It was the day after they had returned from the village. Olyena had since organized all the goods they brought back with them, making a stack of thin pancakes, with butter and honey, this morning.
Unable to tear his gaze away from the drop of honey that glistened on her bottom lip, Raim shook his head.
“No. I don’t want to eat.”
“How can anyone look at all this food and not want any?” She licked the drop off, and he found himself wondering about its taste. “It must be nice never to feel hungry.” She sighed.
He quickly skimmed her contentment from the meal she just had. The emotion was pleasant but didn’t have the sweetness he craved.
“Oh, I am hungry.” His voice came out husky, prompting him to clear his throat. “Human food would do nothing to help me with that, though.”
“You are hungry?” She shoved away the empty plate, giving him a confused look.
“Ravenously,” he confessed.
Leaning across the small table, she stared at him, as if trying to read his emotions. “But not for the food I eat?”
“No.” He pondered for a moment whether or not to tell her the truth. The temptation to be honest and see what came out of that proved too strong. “I sustain myself by using the energy of emotions from humans.”
“How?” She frowned, though curiosity was still stronger in her than suspicion or fear, which he found encouraging.
“Like this.” He skimmed it, knowing that it would reflect bright blue in his gaze directed at her.
“The lights? They mean you’re feeding?” Understanding spread on her face, and he skimmed her satisfaction at that, too.
“Right.”
“Did you just take my emotions? Without even touching me?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” Her frown deepened. “I didn’t feel anything. It doesn’t harm me in any way, does it?”
“No. I skim your emotions moments after you emit them. There is no harm that way.”
For a few seconds she sat, staring at her hands folded on the table in front of her, probably thinking about his confession.
“I’ve been seeing these lights often of late.” She met his gaze again. “You have been feeding all this time. Yet you’re still hungry?”
“I have been feeding, but it’s not enough.” It was never enough. No matter what she would allow him to make her feel, the hunger would never leave, he knew that. Yet, the temptation to taste her desire gnawed at his insides almost as strong as the hunger itself.
“Well, can I help more, somehow?”
He scanned her emotions carefully, trying to assess how much he could tell her. After the trip to the village, her feelings for him had grown even warmer. The sense of comfort inside her shimmered peacefully in his company.
“For you to really help, I’ll need you to feel something else,” he ventured.
“Like what?”
He drew in a long breath. “Have you ever been touched, Olyena? By a man?”
Her contentment suddenly wavered and shrank. A dark shadow of pain and caution moved in inside her. “Why do you ask?”
Watching her emotions change, Raim felt something inside him drop, too. He loved the taste of the warm glow of comfort in her. Watching it vanish unsettled him more than he could have expected.
“You didn’t enjoy his touch.” He guessed the reason for her reaction.
Instead of replying, Olyena got up and started cleaning the dishes off the table.
“It can be done better,” he rushed to assure her. “Much better.”
She washed her plate, then put away the honey and butter—all without saying a single word. The darkness inside her thickened. Raim assumed her memories must be plunging her into sadness now. He wasn’t sure what was the best way to clear the dark feelings away, but he longed for the return of that glow of comfort they had shared before.
“Who was he?” he asked, choosing the most direct way to purge it out of her—by lancing it with his question to expose and drain the pain and the darkness it brought.
“Does it matter?” She wiped her hands on her skirt. Gripping the back of the chair, she leaned on it, avoiding eye contact.
The uneven flutter of her emotions, like the wings of a wounded bird, made his insides twist. Shoving his chair back, he got up and closed the distance between them in one wide stride. Snapped from the darkness of her memories, Olyena recoiled at his sudden approach, but he caught her by her shoulders.
“It can be different.” He held her gaze with his, trying to put the conviction he felt into his words. “Better. Truly enjoyable.”
She tried to look away, but he made sure to hold her body and her attention firmly.
“Olyena. I can touch you the way a woman was meant to be touched.”
Her eyes widened, chest rising faster. Then she shifted in his arms, pushing him away. “You’re squeezing too tight, Raim,” she snapped. “Right now, your touch hurts.”
“I won’t then.” Hands up in a pacifying gesture, he retreated to the bed and sat down on the thin, straw-filled mattress. “I’m not going to touch you at all,” he spoke carefully, afraid to drive her further away. “Let me just tell you what I would do if you allowed me to get close.”
She remained standing by the chair, one hand resting on its back, but her body seemed to relax with the physical distance he had put between them.
“Tell me?” The dark turmoil inside her quieted a little under her undying curiosity, and Raim used the moment to proceed.
“If you ever let me touch you,” he started. “I would be gentle.” He kept her changing emotions in sight, gauging her reaction to his words.
It was different from feeding by touch, but not that much. He watched carefully what words would cause the most positive feeling in her, then built from there. “First, I’d brush the side of your face with the back of my fingers.”
“Why the back?” She tilted her head as her interest flared.
“Because my palms are rough, calloused from every-day use. Right here . . .” he slid the tips of his left-hand fingers along the back of the ones on the right, “the skin is softer.”
