Seerin seemed to know, however.
“Nik,” he said back. “This is you and me, Nelle.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
My breathing was ragged and my voice was hoarse when I groaned, “I have created a monster,rei thissie. An insatiable monster.”
Her laugh trickled in my ears even though she was straddling my hips and my seed spilled from her cunt. Even though she’d just come so hard she’d left the imprints of her dull little claws in my flesh.
“You always say that,” she murmured, leaning down to brush her lips across my own.
“Because it is true,” I growled, keeping her hips anchored on me when she moved to slide away.
It had been a month since I returned from my journey toDothik. A month of bitter cold, of ice and snow, of fierce windstorms that sometimes made it impossible to venture outside. A month of my female in my furs, of her laugh and kisses across my flesh, of lying in quiet at night as the fire crackled in thevoliki, memorizing her soft eyes as though I needed to imprint them onto my very soul. As if they weren’t already.
A month of a deep-rooted, consuming happiness for perhaps the first time in my life.
Her contented sigh drifted across my lips and she pulled back.
“I miss you already,” she whispered, which was something she’d often expressed before we had to leave one another for our daily duties.
Mythissiehad always been open to me. She never hid her emotions and I read what she so easily expressed without difficulty.
What I had begun to see over a month ago in her eyes had blossomed and grown. A combination of desire, friendship, respect, curiosity, confidence, and complete acceptance, as though she knew her love changed everything.
She’d never verbally said it to me. She hadn’t needed to.
It was I that held back, however, despite everything that had transpired between us.
“My council meeting may run into the night,” I told her. “We begin planning for our journey south, once the thaw comes.”
She nodded. She got quiet whenever we referenced the end of the cold season, as if she didn’t want to think about it. Because she believed I would have her returned to her village, as I’d once told her. After all, I had still made her no promises, though the knowledge settled like acid in my belly.
“You will like theHitrimountains,” I told her softly, after a lengthy pause.
Her eyes flickered to me.
“And the forests beyond them,” I added. My eyes went to Blue’s feathers, still around her neck, and said, “You may even see thethissiesyou are so fond of. They make their home in the southlands.”
Nelle swallowed and I felt a stinging pinch of guilt. My words were what she’d needed to hear after so long, but I thought, perhaps naively, that she would realize she would be staying with the horde. That I would not—nik, could not—send her away. Not now. Not ever.
“I think I will like them, Seerin,” she said softly before a small, hesitant smile touched her lips.
It is settled then, I thought.
I gave her one last kiss and then pulled her off me. I rose from our furs, where she’d spent every night with me. My eyes couldn’t help but go to thedeviri, to the three closed chests that lined the wall of thevoliki.
Inside them were gifts for my chosenMorakkari, to present to her after thetassimara, the joining celebration. Gold, jewelry, fine silks, hair adornments, and precious gems were within. Items that I had collected for her during my time asVorakkar, fromDothik, from the Dakkari outposts or other hordes we’d passed along our journeys.
Mythissiedidn’t care about gold or riches. One of her favorite gifts was the rock that Arlah, the seamstresses’ young boy, had given her. It sat on my cabinet, next to the dagger I’d given her, as if she couldn’t stand to be parted from it. The Dakkari steel bow I’d brought back for her fromDothik—a more appropriate size for her—was leaning against the wall next to the cabinet.
My Nelle liked her gifts. She didn’t care what they were, just that they were given freely.
Crouching in front of one of thedevirichests, I pulled open the lid and took a jeweled pendant from within, one whose color matched the shimmeringthissiefeathers hanging between her breasts. Its delicate chain was gold and the gem was small, but brilliant in its beauty. It would suit Nelle perfectly.
When I returned to her, she was sitting up in bed, watching me. She stilled when she saw the necklace, her eyes flickering in surprise as I clasped the chain around her neck.
It was shorter than Blue’s pendant and settled just between her delicate collarbones. I touched the gem, feeling it already begin to warm from her skin.
