by Zoey Draven
The three lashes across her back looked purple in the light. The kerisa had Nelle stop wearing the bandages and the salve once the skin had begun to heal over. Though they still looked tender, the flesh had mended, but it didn’t stop my belly from churning at the sight of them. It didn’t stop my mind from going back to that morning, from remembering the way her body jerked as the first lash fell, from remembering her soft cry after the third.
She’d told me she wasn’t angry with me for the whipping, but how could she not be?
My fists clenched as I kneeled next to the bathing tub. Her face was turned towards me, her uninjured cheek pressed to the top of her knee, those dark eyes tracking my own.
“W-will the fence h-hold?” she asked.
“Lysi,” I rasped, my voice dark with my thoughts. Underneath the water’s surface, I saw her breasts, her slim waist. She had put on weight in the past week, for which I was relieved and grateful.
“Was anyone hurt?” she whispered.
“Two warriors, but the healer is with them,” I said. I would check on them in the morning.
I saw her eyes flutter briefly before she reopened them and I knew she needed sleep. When I dipped my hand into the water, I realized it was beginning to cool from her body.
After another long moment, I decided that I could keep her warmer than her bath could and pulled her from the tub.
I dried her off quickly next to the fire, though I was still worried when she didn’t try to fight me off. Once I was satisfied, I wrapped her in a thick fur and carried her to bed.
She didn’t fight me when I dragged her close. Even when I parted the furs, even when I pressed her bare skin against my body so that she could absorb my heat, she didn’t fight me. I cocooned the both of us and she pressed her still-cold cheek into my side, shivering, and shoved her hands between the furs and my back.
I felt her pebbled, tight nipples but I tried to fight off the poorly timed desire that rose. She would only retreat if she felt it, so I kept my need close, knowing that getting her warm was the most important thing that night.
But I didn’t expect how good it would feel…holding her close. That primal part of me that I tried to keep locked away reared its head and thickened my cock and made that moment feel so right. Like I was always meant to hold her like this.
“Veekor, thissie,” I rumbled, tightening my arms around her lashed back, spreading my warm palms over her thickening scars, and tucking her legs between mine. “I will keep you warm tonight.”
Chapter Fourteen
When I woke the next morning, I knew where I was the moment I opened my eyes.
I knew that I was naked, flushed and warm, my lips and fingertips tingling, wrapped in the demon king’s arms. My cheek felt raw from where the rope had whipped me.
My first coherent thought was, He is still here?
Usually when I woke in the mornings, he had already left, gone to seek out his duties for the day. Usually, I only saw him again after nightfall, when he returned to the tent, which I now knew was called a voliki in Dakkari.
The night before returned to me in an instant. The winds, the fence crashing, the ensuing chaos in freezing rain, the hides ripping up from the tents as families rushed to save their homes.
And then what happened afterwards…
The icy coldness that spread through my body after hours of being exposed outside. Any ounce of warmth was immediately sucked away. I remembered the demon king taking me inside, stripping me, placing me in the bathing tub of hot, painful water as heat prickled through my limbs. I remembered his gentleness…I remembered him calling me brave.
My limbs were all around him, clinging to him. Legs between his own, one arm draped over his abdomen, my face pressed into his warm neck, my breasts pushed against the massive barrel of his chest.
It embarrassed me. But I was warm, that frightening coldness banished from the night before.
When I dared to pull my head away and braved meeting his eyes, I found that he was already awake. I found those eyes on me, half-lidded from sleep, yet somehow still alert.
The need to say something, anything, made my throat tighten, but a single sound would not emerge.
It was him that broke the silence between us.
“I think I wish to keep you in my bed, thissie,” he rasped, his voice dark and rich. “I thought it was I warming you, but it was you warming me through the night.”
My face went hot but when I went to pull away, his arms tightened around me, keeping me in place. One of his arms was underneath my head, cradling my neck, the other was draped over my hips. I felt his palm grip me there and my skin had never felt so hot before.
Though he held me in place, I didn’t feel the fear I’d felt before. For a strange reason, I knew he would never touch me, or try to take from me, if I did not wish for it. I felt that truth deep in my gut.
I think I surprised myself with that realization because I frowned, my brow furrowing together.
His grey eyes flickered between mine and he asked, “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I replied quickly, not wanting him to know the direction of my thoughts. “I’m quite warm now,” I informed him, hoping he would take the hint to let me go.
“I know.”
“Why are you still here?”
“Because I wanted to be certain that you were alright,” he replied, his expression changing from slightly amused to serious. “You made me worry last night, thissie.”
His words made my hands curl into his chest unexpectedly. No one had ever worried about me before and I didn’t know how his admission made me feel.
“I’m alright,” I assured him softly.
“And this?” he asked next, bringing his hand from its place on my hip to gently brush over the rope mark on my cheek. “It will bruise.”
“I’m alright,” I repeated, swallowing thickly at his touch. Because I felt an uncomfortable sensation building in my chest, I asked him, “What does thissie mean?”
“That reminds me,” he murmured, not answering my question for the hundredth time. “I have a gift for you.”
