were still dripping. When my gaze dropped, I saw her nipples were still pebbled.
My mouth watered.
Vok, she was…exquisite.
“As long as you are with me, you sleep beside me,” I murmured when she hesitated again.
She slipped under the furs and my tail reached out, wrapping around her calf, pulling her closer.
Despite moments ago, when I’d felt relieved to see the evidence of her fear, I still…needed her close to me. I didn’t understand it. But I was too exhausted to care right then.
Rolling towards her, I clasped her tight, tucking her into my body. Her wet hair pressed into my shoulder. My cock was nestled between us, throbbing against her soft belly.
Vok, it felt right.
So damn right, to hold her like this. I remembered the way I’d reacted to her when she’d been led into the Dothikkar’s great hall. That undeniable drive to protect her, as if I was meant for it.
I’d wanted to protect her as certainly as I’d wanted her to surrender to me. Now, I wondered if I craved being conquered in return.
“Veekor,” I ordered, my arms tightening around her. I felt her warm breath across my chest and my eyes closed. “Sleep, leikavi.”
I woke in a cold sweat, my heart hammering against my bones, sucking in breath.
Movement came at my right. Something warm.
My tensed muscles relaxed when I saw Vienne, sleeping. She shifted, tossing her head. I wondered if she too had nightmares.
Sitting up, I scrubbed a hand down my face before my claw drifted over the deep scar on my cheek. It throbbed, like the mere memory of how I’d received it had gotten the nerve endings firing again. Icy hot pain. Blood filling my vision, making everything dark.
My sister, her eyes open and unseeing, her dress around her waist, blood bubbling from her mouth.
A shuddered breath released from my lungs and bile rose in my throat.
Squeezing my eyes shut didn’t help. I could never get that image out of my mind once it returned. I growled, curling my fist and then hitting my temple. Over and over again until the pain bloomed, until I could think of something other than that night, the night everyone I loved had been taken from me. A senseless crime.
When I felt calmer, when I relished the throbbing pain at my temple, I looked back at the kalles in my furs.
She shifted again. Her legs kicked, her lips parted.
My heart slowed the longer I looked at her. And when I brushed a hand through her dry hair, when I lay back down next to her, pulling her close once more? I felt like I could actually breathe again as I drew her scent deep.
I closed my eyes, knowing I needed a full night of rest, though I didn’t remember the last time I’d had it.
“Davik.”
My eyes flashed open and I froze.
I listened, wondering if I was seeing things, hearing things again that weren’t there.
“Davik.”
A rough breath tore from my lungs.
Nik. No spirits this time.
It had come from Vienne.
My name was on her lips, in her dreams…
It was a name she should not know. A name I hadn’t heard since my sister’s death. A name I had never given her, though she’d given me hers on our first meeting.
My blood turned to ice in my veins. My temple pounded harder.
For the first time, I wondered if the Dothikkar had been right.
If this white-haired beauty was a sorceress…come to destroy us all.
“Davik!”
Chapter Twenty
“Davik!” she cried out. He could hear her voice but the ungira in front of him was coiling to strike, tightening its thickly corded muscles.
Devina, his sister, was crying, tears streaked down her face. He could almost feel her fear but he would be brave for her. Lomma would be proud if he was brave. So would their father, though he was out on a hunt, and wouldn’t return to the horde for another week. It was his duty to protect his family.
The ungira had come too close to the horde. The Vorakkar and a large portion of the darukkars, his father included, were absent. Davik had found the slithering beast, who made its home burrowed in the ground, while they’d been out exploring.
Now, it was targeting them. His sister was in danger. He was in danger. The horde was too far away to call for help. All he had was a makeshift blade he’d crafted from sharp stone. It had taken him all week and he’d been excited to show his father when he returned.