She followed his gesture with her gaze, her dark eyes glistening in the dim interior of the cabin.
“Then I would caress the side of your neck,” he continued, not taking his focus off her emotions. “Most human men probably don’t know it, but a woman’s neck is a very sensitive part of her body—one of my favourite spots to touch, lick, and taste . . .”
He didn’t remember the last time he actually physically touched a woman, if ever. His most intimate encounters with them happened when he furtively invaded their dreams to feed.
But he knew how he would touch Olyena if he was given that chance. He had always known.
Raim swallowed hard, as if he could already taste her skin—right there, in the soft spot between her neck and her shoulder where her sweet, feminine scent would be most intense.
“And then?” Olyena’s throat moved with a swallow. Letting go of the chair’s back, she plopped into it.
“Then I would kiss it,” he half-whispered, bringing his voice down. “Right here.” Lifting his hand, he touched his own neck, and she mirrored his gesture, stroking hers in exactly the same spot. Her eyes glazed over a bit.
“Because your lips are even softer than your fingers,” she murmured.
“Exactly. I would stroke your arms, too. Right here.” He tugged up the sleeve of his tunic, brushing his hand along the inside of his elbow and forearm. “And I know you would enjoy it—a woman’s skin here is soft, silky, and extremely sensitive.”
A small shudder ran across her shoulders as the warmest shade of orange flickered deep inside her. She rubbed her upper arm with her hand.
“You’d like my lips there even more,” he rushed, eager to fan that tiny glow in her into something bigger. Sliding his gaze along her face, he paused it on her mouth, momentarily losing the trail of his thoughts.
Her lips pa
rted. The bottom one, plump and fresh, teased him, tempting.
“Then I would want to kiss your mouth, too.”
At his words, she pressed her hand to her lips.
“I’d suck your bottom lip between mine,” he kept going, words rushing faster and faster out of him as his craving for her arousal grew. The more he got, the more he needed. “I’d taste you inside and out while I shove that linen shirt off your shoulders and take your breasts in my hands. Your nipples would be tender at first, the skin around them silky like rose petals, but they will grow hard under my fingers—tight and round—”
With a shuddered inhale, Olyena gasped, wrapping her arms around her, then jumped out of the chair, shoving it back with a screeching noise.
“Stop it.” She stared at him wildly. The orange glow inside her was now streaked with blood-red. “No.”
She dashed for the door.
“Olyena, wait!” He jumped off the bed.
“Don’t follow me!” she yelled on her way out. “Don’t you dare follow me!” She shut the door loudly, leaving him standing in the middle of the cabin.
Alone.
Chapter 11
LIFTING A LOG, RAIM fitted it over the one he had already placed, bringing the wall of the new chicken coup higher.
In a clipped voice and avoiding eye contact, Olyena had explained to him how she wanted it built before she left for the day.
‘To check the traps,’ she told him.
Although, with the food they had brought from the village a couple of days ago, she could very well have taken a break from trapping, hunting, and foraging in the woods for something to eat.
In his head, Raim went over the last real conversation they had—the day when he unleashed his fantasy in front of her—and wondered if he should have kept his mouth shut, instead.
Olyena had not been the same since. She talked little and wouldn’t look him in the eye. What was worse, the warm glow of comfort he had grown to love in her had turned to grim tension whenever Raim was near now. The only thing that still gave him hope was a faint glimmer of red trying to break through the cloud of tension inside her. He was confident he could grow it into something more, something spectacular, if only she ever let him come close enough.
Making sure the log was secure, Raim picked up the axe and proceeded to clean the branches off another one. These logs were narrow and dense, cut from younger trees on the edge of the clearing. The way Olyena had designed it, the new chicken coup was to be constructed as a lean-to against the side of her cabin. She meant for it to be a place for the chickens to spend the day, but Raim had collected enough material to construct taller walls and a roof, too. This way the damn chickens could move out of the cabin and into their own place permanently. Since more of them had been brought from the village, there was hardly any place left for Olyena and him now.
Olyena and he.
Something warm and pleasant rose in his chest unexpectedly—Raim realized he liked the thought of them together like that.
Working with his hands, creating something he never would be able to had she not provided him with a design, also brought a sense of satisfaction he had never experienced before.
“This looks good.” Olyena’s soft voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
“Thank you.” He pivoted on his heel to face her coming from behind the trees, a dead rabbit in her hands.
A swell of pleasure warmed his chest at the sight of her, or maybe it was the resonance of her pleasure he had skimmed as she approached.
“We’ll have a stew tonight.” She lifted the game up for him to see. “Well, I will. You’ll just . . . watch me eat,” she added grimly, moving her gaze away quickly. It landed on the partially-completed chicken coup again. “It’s bigger than I expected.” She pointed at the newly-constructed wall.
“I figured I’d enclose it from all sides, so the fox wouldn’t get in at night.”
“You want them to stay in there overnight?”
“Yes, starting today, actually. I really prefer not to spend another night with the birds running all over me.”