Why was it that the prospect of a gift made my breath hitch and excitement flood my belly? I was discovering that I liked gifts very much—my new clothes, my dagger, and my rock most of all—and I wondered in the back of my mind if I should be embarrassed about that. Jana would tell me I was being greedy.
His fingers moved at the nape of my neck, sliding up into my hair. My scalp tingled pleasantly as my treacherous and curious tongue asked, “What is it?”
The demon king seemed content to look at me for another long moment, his eyes tracing over my face. But then he shifted and rolled away from me, pushing up from the bed. His sculpted backside met my eyes as chilly, frigid air rushed forward to take his place.
Wrapping the furs tighter around me, I watched as he moved to the three chests lining the opposite side of the tent. I’d never seen him open them before and I’d often been tempted to snoop inside, though I’d denied that curiosity.
Still, it didn’t stop me pushing up and sitting on the edge of the bed, craning my neck around him to try to catch a peek.
The horde king lifted the lid on one and took something from within it. I spied silks and sheer things, something glittering gold and blue, before he closed the chest again.
His expression was knowing when he turned back to me and saw me trying to look into the chest.
“You cannot help yourself, can you, kalles?” he murmured, his lips quirking.
My eyes darted to his closed fist and I said, distracted, “No.”
When my gaze caught on his cock, still hard and erect and bobbing as he walked, I felt my belly tumble, though it wasn’t…unpleasant. It was the opposite, in fact, and I didn’t know how to feel about that either.
He stopped in front of me, drawing my eyes away from his cock, and I tilted my neck back to look into his eyes. He reached for me and helped me stand as I clutched the heavy furs around my bo
dy.
Whatever was in his hand, he looped it around my neck and I felt something familiar settle just above my breasts.
When I looked down at his gift, I sucked in a shocked breath, my nose tingling with tears as unexpected emotion flooded my chest.
My vision went blurry as I gently reached for the pendant of the necklace he’d given me.
They were Blue’s feathers. Cleaned and soft and shining. The bases of the whitened, pointed shafts were embedded in a spherical gold clasp, keeping them secured to the chain of the necklace.
I’d thought them burned, gone forever, but he must’ve taken them from my old clothes when I’d been sick with fever.
“Now you will not lose them,” he said.
A tear fell down my cheek and I dashed it away with the back of my hand before I looked up at him.
“I would have given them to you sooner, but they were brought back to me just yesterday. There is an older female in the horde, one who crafts jewelry and trinkets. She made it.”
I smiled up at him, overwhelmed that he would give me such a precious thing. When he saw my smile, something in his expression changed.
“Thank you,” I whispered, delighted and happy with the gift, reaching out to take his hand, lightly squeezing his palm. Before I pulled away, he threaded his fingers between my own and kept me close until the furs I had wrapped around me brushed his chest. “I thought they were gone.”
“Why are they so important to you?” he asked softly, his eyes flickering to the feathers.
“She was my companion for a few years,” I told him. “I found her in the Dark Forest with a broken wing, fluttering on the ground. I took her back to my village and fed her and cared for her for a long time. I named her Blue because of her feathers. She couldn’t fly anymore, but I think she was happy and so was I.” I looked down at the pendant, feeling his fingers tighten briefly. “Then I woke one morning and found her dead. I don’t know why. But I took some of her feathers to remember her and then buried her in the Dark Forest because that’s what we did with Jana when she died.”
His hand came to my cheek and he tilted my face back so I met his grey, stormy eyes. It was then I realized I was growing used to his touch. It was then I realized I could easily grow to crave it, to need it.
“Thissies prefer the mild seasons towards the south, so it is very abnormal to find one so far east. But perhaps you were meant to find your thissie. Perhaps Kakkari wanted you to.”
My lips parted as realization hit me. “Blue was a thissie?”
He inclined his head.
“But why do you call me one?”
“Because I saw you that first night in the woods outside your village. I saw the thissie feathers on your arrow and thought that you were very much like one. Watchful, rare, and beautiful.”
I’m not beautiful, I wanted to inform him. But then I realized I didn’t want to. If he thought I was beautiful, then I would allow him to continue thinking that. It made a strange thrill race down my spine at the prospect.
A strong desire to know his name entered my mind. “Does this mean that we’re friends now?”
His lips quirked. “You wish to be friends with me, thissie?”
My bare toes curled into the rug underneath my feet when he said that word. Because now I knew what it meant and why he called me it.
“Yes.”
“Very well, we can be friends.”
“So that means you have to tell me your name,” I informed him as his fingers began to stroke over my own. “That’s how it works, right? That’s what the seamstress told me.”
His laugh was husky and warm, contrasting against the bitter temperature in the voliki.
“Relentless,” he murmured gently. “Nik, kalles, I quite like our games. But since we are friends now, I will give you another chance with the bow once the winds die down. Lysi?”
I was eager for the bow again and I nodded, looking back down at Blue’s feathers, admiring the pendant and the chain, only mildy disappointed I wouldn’t know the demon king’s given name that morning.
“I won’t miss again,” I told him. “I’ll have your name when the winds are gone. I am quite determined.”
