“I am not.”
Er’it snorted a laugh, his mirth growing fast into a full-bellied laugh that made the Elder’s shift in an uneasy tide. Bunched brows and narrowed eyes met his mocking humor. He couldn’t contain it, slapping his thigh as tears sprung to his eyes while he howled his amusement.
“What is happening?” Aida asked, her disheveled head popping out from behind the tent flap.
Glancing back, Er’it’s eyes widened to find Aida wrapped in nothing more than a blanket, the same one he’d left her buried under when he rose, thick with her scent. Ath’asho gave a loud sniff, his spine snapping to attention before he stomped away several paces, fixing his gaze on the middle distance.
Er’it roared as the Elders shoved past his men, his peripheral vision teeming with unknown males as he shoved Aida back inside the tent. Ignoring her high-pitched shriek as she tumbled back into their makeshift bed, Er’it snatched his sword from its scabbard and stood ready at the door.
“What were you thinking?” Er’it ground out through the savage growl reverberating through his chest, his gaze never turning from the startled faces of the Elders.
“What have I done wrong now?”
The desolation in her voice had him turning, a bleak tide of raw emotion twisting through his chest and drawing him nearer. Er’it knelt in the tousled bedding, gathering Aida against him before he even realized he’d moved. A vise crushed his heart as he felt her hot tears trickling down his skin, leaving a bitter trail in their wake.
“You will not let them see what is mine alone,kou’vera,” he said against her crown, the bite of his snarled words softened somehow by the way he clutched at her. “None shall see this flesh but me.”
It was not only that, though, that tormented him as he set his lips to the mark that remained an outraged crimson hue. It was healing well but still that particular shade of red held by fresh wounds—yet another mystery atop all the others that plagued him with his little mate.
As much as the idea of anyone else seeing the gentle slope of her shoulder enraged him, Ath’asho’s reaction to her scent unnerved him. Much as it did during their time in the woods, a particular sweetness pervaded the close air within their tent. Even with the threat of so much lying in wait beyond the flimsy barrier of canvas, of the endless things yet to be done, Er’it wanted nothing more than to tumble her into his makeshift construction and mount her. His growing need ground against her hip as he tugged her closer, his soft growls feathering over her neck before he succumbed to his desire to set his teeth over the livid imprint.
“Er’it,” Aida breathed, her trembling whisper lost under his low call.
“Again,kou’vera,” Er’it said, his words little more than a growl as he tugged her thighs open to spread over his. “Tell them all who you belong to.”
The wrong thing to say just then. He felt it deep in his bones, icy fear freezing the marrow and drowning the simmering of his blood. Aida went limp in his arms, her quiet whimper holding none of the need she’d shown moments ago.
The reminder that many stood within hearing distance, that he’d make her scream his name for all of them to hear, sat in a rocky lump within her lungs. Bitter, ugly words flitted through his thoughts—words he’d used himself upon her, grinding her fledgling spirit into the dust for making him feel so enraptured by her guileless charm.
Somehow knowing not even half of it was his own mind, Er’it settled back into the wall of cushions to cradle Aida as one would a child. Smoothing his rough palm over her hair, he marveled at their differences as he so often did. She was so small, so delicate, he should be able to crush her with a thought. Yet, beneath that fragile exterior lay the finest steel, a honed blade, sharp and true, hidden beneath the tender petals of one of her flowers. Any other female would have long ago crumpled beneath his demands, the very life he forced her into, but she thrived. Aida took his violence and matched it, and as much of a wonder as it was not to be so careful of a woman’s body, the moments when she surpassed him were what left him awestruck.
“You will rest,” Er’it whispered against her ear as he eased Aida back into the rumpled bed. Following her down, he covered her body with the heavy layers of blankets before settling his weight atop her. Keeping the world at large at bay, he trailed kisses down her fine jaw to her neck.
“Please, I beg of you…”
“You will rest,” Er’it hissed, unable to tear his mouth away from her warm skin.
“Er’it, please…”
“Yes,kou’vera, beg me.”
“I’m hungry.”
Er’it smothered his rasping chuckle in the crook of her neck, delighting in the way she flinched and caught her breath in a gasp. Her laughter was nearly as intoxicating as her scent, and he nipped at the tender flesh below her jaw just to hear her breathless squeak.
“I’ll give you something to feast on,” he threatened, though he unraveled their limbs to rise from the temptation of the bed.
Looking down at her, so small in the nest of bedding, he noticed the wan cast of her skin. Perfection as always but lacking the rosy luster of health, she needed to eat and rest more. As much as he loathed the very idea of accepting a gift from these people to care for Aida, it would take too much time to send his men out to provide the same.
Which begged the question as to why Ath’asho had not done so while Er’it remained with Aida. They needed the meat for certain, between being robbed blind by that filthy blackguard and Aida’s wild outburst running off the pack animals with half their remaining goods. His company may be small now, but they had hard miles to travel still before a search for a long-lost temple and a rite that needed performed. It would be taxing beyond measure on all of them.
Somehow, at the end of it, he would have to lay his beautiful mate upon an altar, her body recumbent on the cruel stone dais. It was what he’d sworn to do—acquire the unstoppable power the Hat’or had promised him in visions since his youth.
Er’it found the idea did not please him as it might once have. It twisted in his gut, cold and vile.
“What could I have possibly done to displease you now?” Voice thick with the tears welling in her midnight gaze, Aida became somehow smaller, curling into a tight ball as if she expected a blow at any moment as he watched on.
Her fear enraged him. He would not strike her, had not done so in what felt like an age and would not begin again, not now when they were so close to seeing all of this come to fruition. When his blade plunged deep into her flesh, carving out her still beating heart as she screamed his name, then she would beg him with those star-strewn eyes to not end her life. Er’it knew it as well as he knew his own name that she would.