She smiled. “They sleep at night, they don’t run. Well, maybe a little, early in the morning.”
“Even ‘a little’ is more than I’m willing to put up with.” He lifted the panel he had put together from the split logs and placed it on top of the walls. “This is the roof, see? I’ll attach it temporarily for tonight, but I’ll have to firm it up tomorrow. There is not enough daylight left to finish it properly today.”
“You got a lot done, Raim. You have basically built the whole thing in one day.”
“I don’t get tired,” he reminded. “Don’t need to take meal breaks, either.”
“About that . . .” She placed the rabbit on the pile of logs then sat on a cut tree stump nearby. “I shall tell you. I don’t think I want to feel the things you need me to feel in order to feed you.”
Sharp pang of disappointment cut through him at the prospect of losing any chance to coax out the desire he had glimpsed in her. After getting that one tiny tease of a taste of her arousal, he had been fantasizing about more ever since.
“You don’t have to feed me that way, Olyena.” He hid his disappointment, keeping busy by securing the roof over the chicken coup and making sure it would stay put for the night.
The dark trepidation in her worried him.
“I would love to. I really would,” she said, and the longing in her voice squeezed around his heart.
On one hand, he yearned to make her feel all the wonderful things he knew he could create for her. It physically pained him that fear prevented her from unleashing her desire. He knew how much pleasure women were capable of feeling, and he wanted that experience for Olyena.
At the same time, he knew well enough that emotions like that could not be rushed or forced.
That must have been the problem—someone obviously had forced that on her before, scarring her for life now.
“. . .but I don’t think I could.” She stared at the ground between her feet.
“Tell me,” he prompted, holding his breath in anticipation.
For one long moment, it seemed she would push him away, once again.
Then she actually started speaking.
“There were three of them,” she kept her gaze down. “They were hunting in the woods, further north from here.” She waved her hand in that direction. “I tried to hide, but it was too late. They spotted me through the trees. I ran, but they caught me . . .”
The raw pain spilling in a muddy gush out of her made his breath hitch. His chest filled with an emotion he had hardly ever felt before—compassion.
Then the much more familiar rage stirred.
“What did they do?” Aggression rose to the surface, demanding action from him. His fingers twitched, itching to snap the necks of her abusers. “Who were they?”
She glanced up at him. “You are a good man, Raim—probably because you are not a man. Most people I know are not nice at all, and only a handful are tolerable.”
The gravity in her voice, her grim expression—both seemed too dark and heavy for her age. His rage fizzled under his concern for her, which felt more important at the moment. Instead of murdering someone, more than anything in the world he longed to ease her pain.
He wished he knew more about how to give comfort, but he tried anyway.
“Forget about them,” he said, even as he guessed that forgetting probably wouldn’t be easy. “They are not worth any of this, sweetheart.” Kneeling in front of her, he smoothed her long hair out of her face then brushed away a tiny little tear dangling off her lower eyelid. “They have no idea, no understanding at all.”
He wondered how the males of her own species could have so little knowledge about their own females. True, they didn’t rely on a woman’s sexual energy to feed. Was that why most of them remained utterly ignorant about the many ways to bring their women pleasure?
Staring at the hurricane of pain churning in Olye
na’s eyes, Raim wished to make her feel better, to help her forget what she didn’t want to remember.
She touched lightly the deep, healing scars criss-crossing his face, the focus of her expression sharpening. “You were very handsome, Raim, before this injury, I can tell now. Even with the scars . . .” Her voice trailed off as her fingers continued to explore his face, first tracing the puckered, healing skin of his wounds, then touching his temple, and skimming the line of his jaw covered by a several-days-old beard. “You also make me feel . . . so many different things. But fear is no longer one of them. When you’re here, I’m not afraid. And I really don’t remember a day in my life when I wasn’t scared of something or someone before you came along.”
A shimmering haze rose deep inside her, and he stilled, afraid that even the slightest movement would spook it away like a fleeing butterfly.
Her gaze stopped on his mouth as she lightly brushed his bottom lip with the pad of her thumb.
“Not all touch has to be painful,” she whispered, almost to herself. “That’s what you said, right?”
“Right,” he exhaled, swaying closer to her.
“How do I know it won’t turn that way? Even if it starts gentle?”
“Because I give you my promise.”
“Why would you?”
“Because I would hate to see you hurt.”
“Why do you care?”
“I have no idea.”
That was true. Raim didn’t know exactly the reasons for this new tenderness he had for Olyena. No human had ever caused him to feel that way. But then again, she was the only human he had ever allowed to come close, and not just physically. She had been his sole source of nourishment for over a week now. Her emotions had been his all this time. Any pain felt by her seemed to now have the ability to hurt him deeply, too.
“What I do know is that I’d rather lose my only eye than harm you in any way,” he said sincerely.
A tiny smile curved her lips, bringing his focus to her mouth.
“You have no idea how good that sounds.” She inhaled deeply, then said softly, “Put your hands behind your belt.”
The Last Unforgiven: Cursed Page 6