Hallizel tapped her finger as a greeting then returned to Tessa, landing on the sleeping bundle on her back.
“Thank you for the help, Jessamine” said Tessa. “I can certainly use it.”
Jessamine walked toward her, not giving me even a parting glance. “I am glad to be of use.”
“It seems you’ve been to visit Sorka. That dress is beautiful on you.”
“Thank you.”
Then they set to work, digging out the corner spikes, forgetting about me. That was good. This is what Jessamine needed. Some purpose in the clan while she was here, whilstkeeping out of my sight. Not because I didn’t enjoy her being in my sight, but because it brought me entirely too much pleasure.
Forcing myself to turn away, I set out to break down my own tent and get ready to leave tomorrow.
Chapter 10
JESSAMINE
“When you finish eating, I’ll bring you to Sorka. She can watch out for you on the journey to Ghasta Vale.”
Swallowing my last bite of soft bread covered in berry butter—I’d eaten half a loaf by myself already—I stood and brushed the crumbs away.
“What do you mean?” I asked Tessa who lifted the rolled and tied fur she’d used to sleep on. “You’re going as well, aren’t you?”
I’d slept on my own fur in Redvyr’s tent at his command with Wolf stretched out at my side. Redvyr had said that I was his responsibility, so I must sleep near him. I’d actually fallen asleep before he’d returned from making plans with his warriors for the move, so I didn’t have to worry about any awkwardness. And he was already gone when I woke up this morning, so I came to help Tessa.
“To Ghasta Vale? Of course, we all are. But I’m not heading straight there,” she answered, carrying her fur to their brown Meer-wolf named Mishka. “I’ll be traveling with Bezaliel, Lord Redvyr, and a few others to Hellamir first.”
Wolf nudged my hip. He’d been following me around since I woke up. I patted him on his shoulder.
“Why are you going to Hellamir?”
“We must trade for grains and such.” She finished tightening the strap, then straightened and smiled at me. “Otherwise we can’t bake that delicious bread you devoured this morning.”
“I see.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll only be gone a few days then we’ll meet you at the Vale.”
“I wasn’t aware that the light fae traded with dark fae there.”
“Oh, they don’t all trade with us. That’s why I go. I can go into town and let our contact know we’ve arrived. Then he meets the others in the woods nearby. We have a routine.”
Everyone in the camp was doing their final preparations, and Redvyr wasn’t far away with Bezaliel and a few other warriors I didn’t know.
“I’d like to go with you,” I admitted.
While Sorka and her daughter were kind, it was obvious that many of the rest of the clan didn’t like me or want me there. I wouldn’t feel comfortable traveling for days with them.
“That will be up to Lord Redvyr.”
Of course, it would. I turned and marched across the camp where I saw him gathered with other beast fae males, Wolf trotting alongside me.
His gaze caught on me before I was halfway to him, one of the other males gesturing and talking on until he realized Redvyr might not be listening. I shouldn’t like the way he was looking at me.
Just like I shouldn’t have liked the way he’d made me feel when he admitted his own needs so vulgarly to me yesterday afternoon. In that moment of time where he traced his knuckles along my throat, his voice velvety deep, speaking of cunts and cocks as if it were nothing, I thought he’d broken my brain.
In Morodon, or at least in the palace where I was raised, no one spoke of their own bodies or desires in such a way. My mother and governesses taught me and my siblings to be demure and modest and chaste. Both of my parents ensured that their daughters were always the perfect pictures of royal innocence and purity.
When my body began to form deeper curves and larger breasts than my sisters, my mother had frowned at me, as if it were my fault my body was becoming too feminine for her liking.
