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“With me, you have some relative freedom,” he continued. “Your time is your own except for those times when my need calls to you. The inconvenience is a small sacrifice for such pleasure that we both derive from our breeding. It is an agreeable arrangement for however long it pleases me to keep you here, and it isn’t required to be anything more.”
“Breeding?” she squawked in alarm. “Who said anything about breeding? I can’t be pregnant! This is my first hunt away from home. I can’t possibly…”
“Calm yourself,” he sighed, with a hint of disdain evident in his voice. “It is merely an expression. Manticores are even slower than most to breed, mostly because we are largely solitary due to our territorial natures, but that does not mean that we do not have our desires. A male can control his fertility. The last thing I would desire to do is sire cubs on a female who has not proven herself as a worthy mate suited to my fire.”
Her curiosity piqued; Abby was dying to ask him what that meant. On the other hand, she really didn’t want to get drawn into a conversation about mating. It certainly seemed that he intended this to be a temporary arrangement to scratch some sort of itch for the time being. There was no reason to get him thinking even remotely in the sense of long term. She might not be able to escape him, and he was every bit confident of his ability to keep her there, but he wasn’t thinking of keeping her either, which was good news compared to the alternative. At least, until she could find a way to escape without him noticing.
She eyed him for a long moment and huffed irritably. “Seeing how your books are all in another language, how is it you speak northern common so well, anyway?”
He glanced up at her, a mocking expression fleetingly appearing on his face. “I educate myself,” he replied drily. “You may want to try it.”
Abby’s face burned with a blush. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly the most studious outside of tracking and weaponry. She had barely been able to sit still long enough to learn the few spells she knew—much to her mother’s disappointment. She enjoyed reading stories of adventure and danger, but studying was just dull as hell and all the untapped magical gifts she inherited from her mother would not make a sorceress out of her.
“I know enough of what I need to do,” she muttered.
“But not enough to be prepared and fully informed when venturing into a new land with a language that you do not know,” he replied, his attention once again returning to his damned book. “It is a miracle you were not swindled and left dead in a pit somewhere long before arriving here.”
She winced. Perhaps she had run off a little half-cocked, but while Zayman had been a ruthless and relentless prick, he had also been convincing. She had been confident that she could get in, get the job done, and get out with little fuss. The promise of a guide had made it all seem so simple. She had thought nothing of the way her guide and his companions chattered quietly around her, or even the way some of the men had stared at her. It had been annoying, but she hadn’t been afraid. Now, however, she felt a chill of apprehension. They could have plotted anything, and she never would have known. Would she have even made it back if she had succeeded in killing the manticore? She wasn’t so sure now. She suddenly felt very vulnerable without having a basic comprehension of her father’s tongue. Why hadn’t she made more of an effort to learn it?
Probably because she had never planned to venture into the deserts. The far reaches of the northern lands had more than enough work to keep her family in business for generations yet.
Abby swallowed and cast a covert glance at Samir’s book. “Do you… do you think you might teach me?”
His hand paused mid-page turn and his green eyes lifted. He regarded her with a blank expression for a long moment, but then his ear flicked and his head cocked in a faint expression of puzzlement.
“You wish to learn?” he drawled skeptically. “It is not necessary if you are merely bored. I can find the books I have in northern common rather than waste both of our time with the tedious task of teaching you.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping the first insult that came to mind. Acting on her wounded pride wouldn’t get her anywhere. Truthfully, she was a little shocked and more than a little grateful that he appeared to be seriously considering it. If nothing else, teaching her the local language would give her a tool that she could use to her advantage. He had to know that, but was still willing.
“I would really like to. Honestly, part of it is boredom,” she admitted, “but I’m also feeling at a huge disadvantage here in ways that I hadn’t considered.”
He inclined his head as he thoughtfully closed his book and set it on the table between them. “It is a foolish amount of trust to put in someone.” He hesitated, his eyes narrowing on her. “And you would trust my instruction?”
Abby shrugged. “Sure. I can’t see you wasting time teaching me gibberish that I can’t use. I suppose you might even enjoy having a companion who could read and discuss these books with you,” she added, gesturing around her. “That is, if you have any compelling stories and it’s just a pile of academic tomes.”
His soft chuckle in response surprised her and sent a strange flutter in her heart. Something very small in his expression shifted and softened, and he nodded.
“Very well, Abby, we will begin with some children’s tales, I think. It will help you learn some rudimentary words and grammar as these are written for young children. I had kept the book to teach my own cubs when the day came. You will find the book on the first shelf near the hearth. It is small and thick; you cannot miss it.”
Nodding, Abby rose eagerly from her chair and went to the specified bookshelf. Just as he said, there was a book smaller than the rest, but there was no printed lettering or any other professional detailing to it. In fact, it looked almost hand bound. Curious, she flipped it open to find each page scrawled with elegant, sweeping foreign calligraphy beside beautifully illustrated pages painted with what appeared to be some sort of quality water-color work. She ran her fingertip over the illustration of a manticore, admiring the beauty of the lines and the saturation of the pigment.
“This is beautiful,” she murmured as she brought the book back to Samir.
The male glanced away in embarrassment. “It is satisfactory enough,” he replied and gestured for her to sit.
She looked over at him in surprise. “Did you make this book?”
His ears twisted back and flattened with discomfort. “It is nothing. Now, are you ready to begin or do you wish to delay your study to pelt me with your endless questions? If you are not serious about this, I will be happy to go back to my own reading.”
“No, no, please, let’s begin,“ she said urgently, suddenly excited to delve into the book. A book created by a monster was such a novelty. She didn’t think anyone among the hunter’s guild had even heard of such a thing before.
With the book spread between them, Samir’s deep voice filled the cavern as his fingers traced over the markings, drawing her into a world she barely remembered as a small child and her father’s deep voice murmuring to her in his native tongue. The words rolled beautifully off Samir’s tongue, some of them with a resonating purring sound that she knew was distinct to him. The words slowly came to life as he went over each of them. More than once, her eyes rose to him to watch the play of shadows and firelight over his powerful features as he spoke. How strange that she found this image far nobler than those of any man she’d known? It wasn’t because he had some great intrinsic kindness that shined through. She had known many kind people and hadn’t found them the least bit compelling—and Samir wasn’t exactly what she would call kind, anyway. But there was a quality to him that seemed larger than life and yet intimately close to her at the same time as she attentively listened.
Abby’s gazelifted from the page where she was practicing writing the simple sentences Samir had taught her and frowned at the tea as he poured it into the cups. Lifting her own cup, she gave the oddly dark liquid a delicate sniff and grimaced. “I think there is something wrong with the tea.”
“That’s because it is not tea. It’s coffee. A very good quality coffee that is highly prized in this region,” he replied with a faint purr to his voice. “I just recently acquired a fresh batch while you were sleeping.”
Her brows dipped lower as her eyes lifted from the dark, steaming liquid to squint up at the manticore. “Recently acquired? How…?” She groaned and set the cup down before lowering her head into her hands. “Please tell me you didn’t raid a passing merchant caravan.”
