Swallowing, I heard his heavy footsteps tread across the carpets and then he came into my view. My eyes rose to him, feeling something sharp twinge in my chest when I saw he was bathed and dressed in different clothes than he’d left in last night.
So where had he bathed? Where had he slept?
I thought of what Hukri revealed to me last night. About a female named Junira. How everyone had believed she would becomeMorakkariof the horde because Wrune had drunk from her goblet—whatever that meant—and spent nights in his bed.
The bed I’d slept in last night. The bed Wrune had thrown me on before he’d wrenched orgasm after orgasm from me.
I hadn’t cared last night about Junira. At least, that was what I’d told myself.
Now, however, I felt a sharp ache of jealousy, wondering if perhaps he still cared for her. If perhaps he would still slip intoherbed now that I lay in his. Was that where he’d been?
I knew nothing about the mating customs of Dakkari. I knew they took wives, obviously. But beyond that, I knew little, though Hukri had told me they certainly shared beds with their partners.
Wrune just didn’t want to share a bed with me.
“You will never use your gift within the horde. Or without me there,” he growled at me, looming over the bathing tub. “Do you understand that?”
My voice sounded hollow and wooden when I said, “Good morning to you too, husband.”
I looked away from him, dragging my knees back up to my chest to at least shield part of my nudity from him. Not that it mattered. He’d seen parts of meIhadn’t even seen properly.
A whispered curse came under his breath. He was in a foul mood this morning, so perhaps he hadn’t spent the night with another female.
It was quiet for a long moment and then I was surprised when he dropped to his knees next to the bathing tub until he was eye-level with me.
“It’s dangerous,” he said, seeming to make an effort to soften his tone. I blinked when he reached out to clasp my chin, turning me to face him. His hands were warm. Rough. And so, so familiar to me now. I couldn’t help it when my heart skipped a beat. “What happened last time. I do not want that happening again. I know how much pain it caused you. I know ithurtyou, Mina.”
That…wasn’t what I’d expected him to say.
“I didn’t know I was doing it,” I told him softly, defensively.
His frown only deepened. “Which makes it even more dangerous. It’s unpredictable because you don’t know how to control it. The only time I ever want you to use it is when the horde is threatened.Lysi?”
Right.
Because that was why he’d even joined himself to me in the first place.
Because I’d be useful to him and his horde if the fog ever encroached too closely. Like a beast led to its sacrifice.
Turning my face away, I sighed.
We didn’t speak, the silence stretching awkwardly as I decided how best to get out of the bath without him seeing too much.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
No. I’d woken what seemed like every hour to see if he’d returned. I hated howneedythat made me seem.
“Yes,” I replied. “And you?”
He rose from his place on the soggy carpet, where wet patches from the water now soaked into his hide trews around his knees.
“I didn’t sleep,” he informed me. I didn’t know what to do with that bit of information, if it should make me more jealous or less. “We need to leave soon. To get your markings. We are expected by aterun.”
Again with the markings.
“What is aterun?” I asked, watching him snag a fur pelt that Hukri had laid out for me.
“It means elder in your language,” he said.