“Then I may just have to raise the stakes to deter you,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
He laughed again and I felt it all the way to my toes. He pulled away and began to dress.
“You will find out, thissie.”
Chapter Fifteen
The winds still raged through the morning and afternoon that day. Shortly after the demon king had left, I’d attempted to venture outside. The thought of being cooped up for the entire day made me antsy, but the moment I’d stepped outside, my stomach had dropped.
The ice rains had begun, whipping through the air with the furious winds. A droplet had caught me across my exposed cheek, right over the mark the rope had left. When I’d squinted out over the camp, I’d seen with relief that the fence was still standing. However, with the exception of a few brave souls, the encampment had been empty and quiet. Briefly, I’d wondered where the horde king had gone, but soon, as another drop of frozen rain narrowly missed my eye, I’d been forced back inside.
So, instead, I’d paced the domed space, listening to the rain hammer down on the voliki.
Sometime in the afternoon, the rain seemed to lessen, but before I could explore outside, two Dakkari warriors were entering the tent with buckets of hot water.
One of the warriors I recognized. He’d been with me the night before, helping me secure the hides when the wind had ripped them up.
I smiled at him as they replaced the bath water, but then noticed that a third person had entered the tent, another familiar face.
“Oh,” I said. “You came!”
The seamstress, the mother of the young boy who I’d met earlier in the week, smiled and inclined her head in greeting.
“Lirilla,” she greeted with the familiar word. “I am glad to see you are well. My brother told me what happened last night, how you’d taken ill.”
My brow furrowed but when I watched the warrior from last night step closer, my lips parted in realization. “He’s your brother?”
“Lysi,” the warrior replied. “I am.”
I wondered what it was like to have a sibling and as I watched them exchange a look, I couldn’t help but feel a tad envious of their bond.
“Thank you,” I told him. “For staying with me last night, for helping me.”
My appreciation made him uncomfortable because his eyes darted to the floor of the voliki.
“It was nothing at all, kalles,” he said once his sister prodded him in the side. He looked back at the other lingering warrior near the threshold of the tent and inclined his head. Gruffly, he said, “We will leave you now. I am glad that you are well.”
Before I had the chance to say goodbye, he departed with the other warrior, leaving me alone with his sister, who I noticed had a heavy bundle of furs in her arms.
My pelt, I realized when she set it down on the rug and unwrapped it.
“I apologize for the delay, lirilla,” she said, shaking it out and presenting the pelt for me. It was white and heavy and thick. It was clean, spotless, and I’d never seen something so luxurious. “I also have another set of clothes for you.”
It took me a moment to realize she was eyeing the clothes I was presently wearing with interest.
When I looked down, I flushed, remembering that I was wearing the demon king’s clothes, considering my own set was still wet from the night before and drying by the fire. He’d given me a long, heavy tunic that reached my knees and a heavy pelt to help fight against the growing chill.
Even I knew what this looked like. I was a human female staying in a Dakkari horde king’s tent, sleeping in his bed, eating his food, and wearing his clothes.
Naturally, she would assume I was his whore so I said carefully, “The Vorakkar has been very kind letting me stay here while my own voliki is bui
lt.”
Although now I wasn’t certain I would get my own. Three volikis had been crushed last night during the winds and several more had been damaged. Surely my own would take last priority.
My lirilla gave me a small smile. It was kind, but I got the sense that it was just as careful as my tone had been.
“Volikis are easy to build,” she told me. “If the Vorakkar has ordered yours, then it will be ready soon. Now, how about you try these on and I will see if any adjustments need to be made.”
I did as she requested and tried on the new set. It was similar to my other one, consisting of long, fur-lined pants, a heavy tunic, and another sweater…in addition to the pelt that wrapped around my shoulders and covered my back.
The seamstress hummed and inspected everything thoroughly. “I will need to shorten the hides slightly. Perhaps you wish to bathe while I finish them.”
I nodded and took off the clothes. Strangely enough, I was getting used to being naked around the Dakkari. Between the healer, who’d helped me bathe, and the demon king last night, getting undressed in front of my lirilla seemed easy.
When I sank into the tub, I felt the heat wash over me and in the back of my mind, I heard that groan that the Vorakkar made whenever he slid inside his bath. It prickled my skin and I reached for the washing rag as a distraction.
When I looked over at the seamstress, she was already hard at work on the bottom hem of my pants.
“These are only for the cold season, obviously,” she said. “Once the frost leaves, I will make you other sets for the warmer months and for travel. Dresses and skirts. Prettier things.”
I stilled. Something in my chest warmed at her words, as if it was an obvious thing that I would remain there.
“I am only to remain during the cold season,” I said softly, remembering the horde king’s words, that he wouldn’t risk journeying back to my village during that time.
She looked up at me. “You miss your home and wish to return?”
I swallowed.
No, I thought. I had only been among the horde for a short while, but already, I felt like a weight had been lifted from me. During my time there, I hadn’t killed a single creature, I ate regularly and heartily, I was properly clothed and outfitted for the coming frost, and there was a prospect for…for a life beyond just trying to survive from one day to the next.