His eyes flickered back and forth between mine. “I am listening.”
My grin widened.
Chapter Sixteen
When I woke, I was cradled against the horde king’s chest, draped across his lap. The familiar rocking motion told me we were once again on his pyroki…and it was nearing nightfall.
How long have I been asleep? I wondered.
My vision was back to normal but I still had the remnants of a headache, lingering behind my eyes.
“You finally wake,” came his voice, ragged and deep.
My cheek was pressed to the fur cloak he’d draped around himself and I kept my head there, not wanting to move too much. Instead, I flexed my feet, wiggling my toes in the boots he’d given me.
“What…what happened?” I asked softly.
“You collapsed,” he informed me, as if I didn’t realize that already. “You have been asleep.”
“How long?” I whispered, fearing his answer.
He hesitated. “Two days.”
I closed my eyes briefly. More lost time.
Two days?
“What happened with the Killup?”
His arm tightened at my back.
“You...you didn’t hurt them, right?”
“Nik, I did not,” was all he said. Relief whistled through me and I huffed out a soft breath. “You care deeply for beings beyond yourself. Why is that?”
His words surprised me. I swallowed, reaching out to trail my fingers over the pyroki’s neck, though she tossed her head at my touch. My lips almost quirked. She still didn’t like me but she obviously felt better after her injury.
“They didn’t want to hurt us.”
“How could you be so certain?” he asked, his tone deceptively…casual. “Would you have bet your life on it?”
Those black threads through his red eyes seemed to waver when I looked back at him. “Yes,” I said easily, ignoring his first question.
“What injured you so that you needed to sleep for two days?” he asked next, his tone gruffer.
He was pushing for information. No one outside of my family knew for certain what I could do. And they would never tell a soul. Even I recognized that what I could do was powerful, though it came at a cost.
Did he suspect something?
“I…” I licked my dry lips but I didn’t feel thirsty. Had he been giving me water? “I get bad headaches sometimes. I’ve had them since I was born,” I told him. Not a complete lie but certainly not the complete truth.
His eyes flickered over my face. I was all at once very aware how close we were and in the next moment, I remembered something else. That night in the forest…watching him in the darkness, feeling his heat against me, before the Killup had come.
My cheeks burned and I looked away.
All he said in reply was, “I will find out all your secrets soon enough.”
His tone was like a caress, his voice soft and husky. His words were a threat and yet, he’d made them sound like a sensual promise.
I shivered in his arms, much to my embarrassment.
“What happened to the Killup?” I asked again.
“They fled when you fell,” he told me.
At least no one died. That much I could be thankful for.
“There are Killup under the Dead Mountain,” I murmured. “Also slaves.”
“Do you speak to them?” he asked. “Know them?”
“No,” I said, watching the rise and fall of his chest. His warmth seeped into me and though I’d just slept for two days, I felt like I could close my eyes again. “We aren’t allowed. But I fell once while I was delivering something to another sibi. I’d been awake all night and was weak. Their Killup helped me up, though she was punished for it. She didn’t have to but she helped me.”
My voice sounded far away as anguish made my chest burn. They’d beat her for touching me and I’d stood there trying not to cry. My sibi had very rarely punished me but that Killup had had dark bruises running all along her grey flesh. It made me sick to think about. I never saw her again. Afterwards, it had always shamed me that I hadn’t tried to help her, even if I would’ve been punished too. It haunted me that I’d only stood there, silently. Like a coward.
“Sibi?” he asked quietly.
“A household,” I murmured, still thinking of the Killup. “Higher class sibi have slaves.”
He made a huffing sound deep in his throat but before I could curse myself for telling him something like that, he asked, “Are you hungry?”
I angled my gaze up at him, frowning. “You aren’t going to interrogate me on sibi?”