"Nohuumonword. Many words… Husband, lover-mate, heart friend."
Corrin thought through what he was telling her, then stopped. "Wait. Corrin chosen by Searnon? What does that mean?" She looked over at the beast, bulkily sprawled out next to them in her own carved-out niche.
"Searnon is Urku-ri nestmate. Nestmate find Orki redress. Searnon find Corrin. Does Corrin honor."
"So, I have her to blame for this? You would have left me behind but for her?"
She felt the grunt in his chest. "Searnon know Urku-ri needs. Know Corrin needs."
"She doesn't know me. I didn't know creatures like her existed. How could she know me?" Corrin asked, letting her voice rise in false indignity. She didn't think he meant that the beast and she had a former acquaintance, but she wasn't going to just accept that an Orki war beast had a sense about Corrin's future.
"Enough. Enough Corrin fight." Keeping her still with one arm and one leg, he lifted the red-dyed bladder, the one with the fermented stuff. "What is that? What is this drink? Why do you force it on me, but you don't drink it? Why do I have to drink it but the Orki don't touch it?" That stuff did something to her. Warmed her insides, making the irritating need there worse. Corrin eyed the bag with suspicion.
"Is for Corrin," he said, bringing the end to her mouth.
"I don't want it. It's making me sick."
"Not sick," he said. "Ready."
"Ready? Ready for what? What is it?"
Searnon, listening in, growled. A low, rumbling trill of baffling sounds that made words only Urku-ri understood. He laughed. Agreed with her. "What did she say?"
"She said no answer questions. The answer cause anger, my
Corrin."
Corrin glared at the beast. "You're a girl. You should be helping me stop this lying oaf. You should understand, make him take me home, take my side."
Searnon answered back. Urku-ri translated, humor lacing his words. "Searnon says she knows what is best for you. No worry, Corrin. Searnon say know best Urku-ri, all days. She says drink milk, will help you." The uncapped end of the leather bottle tapped at her mouth.
His voice deepened from lightness to a menace filled warning. "Corrin needs punished. Corrin see. Corrin is a runner. Needs thirty. Will Corrin need fifty?"
When she opened her mouth to cry out, "Fifty!" The end of the bladder went in. He squeezed it, squirting in the milky, lumpy, nasty stuff. Filling her mouth. His free hand came up, cradling her neck, a careful pressure. When she swallowed, he filled her mouth again with liquid, encouraging her to gulp it down. Warning her what would happen if she spit.
Her heart beating hard from the mention of fifty, Corrin swallowed what Urku-ri forced on her. Skin flushing hot, anticipating pain, inundated with a rush of unidentifiable excited emotions, she lost her concern that the fermented drink might be making her sick; all her awareness drawn down to her own bottom, to the swollen and the pulsing wet flesh between her legs.
He set the bladder aside. "Will Corrin need fifty?" he asked, loosening his arms.
"N-n-no," she stuttered.
He guided her down across his lap. Corrin started to weep helpless tears. An angry scream, ripped out of her, repeated around the hollow enclosure, reminding her just where they were. Letting her make her sounds, Urku-ri arranged her stiff limbs where he wanted them, moving her coverings. Her breasts on one side of his knees, belly between them, bottom off the other side. Bunching up a fur, he placed it like a pillow beneath her head. Clawed fingers moved her hair, between her shoulder blades, down to the small of her back. His hands, that touch, calmed her sobs, eased them away.
Gruffly, he said her name. "Corrin. My Corrin."
Sensation followed his possessive, enthralled touch, goosebumps and hummingbird wings. Her gut cramped with stress while her core wept its strange, unwanted moisture.
"Relax, my Corrin. Safe.
"You're going to hit me."
"Spank you," he corrected.
"You're a brute." She glared over her naked shoulder at him.
"You are mine." He stroked the skin of her back, strength tempered. His touch the most wonderful thing she could ever remember feeling against her skin. Hand over her neck, his fingers charting her collar, finding all the fine, stressed muscles, tracing her spine. His big, masculine hand traveled over the globes of her bottom, down her thighs, which he nudged open. The air felt cold on her exposed, wet center.
"Redress," he whispered, as if the word meant everything to him. Corrin felt his fingers, rough pads seeking against the swollen, secret part of her, chasing the cold air, warming her. She couldn't help the soft keening noises that came out of her mouth or stop the descent into a mental space where only this male and his touch existed.
