There was something in his tone that reminded me of how he’d fought off thejrikkia. An unparalleled and focused drive, unbending in its ferocity. Savage, even.
I wondered what wrongs had been done against him…and I shuddered to think what he’d done in retaliation.
“Now,” he said, water trickling as he rose from his quick bath. “Come wash while the water is still hot.”
His body gleamed golden in the light…and this time, I didn’t look away from him. Water sluiced from his skin as he reached for a large cloth to dry off with. Never had I seen a body like his…and I doubted I would ever see one like his again. He was different from me, from anyone I had ever known.
My earlier realization, that I had three and a half weeks left before the black moon, returned to me.
My adventure…my last taste of freedom.
I was away from the Dead Mountain, with fine food warming my belly, and a hot bath awaiting me. All the while, I hadn’t seen my family in weeks. And even then, we had only caught glimpses of one another in passing.
All the while, they suffered under the Dead Mountain—Viola most of all.
But even when I returned, would anything change? Lozza had promised to release my family from theirsibi, to free us from his darkened stone city if I came back with the heartstone…but we didn’t know the effects of the poison. If there was acure. If we would ever be truly free. Or if thevovicwould simply rot us from the inside out regardless.
Lozza could simply be tricking me, lying to me. Maybe he never intended to let us go. All I had was his word. The word of a Ghertun king. It was more than I’d ever had before.
Water dripped down the horde king’s chest as he approached. His thickened cock swayed back and forth. My lips parted as I watched it.
You offered him whatever he wanted, I reminded myself.In exchange for his help.
What I hadn’t expected was to want him too.
What I hadn’t expected was for him todesireme.
But he did. Even in my inexperience, I recognized that. I didn’t know why he did.
He stopped in front of me, still completely naked, his cock jutting forward. There was a challenge in his gaze as I stared up at him.
When his cock twitched, I sucked in a soft breath and looked at it. My lips parted when I saw more seed had gathered at his tip. The Ghertun had always said the Dakkari fucked like beasts in heat—constantly—and a part of me wondered if there was some truth in that.
He reached down to help me stand. Then his fingers were on the laces of my own pants. They were so big on me that they slid down my legs and over my boots once he had them untied.
“Relax,” he growled gruffly when he saw my hands shake. “The only thing I mean to do in my furs tonight is sleep.”
Relief—and a weird sense ofdisappointment—made me sigh, which made his lips twitch. He knelt in front of me, stripping me of my boots and then my pants, leaving me standing in nothing more than a tunic.
When he rose, I couldn’t help but gather my power between us, feeling it tingle in the empty air.
I’m just curious,I told myself. His red eyes glowed, the corner of his lip twitching down slightly as he reached for the hem of my tunic.
When the energy had gathered fully, when the back of my neck prickled and it felt like an electric buzzing had started to trail down my arms, I pressed forward into his mind, softly at first, almost like a gentle stroke.
I shivered, my eyelids going half-lidded at what I found. He was the calmest I’d ever felt. The waves of his emotions were no longer a tumultuous storm, punishing and intense, but rather a calm lake, mirrored and glassy, with not even a hint of a rippling breeze.
Did he find peace among his horde? Was that the cause?
Underneath the calm stillness, however, I sensed something else. His want. His desire. And when he tugged the tunic over my head, leaving me standing bare in front of him, that desire surged and compounded until I was left shaking, until my cheeks were flushed and my eyes were bright.
Clumsily, I pulled out from his mind, suppressing my gasp. I swallowed, confused once more when I felt his arousal and peace linger in my own mind. This had never happened before. Inevertook on the emotions of others, not even my family’s.
So why was it different withhim?
I didn’t know what it meant but it was possible that my gift was changing again, strengthening perhaps. Just like it had done when I was younger, when seemingly overnight I’d been able to change emotions instead of just observe them.
My temple throbbed with the small intrusion but not as terribly as before. It was manageable…and worth the cost.
