“We are bonded. Deeper than any bond aKarathhas with his Elthika. My magic has been intertwined with his for years. And…” He blew out a rough breath but met my eyes with an intense ferocity that would keep me pinned in place, even if he released me. “I’m scared for him.”
There was a startling vulnerability to the words, one that made my glare soften. I heard the strain, the worry, the fear in the timbre of his soft voice.
Maybe I was just easy to manipulate…but I believed him. And it made me want to help him, help Samryn, even if he was an arrogant bastard.
But ifKarathswere anything likeVorakkar, horde kings, was I really surprised?
“Tell me you’ll stay and speak with me. And then I’ll release you,” he said, his thumb still moving against my flesh, his eyes bright as they seared me.
“I’ll stay,” I said. “But if you do that again, I’ll leave.”
A sound chuffed from his throat, and he inclined his head. “Agreed.”
He maneuvered off me, releasing my neck from his grip and leaning back into the cushions, though he was closer to me than he’d been before, the side of his thigh nearly touching mine. I shifted farther away.
“You cannot escape your blood,” he told me, “and sometimes the Hartan in me comes out. Forgive me.”
I swallowed, touching the lingering heat of his hand. “Everything you say sounds like an order,” I informed him.
The edge of his lip curled. “I wasn’t always so high-handed. In fact, once I rarely spoke at all.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said, eyeing him carefully. After the tussle, the slitted end of the drying cloth revealed even more of him. I saw the softened edge of his cock, a glint of metal before I sucked in a sharp breath, my gaze darting to the wispy white smoke from the blue ash across the room.
My heart was beating, my face felt hot.
“I heal,” I said finally. “That’s what Kakkari gifted me with.”
“How?” he asked, leaning forward, his eyes pinned on me, seeking answers he was, apparently, desperate for.
“What do you mean, ‘how’?” I asked, a humorless smile passing over my features as my stomach rumbled. I ignored it. “The same way you use yours, I imagine.”
His chin tilted back. “And your gift works on creatures and beings alike?”
“Yes,” I said. “Though I’ve really only used it on my own family andpyroki.”
“Has it ever failed?” he wanted to know.
“Only…” I hesitated, a memory of apyrokiI’d tried to save,only to feel her soul already gone. Until all I could feel had been an iciness so bitter that it had hurt. “Only if they’re already gone.”
Though, on rare occasions, I had managed to claw apyroki’s soul back to life. But that was only if their heart had stopped beating while my magic was already threaded through them. I kept that to myself.
Because regardless, thosepyrokihadn’t lived very long lives after that. They’d been sick, a sickness I hadn’t been able to cure.
Sometimes, I thought, it was better to let nature take its course. It was Kakkari’s will, after all, for her creatures to be returned to her in the earth.
“Tell me what happened with Samryn,” he said quietly. “During the night of the feast.”
I blinked, but my memory was in pieces. It took me a moment to find them, to stitch back together what happened that night.
“I saw him fall into the forest, and I went after him, thinking he was injured and needed help,” I said. “I didn’t know it was Samryn at the time. But I came upon him, and he let me touch him. And what I felt…”
“Tell me,” Alaryk said. An order but also a plea.
“I’ve never felt anything like it,” I said, worrying my lip as I bit it. “It’s some kind of disease, eating him from within. The pain was…unimaginable.”
I was growing nauseous just thinking of it.
“How is he?” I asked.
