It didn’t put me at ease. Where had a human female learned the Dakkari tongue?
I didn’t release my grip on her. Instead, I studied her intently, my gaze rapt on her face while she trembled in my hold, her breaths coming out in quick gasps.
Her shimmering eyes were wide and light-colored. I had never seen a parallel to their color in a Dakkari. Or perhaps their lack of color, since hers were a clear, luminous grey. Her hair was dark but the stench of it, unwashed and dirty, drifted up to meet my nostrils. Dirt smudged her flesh, and her cloak, upon closer inspection, was tattered.
The female froze when I parted her cloak, stiffening under my touch. I’d meant to search for a weapon. I hadn’t expected for her to be dressed in nothing but a sheer shift underneath, one that exposed her naked body to me. A growl rose in my throat. Her limbs were long and willowy. Her nipples were pebbled tight, pink in color. A tuft of light curls shielded her sex from my view. All smooth, unblemished, unscarred flesh.
“Vok,” I cursed.
My body reacted of its own accord, the unexpected sight of her body surprisingly erotic. Shaking my head sharply, my nostrils flaring, I grappled for control. There was no weapon in sight, but when my hand gripped her hip, tugging her forward, she made a strangled sound in the back of her throat.
“No.”
Then her hand shot forward, quicker than I could blink, and she struck me across the face.
Chapter Two
What have I done?
Stunned, I looked at my hand, frozen in the space between us. My strike had barely made the hulking Dakkari male flinch, however, and when his glowing red eyes cut to me, they were shards of ice. Crisp and cold.
I couldn’t help what I did next. I didn’t mean to. But my fear made me panic. My gift was not something I could explain and sometimes, it was not something I could control.
Between us, I sensed the tendrils of energy gathering. I pushed forward with my mind, pushing, pushing, breaking that hidden barrier into him. And I almost gasped at what I found.
Turmoil. Hatred.Darkness.
So potent it slithered up my arms, crawling into me,consumingme.
Run, my instincts told me. His grip on my hip had loosened when I’d struck him. Before I could think better of it, I broke the connection from his mind, ducked, and darted away, favoring my left leg. The crumbling slipper on my foot tore and slipped off.
The streets were quiet. I could not seek help, not that I would find any. Not here. I was weak, hungry, aching from my journey. A throbbing headache was beginning to bloom after I delved into his emotions.A mistake. But the fear inside me overrode everything else.
A strangled cry tore from my throat when the male caught me. Easily. He hauled me back within the alley, pressed me against the wall, his thigh slipping between my legs to keep me still. His palms pinned both my wrists down.
Then he snarled in my face, inmylanguage, “Who are you?”
Words stuck in my throat as I stared up at him. I could feel the hot tears leaking down my cheeks. My brothers had always teased me for crying too easily. Though I knew they’d said it in affection and in jest, I’d always been shamed by the unwelcome reaction. I couldn’t help it. I cried more than anyone I knew.
The Dakkari male was terrifying. I hadn’t seen a Dakkari since my father’s death and now one had me in a dangerous position…in his possession. Alone.
There were wide, glinting gold cuffs around his thick wrists. They felt hot against my flesh. Behind him, his long, powerful tail was curiously still. Thick straps of black hide made a criss-cross pattern across his bare chest, partially shielding the golden tattoos and numerous scars that decorated his flesh. A fur cloak was draped around his shoulders. It trailed past his hips, where there was long, sheathed sword attached to his tight hide trews.
His red eyes were unblinking and narrowed. Long, ink-black hair hung loosely over his shoulders, some tendrils in knots or wrapped in gold beads.
My eyes alighted on the deep, curving scar that tracked down his left cheek, starting just below his eye, slashing over his high cheekbone, and ending underneath his angled jaw. His bronzed, dark flesh was puckered around it. I began trembling in his hold all over again.
The Dakkari male saw me staring at it. I sucked in a breath when his clawed hand came underneath my chin, tilting my gaze up and away from the ugly, deep scar. I didn’t know if I was more surprised that his touch was gentle or that his voice was quiet when he asked again, “Who are you?”
There was no mistaking the authority in his tone. He was a male whoexpectedto be answered.
“No one,” I whispered.
The way he was looking at me was a reminder that just moments before, he’d looked at me in a way I’d never experienced or expected. It was the way males in our village had looked at my sister, at my widowed mother, but never at me.
“N-no one,” I repeated, hating that my voice shook. My throat was as dry as the Dead Lands. “Hanniva. Pleaselet me go.”
Footsteps reached my ears and I stifled a gasp. The male’s gaze cut to the left, shifting us further into the darkness of the alley, and then pressed more fully against me, until there was no space between us.
