Oath of the Alpha - Eva Dresden Page 0,81
of their bedding each night when they stopped to erect the tents. It was the latter that grated her nerves the most—the piles of cushions and blankets bunched in roughshod hills that swerved and leaned in precarious contemplation of their bed, his tight embrace keeping her staring at the aggravating lines of it all. Her fingers itched to do something with it, but she did not know what. She wanted to destroy it, fling it to the farthest reaches of their small canvas world, or perhaps set it right in a fashion far more pleasing to the eye.
As she sat caged in by crates within the cart, the same gnawing itch came to her. It had her plucking at the thick furs, tugging and shoving them into some other shape, over and again. None of it right, each disastrous shape was more displeasing than the last.
Just as she felt the exasperated scream clawing at her throat, Er’it came. Swooping down to pluck her from the cart, he draped Aida over his knees with her furry prison intact. Keeping her bundled against the frozen wind, arm an iron brace across her chest, he forced the purr deep into her bones.
It was in these moments that whatever barriers she clung to disintegrated. Struggling with the pelts and his embrace, she squirmed around until she faced him and was able to curl into his chest, nuzzling the musky warmth of his neck through the heavy wools until she found the patch of skin she sought. Chilled nose pressed against him, she breathed his scent in as her low hum twined with his coarse rumbling.
Hours passed like that, with Aida’s bones melting into the resonating heat of him. His touch alone quieted that nagging itch and the strange flutter low in her belly. His scent soothed something ragged within her, that damned purr of his pushing away all the tension wracking her body.
She couldn’t bother to rouse much at all when he pressed the waterskin to her lips, though she shivered as the icy liquid trickled down her throat. Her grunt of dismay as the cold sluiced through her in an unexpected rush brought his head down, the purr louder than before as he tugged the furs higher around her chin.
“We break,” he shouted into the wind, the words snapped away on a wave of sleet while thunder rumbled in the far distance.
“A storm comes, King Er’it,” one of the Elders called back, hurrying forward to jog alongside Kal’s long strides. “There are caves not far where we can take shelter if it is to be a bad one.”
“How far?” Ath’asho asked, tugging his massive bay close to Er’it’s side to drive the man back.
“A league, no more,” the Elder said, rosy cheeks plumped with his smile above the bold swath of an orange muffler.
Aida groaned against Er’it, hiding away from the watchful russet of the Elder’s gaze. Lesshin his name was, and Aida had thought him kind and generous before, but now he only made her skin crawl with the eager expectation lingering deep in his hooded eyes.
Er’it’s purr stopped, the empty space where it had been as cold as the shrieking ice around them. Ath’asho acted before Er’it could, the jingle of his horse’s tack loud over the oncoming storm as he pushed the Elder farther away, all the while shouting at the man about paths and directions. None of it made sense to Aida as the purr returned in force.
Darkness descended, swallowing the pale sun with stormy clouds and stinging ice. Aida whined low in her throat as the hours seemed to stretch on forever. The wide road, the villagers, even the bray of beasts scoured her senses into a mangled heap. Clinging to Er’it’s heavy layers, she tried to meld into the peaceful resonance and become one with it.
The cold pierced through the burdensome furs, freezing her hands and toes in a welcome distraction from the growing turmoil centered low in her hips. A nagging itch that whispered to be appeased, it crawled up her limbs, coiling around her middle in constricting rings that made her shiver. There was no end in sight. Chattering teeth caught hold of the thick wool of Er’it’s cloak, her pained whimper lost in the howling winds as he tried to protect her from the growing storm. He had no notion she had little concern for the encroaching blizzard beyond its ability to stop the maddening urge inside her.
Aida felt as if her body was