what Arokan said. That if I didn’t understand and accept the pyroki, I would never win over the horde. I wondered if it was possible when I felt this ball of fear lodged in my guy. I knew I would always have it.
Mirari and Lavi watched me from outside the pen. Mirari had apparently deemed grooming not as undignified as shoveling shit and hadn’t offered her help that day, not that I wanted it.
I had to do this. Not only for Arokan, but for myself.
Then the master left me with the pyroki, sauntering back to oversee Jriva, who still had the Shit Corner duty.
The brush felt like it weighed a hundred pounds in my palm as I slowly approached the beast. It made that awful groaning sound in its throat again and I took a deep breath, carefully catching the reins in my grip as the master had showed me, to keep the head steady.
I sensed movement out of the corner of my eye. When I turned my head, I saw Arokan, walking with the messenger and another Dakkari male. I hadn’t seen him since he came to bed last night, but our eyes connected and he stopped, breaking off his conversation to watch me.
He crossed his arms over his massive, golden chest and waited. The two others males noticed and watched me as well. Arokan cocked his head to the side as if saying ‘get on with it already.’
My jaw clenched. He was testing me, wanted to see if I would actually do it.
Indignation rose, briefly overlapping my fear. I set my shoulders back and tugged the pyroki’s head towards me with a pull of the reins, holding him steady. When he struggled, my muscles strained as I held him tight, fighting the panic as much as the creature.
Then I brought the brush down, running it across the scales, scraping off a speck of dried blood that had formed, trying not to think whose blood it was. Ghertun or Dakkari or pyroki.
The pyroki struggled again, making my breath hitch in fright and surprise, but I held him firm and whispered, “Stop. I’m not hurting you.”
The pyroki seemed surprised to hear my voice, stilling for a moment, tilting its head to the side.
“Trust me, you can do a whole lot of damage to me, more than I could ever hurt you.”
The pyroki blew out a harsh breath through its slitted nostrils, blowing snot to the ground.
“Gross,” I whispered without malice, my hand still trembling as I scrubbed the brush across its scales.
So, because it seemed to help, I continued to talk quietly to the beast as I brushed off the evidence of a battle. I told him about my village, about how cold the temperature was that day, about Arokan being almost as grumpy as the pyroki was, about Mirari and Lavi.
Hell, it helped me. It kept my mind off the fact that this beast towered over me, could easily crush me with its weight or kill me with a single snap of his powerful jaws. Talking to the pyroki somehow made the task at hand easier.
When I was finished scrubbing at the scales, I stepped back, dropping the reins. My feet carried me until there was a healthy distance between us and the pyroki eyed me before tossing its neck and then sauntering over to the trough of meat.
I squealed when I felt a cold nose brush the back of my neck and I wheeled around to see another pyroki had snuck up behind me. A curious one, a pyroki not claimed by a horde warrior, considering it had no golden paint flanking its hide.
I brought up my hands to him as I backed away again, this time going all the way to the fence of the enclosure. The pyroki followed and every step it took ricocheted my heartbeat.
“Alright,” I said to it. “That is close enough.”
“He will not harm you, kalles,” came Arokan’s voice, right behind me.
I whipped my head around, to see that he’d come up to the fence, was draping his arms over the metal, his tail flicking behind him.
“You don’t know that,” I said. “They are unpredictable.”
“Nik, they are not.”
I bit my tongue, turning my face to the side when it nudged against me, sniffing my cheek.
“Arokan,” I hissed, sliding closer towards him.
He caught me through the fence, holding me in place, even though I struggled to escape.
In my ear, he rasped, “You just groomed a pyroki, Luna. You can handle this one. Just stay