kakkari wanted you to.”
My lips parted as realization hit me. “Blue was athissie?”
He inclined his head.
“But why do you call me one?”
“Because I saw you that first night in the woods outside your village. I saw thethissiefeathers on your arrow and thought that you were very much like one. Watchful, rare, and beautiful.”
I’m not beautiful, I wanted to inform him. But then I realized I didn’t want to. If he thought I was beautiful, then I would allow him to continue thinking that. It made a strange thrill race down my spine at the prospect.
A strong desire to know his name entered my mind. “Does this mean that we’re friends now?”
His lips quirked. “You wish to be friends with me,thissie?”
My bare toes curled into the rug underneath my feet when he said that word. Because now I knew what it meant and why he called me it.
“Yes.”
“Very well, we can be friends.”
“So that means you have to tell me your name,” I informed him as his fingers began to stroke over my own. “That’s how it works, right? That’s what the seamstress told me.”
His laugh was husky and warm, contrasting against the bitter temperature in thevoliki.
“Relentless,” he murmured gently. “Nik, kalles, I quite like our games. But since we are friends now, I will give you another chance with the bow once the winds die down.Lysi?”
I was eager for the bow again and I nodded, looking back down at Blue’s feathers, admiring the pendant and the chain, only mildy disappointed I wouldn’t know the demon king’s given name that morning.
