they wisely backed away from the alley and their footsteps faded, their voices retreating.
He…shielded me from them? I wondered, my wild gaze tracking up to his face. Those red, darkened orbs were on me. My gulp was audible, cutting the quiet between us like a blade, the space that had once been charged with pinpricks of energy. I was tempted to press into his mind again, if only to try to persuade him to let me go.
“Why are you here?” he rasped, his voice slithering down to me. I was on edge. The darkness, the madness, the unraveled and strangled emotions I felt burning from him were carefully concealed under the even, stoic mask of his face.
What else is he hiding then?
“I—” I paused. Could he help me? “I have come to speak with the king.”
His head tilted. His dark grin was disarming, his sharp teeth flashing in the low light.
“The Dothikkar cares not for the problems of the vekkiri. Try your luck elsewhere, kalles. Perhaps one of the hordes or the horde outposts.”
The horde outposts?
His words seemed to amuse him.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him this was not about humans. This was about the Ghertun.
“Will you let me go now?” I asked, swallowing.
“Nik,” he murmured. “You feel good right here.”
Goosebumps broke out over my flesh. His voice had dropped low, making my ears twitch.
Holding my breath, I chanced a peek up at him. Maxen, my eldest brother, had always told me to never break a male’s gaze if they threatened me. My sister had needed to use that advice more often than I, but I remembered it now. He’d also taught me how to wield a weapon but I’d always been clumsy and unsure with it. Not that I had a weapon.
Well, except one, but it is unpredictable at best, I thought.
If he forced himself on me, I would have to use my gift, after all. The pain afterwards wouldn’t matter.
His claws trailed down the column of my neck. He judged my reaction, his face remaining impassive, those red eyes flickering back and forth between mine.
I gathered up the energy, imagining it filling the space between our breaths. It tickled my flesh and gently, so gently, I pressed forward. A warning. A necessary preparation.
His expression shifted as if he could feel the strange sensation, though I knew it was impossible.
“You struck me.”
His tone was soft but his accent morphed the words into a warning all his own.
“You frightened me,” I accused. With my power at the ready, my tongue loosened. My power made me feel confident but it came at a price.
“I was searching for weapons,” he told me. With a soft growl, low in his throat, he finished, “I found a gift instead.”
My shoulders tightened. Underneath my cloak, I wore the nearly transparent shift that all the Ghertun’s female servants wore. It had shamed me deeply in the beginning but I’d grown so used to it now that I’d almost forgotten it entirely.
“I am human,” I said, grasping for the words. Surely the Dakkari didn’t lay with vekkiri.
Or were the rumors true? I wondered. There were whisperings that there were human queens among the hordes, whisperings that had even reached under the Dead Mountain.
My heart was throbbing, thrashing around like a wounded animal in my chest. When the Dakkari male leaned forward, he pressed his nose just underneath my jaw, inhaling deeply.
My spine tingled as his breath whistled in my ears. My eyelids fluttered and I frowned, confused, shamed by my reaction.
He grunted. “You smell like rotting flesh.” My eyes snapped open. His fingers snagged a strand of my hair, rubbing it between his fingers. They came away dark and his eyes narrowed. “What is this?”
Filth from the stream.
Our eyes locked. Through the rushing of blood in my ears, I heard the quietness of the alleyway. I heard the steady rise and fall of his breaths. I heard a gust of wind whistle down the empty street I’d stumbled upon. I heard something small scurry along the wall opposite us.
We continued to stare. I had the strangest feeling of calmness, the longer I looked up at the frightening, intimidating sight he made.
“Will you hurt me?” I asked quietly.
A slow blink. “Nik.”
“Will…” I swallowed. “Will you rape me?”
The reaction that rippled through his body was shocking. A flash of anger, of rage, came, so potent that I didn’t even need to reach forward into his mind to feel it. It filled the space around