Her gaze came back to me, and she chewed on her bottom lip as she studied me. “Why did you settle in this area?”
“I travel to all of the encampments on a rotating basis to check on things. I just happened to be here when you were brought in.”
“Do you bring all the possibilities you encounter in to talk with them?”
I poured us both some more wine. “No, you are the first.”
“Why me?”
“Because you are the first who has refused to go with the others and who didn’t turn into a blubbering mess once the secrets were out.”
“Have the others all been older than the volunteers, like me?”
“No, some were younger.”
“No wonder they started to cry; they were children.”
“You’re not much older than a child.”
“Maybe not, but I was never really able to be a child either.”
I folded my fingers together and rested them on the table as I studied her. Her fingers rose to fiddle with her necklace again; her eyes shadowed and distant. “What are those?” I inquired of the pink and white decorations around her neck.
She pulled it forward, her eyes crossing as she smiled down at it. “Seashells. Have you never seen them before?”
“I have never seen the sea.”
“Not even through the oracle?”
“I didn’t look often or for long.”
“You must see it; it’s beautiful. It’s life,” she breathed with a reverence that made my skin tingle. “The smell of it, the sounds, they’re all something I could never fully describe, but once you stand on the beach, with the birds soaring in the sky, the breeze blowing over you, and the water crashing on the shore, you’ll know.”
Her words captivated me, and the serene expression on her face had me mesmerized. Had I considered her simply pretty? She was breathtakingly beautiful with that look on her face. I could never understand her sense of peace; I’d never felt peace in my life. My existence had always been about battles, war, and death.
“What will I know?” I inquired, my voice hoarser than I’d expected.
She blinked, and her head turned toward me. Though her peaceful reverie vanished, she smiled at me. Her smile kicked into my chest, causing my breath to hitch as she watched me.
“That you’ve come home,” she murmured and released her necklace. “If you get the chance, you should see it.”
I’d never had the inclination to do so before, but I did now. The smile slid from her face. I despised the melancholy creeping over her features again. The compulsion to draw her into my lap and hold her there seized me. I shook my head to clear it of the notion. Grabbing my goblet, I drank more wine as I realized she had some kind of a strange effect on me that I couldn’t understand.
“You have to train with the others,” I told her brusquely. “You must know how to protect yourself on this side of the wall. I understand your resentment and frustration, but if you continue to refuse the training, you will get yourself killed. You must learn from us how to survive.”
Her jaw clenched, and her hands balled. For a second, I believed she would fight me and I would have to force her into it. Instead, she nodded. “I don’t like it.” She gave me a pointed look that I returned with a smile. “But you’re right. I don’t intend to be demon food.”
“Only some kinds of demons would eat you.”
“Good to know. You’re involved in the training?”
“Not normally, but until I know what to make of you, I will work with you personally.”
She snorted. “There’s not much to make of me, Kobal.”
Hearing my name on her lips made more blood pulse into my throbbing cock. What would it be like to hear her scream my name as she moved beneath me, I wondered.
“I think there’s more to you than you give yourself credit for.”
