The footsteps paused. Two male voices followed, echoing towards us. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I knew the Dakkari male could feel it. I heard a chuffing laugh from the end of the alley.
One of the males that had come across us called out in Dakkari but I didn’t recognize the words. Well, no, I recognizedvok, which I knew meantfuck.
The male pinning me to the wall stiffened and then snarled out words back, his grip tightening around me. Whatever the males heard in his voice, they wisely backed away from the alley and their footsteps faded, their voices retreating.
He…shielded me from them?I wondered, my wild gaze tracking up to his face. Those red, darkened orbs were on me. My gulp was audible, cutting the quiet between us like a blade, the space that had once been charged with pinpricks of energy. I was tempted to press into his mind again, if only to try to persuade him to let me go.
“Why are you here?” he rasped, his voice slithering down to me. I was on edge. The darkness, themadness, the unraveled and strangled emotions I feltburningfrom him were carefully concealed under the even, stoic mask of his face.
What else is he hiding then?
“I—” I paused. Could he help me? “I have come to speak with the king.”
His head tilted. His dark grin was disarming, his sharp teeth flashing in the low light.
“TheDothikkarcares not for the problems of thevekkiri. Try your luck elsewhere,kalles. Perhaps one of the hordes or the horde outposts.”
The horde outposts?
His words seemed to amuse him.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him this was not about humans. This was about the Ghertun.
“Will you let me go now?” I asked, swallowing.
“Nik,” he murmured. “You feel good right here.”
Goosebumps broke out over my flesh. His voice had dropped low, making my ears twitch.
Holding my breath, I chanced a peek up at him. Maxen, my eldest brother, had always told me to never break a male’s gaze if they threatened me. My sister had needed to use that advice more often than I, but I remembered it now. He’d also taught me how to wield a weapon but I’d always been clumsy and unsure with it. Not that I had a weapon.
Well, except one, but it is unpredictable at best,I thought.
If he forced himself on me, I would have to use my gift, after all. The pain afterwards wouldn’t matter.
His claws trailed down the column of my neck. He judged my reaction, his face remaining impassive, those red eyes flickering back and forth between mine.
I gathered up the energy, imagining it filling the space between our breaths. It tickled my flesh and gently, so gently, I pressed forward. A warning. A necessary preparation.
His expression shifted as if he couldfeelthe strange sensation, though I knew it was impossible.
“You struck me.”
His tone was soft but his accent morphed the words into a warning all his own.
“You frightened me,” I accused. With my power at the ready, my tongue loosened. My power made me feel confident but it came at a price.
“I was searching for weapons,” he told me. With a soft growl, low in his throat, he finished, “I found a gift instead.”
My shoulders tightened. Underneath my cloak, I wore the nearly transparent shift that all the Ghertun’s female servants wore. It had shamed me deeply in the beginning but I’d grown so used to it now that I’d almost forgotten it entirely.
“I am human,” I said, grasping for the words. Surely the Dakkari didn’t lay withvekkiri.
Or were the rumors true?I wondered. There were whisperings that there were human queens among the hordes, whisperings that had even reached under the Dead Mountain.
My heart was throbbing, thrashing around like a wounded animal in my chest. When the Dakkari male leaned forward, he pressed his nose just underneath my jaw, inhaling deeply.
My spine tingled as his breath whistled in my ears. My eyelids fluttered and I frowned, confused, shamed by my reaction.
