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It’s the first time I’ve ever admitted this aloud, and he looks shocked. ‘Varrik? How?’
I wince at the disbelief in his voice that he probably doesn’t even know is there. Even now, Varrik holds Kal’s loyalty, and he’ll find a way to explain everything away. But I tell him anyway because I've never told anyone else.
‘We were from the Light Realm,’ I begin. ‘It was just me and him. I don’t even remember why he’d brought us to the Dark Realms in the first place.’
‘Seems an odd thing for a father to have done, bringing his human daughter to such a dangerous place,’ Kallum remarks.
I shrug, shifting in the bed. ‘Maybe he did tell me, and I’ve forgotten now. Anyway, we were camped by a river with some others. I think we were pretending to be fae because he made me cover my ears with his hat whenever anyone else was near. We’d only come through the Breach the day before.’
I close my eyes, smiling a little as I see my da’s face.
‘Late that night, the bank flooded,’ I tell him. ‘Everyone was scrambling to escape it, climbing the trees and trying to outrun the water, but it rose so quickly … it was above my head before I could do anything but grasp my da’s hand; he pushed me up into a tree and told me to hold on, but before he could follow, he was swept away. I never saw him again.’
I close my eyes to keep the tears in. ‘I was there all night. I didn’t realize until morning that the water had receded and that I was the only one left. I was stuck in the tree because I was so high. I screamed for help, and Varrik and his men found me. I thought he’d saved me. He brought me to the keep, said I could live there, and that I’d make new friends. At first, he was nice.’
Kal squeezes my hand. ‘But I don’t understand. How was it Varrik? If it was just a flood …’
‘It wasn’t what it seemed,’ I say, pulling away from him. ‘Grith got drunk one night and told me the truth, that Varrik had ordered one of his skilled to cause the flood. They were camped nearby.’ I look away to hide the fury I still feel. ‘They were bored. So they used the flood to scatter us, and then he and his men made a game of picking off the survivors one by one until I was the last.’
Kal’s brow furrows. ‘Why didn’t they kill you as well?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he saw what I’d be once I drank the black vial.’
Kallum leans back a little, his eyes not leaving me. He takes me in, boring into me the way he seems to do when we’re alone.
‘I didn’t know it was different for you,’ he says finally. ‘I’m sorry about your da.’
I give him a wan smile, noticing that he doesn’t condemn his idol but grateful that his first words to me after my story aren’t that I’m a liar, which I was half expecting.
He leans forward and presses his lips to mine, his hand grasping my jaw gently.
I pull away. ‘Let me finish.’
He nods.
‘The flowers,’ I say. ‘They were everything to me, Kallum. For a long time, they were the only thing. The only thing that was good and I thought …’ I let out a hard breath. ‘I thought that if the gods were letting someone give them to me, that I must deserve them like I did everything else, and maybe that meant that I wasn’t all bad.’
I shut my eyes as I continue, wanting him to understand how important his actions were.
‘Every single one I found, I hung under my bed to dry, and then I’d put it in a drawer. Sometimes, when things were … worse than usual, I’d open it and look at them, and they’d make me remember that someone had left them for me, that someone thought of me.’
My shoulders fall as I remember what happened to them. ‘Grith found them all one day when he was angry with me and threw every single one into the fire. I cried for days afterward.’
I glance at Kal and squeak as he suddenly surges forward, kissing me hard and clutching me to him.
It feels like the storm that was inside of me has blown itself out, and I find myself kissing him back hungrily, feeling his hands unbuttoning my tunic and delving under my shirt. His fingers brush against my nipples and make me moan under him. He kneads my breasts and pinches them. He teases me until I’m moving restlessly under him, yearning for more. Then, he deftly unbuttons my trousers and pulls them down. He rips them off and throws them to the floor before he’s between my thighs, pushing my knees apart. I gape at him as his face descends between my legs, yelping and bucking as he licks my slit from end to end. He grins and parts my folds, his long tongue plunging into my channel before licking me in long, lazy strokes up to the center of my pleasure. He circles my bud as I did with my fingers while he watched earlier. But everything he does feels a thousand times more than when I touched myself.
I’m whimpering and writhing beneath him, and he chuckles knowingly against my core.
‘I knew you’d enjoy this, my naughty little slave girl.’
My eyes widen at his words, and I think I should be angry that he’s calling me that, here, now, ever, but instead, I moan, and heat floods my channel.
He looks surprised at my reaction. ‘Interesting,’ he murmurs with a dark look.
‘Tell me what you were thinking about when you were touching this pretty little cunt earlier,’ he commands quietly.
My cheeks heat. ‘I told you. Nothing.’
