“I told you to rest,” Er’it snapped, storming from the tent with all his fury precarious in its containment. It slammed around the confines of his chest, threatening to splinter bone as he advanced on his general with his lip curled in a snarl.
How dare Aida look at him so? He had been nothing but caring, tender even, these long days. Thinking his mate would understand him, no matter the circumstances, seemed a trivial fancy now. Mate, pah! Whatever this word meant, it changed nothing. For all her softness in recent days, for her yearning and laughter, Aida cared nothing more for him than she did the day he had dragged her from that dungeon.
“Your Majesty?” Ath’asho drew out the words, the lilting timber adding a question as he averted his gaze from the enraged Alpha before him.
“Get the fucking stag from them. Call for Maruk to tend her.”
“Majesty, where are you going?”
“To hunt,” Er’it bit out into the bracing wind as he stepped clear of the enchanted circle Aida’s magic had cast.
Chapter 15
Aida
Tugging the thick fur tighter around her neck, Aida tried not to broadcast her misery as the cart crunched through the heavy layer of ice covering the rutted path. Uncertain how things could have gone so wrong in so little time, she watched Er’it’s stiff back and knew she had failed by the pitying stares she caught from the others.
It wasn’t just the soldiers and mages anymore but the entire Scaora village as well. They trundled alongside the armored contingent, laughing and smiling as if all their woes were answered despite their losses. It confused Aida since they’d all stopped speaking to her. All those stares and smiles filled with sympathy yet not a soul came to utter a word.
The friendliness they’d shown her that first day vanished into thin air, leaving her more adrift than ever. Er’it’s sudden temper helped nothing. He had not spoken to her much since they’d left the strange circle of magic a fortnight past, and while Er’it didn’t outright forbid Tor’en to continue her lessons, he often stole her away or found some reason to keep her at his side. No longer encouraging her to mingle with the others, he only allowed Maruk to come near her. Even then, Er’it stood at a watchful distance, his topaz gaze narrowed as he gauged the healer’s every move. He bristled and growled if anyone else dared get too close.
Yet everything else remained the same, as if he could not abandon her entirely. He did not force himself on her, fed her by his own hand, and built strange constructs out of their bedding each night when they stopped to erect the tents. It was the latter that grated her nerves the most—the piles of cushions and blankets bunched in roughshod hills that swerved and leaned in precarious contemplation of their bed, his tight embrace keeping her staring at the aggravating lines of it all. Her fingers itched to do something with it, but she did not know what. She wanted to destroy it, fling it to the farthest reaches of their small canvas world, or perhaps set it right in a fashion far more pleasing to the eye.
As she sat caged in by crates within the cart, the same gnawing itch came to her. It had her plucking at the thick furs, tugging and shoving them into some other shape, over and again. None of it right, each disastrous shape was more displeasing than the last.
Just as she felt the exasperated scream clawing at her throat, Er’it came. Swooping down to pluck her from the cart, he draped Aida over his knees with her furry prison intact. Keeping her bundled against the frozen wind, arm an iron brace across her chest, he forced the purr deep into her bones.
It was in these moments that whatever barriers she clung to disintegrated. Struggling with the pelts and his embrace, she squirmed around until she faced him and was able to curl into his chest, nuzzling the musky warmth of his neck through the heavy wools until she found the patch of skin she sought. Chilled nose pressed against him, she breathed his scent in as her low hum twined with his coarse rumbling.
Hours passed like that, with Aida’s bones melting into the resonating heat of him. His touch alone quieted that nagging itch and the strange flutter low in her belly. His scent soothed something ragged within her, that damned purr of his pushing away all the tension wracking her body.
She couldn’t bother to rouse much at all when he pressed the waterskin to her lips, though she shivered as the icy liquid trickled down her throat. Her grunt of dismay as the cold sluiced through her in an unexpected rush brought his head down, the purr louder than before as he tugged the furs higher around her chin.
“We break,” he shouted into the wind, the words snapped away on a wave of sleet while thunder rumbled in the far distance.
“A storm comes, King Er’it,” one of the Elders called back, hurrying forward to jog alongside Kal’s long strides. “There are caves not far where we can take shelter if it is to be a bad one.”
“How far?” Ath’asho asked, tugging his massive bay close to Er’it’s side to drive the man back.
“A league, no more,” the Elder said, rosy cheeks plumped with his smile above the bold swath of an orange muffler.
Aida groaned against Er’it, hiding away from the watchful russet of the Elder’s gaze. Lesshin his name was, and Aida had thought him kind and generous before, but now he only made her skin crawl with the eager expectation lingering deep in his hooded eyes.
Er’it’s purr stopped, the empty space where it had been as cold as the shrieking ice around them. Ath’asho acted before Er’it could, the jingle of his horse’s tack loud over the oncoming storm as he pushed the Elder farther away, all the while shouting at the man about paths and directions. None of it made sense to Aida as the purr returned in force.
Darkness descended, swallowing the pale sun with stormy clouds and stinging ice. Aida whined low in her throat as the hours seemed to stretch on forever. The wide road, the villagers, even the bray of beasts scoured her senses into a mangled heap. Clinging to Er’it’s heavy layers, she tried to meld into the peaceful resonance and become one with it.
The cold pierced through the burdensome furs, freezing her hands and toes in a welcome distraction from the growing turmoil centered low in her hips. A nagging itch that whispered to be appeased, it crawled up her limbs, coiling around her middle in constricting rings that made her shiver. There was no end in sight. Chattering teeth caught hold of the thick wool of Er’it’s cloak, her pained whimper lost in the howling winds as he tried to protect her from the growing storm. He had no notion she had little concern for the encroaching blizzard beyond its ability to stop the maddening urge inside her.
Aida felt as if her body was made of ice and agony as time stretched on. Each jolting step Kal made threatened to shatter her into a thousand glittering pieces to vanish among the crusty swells of snow piling up around them. It reminded her so much of the shambles Er’it created that she screeched. His purr did little to console her now as the icy tide rose up inside her, closing off her tightening throat until she choked on the very air.
Blinded by the flying snow, she didn’t even realize they’d dismounted or that Er’it now carried her. So lost in the pain churning in her stomach, she scarce took notice when the wind and sleet stopped tearing at her face and hair. It was not until he dumped her on the rocky ground in a disarray of furs to tear at her clothing that she realized he touched her at all.
His brazen heat scoured her blue-tinged skin raw. Her screams and cries went unheeded as he chafed and scrubbed, shouting at his men in their own language as they created an impenetrable wall of muscle to keep the villagers away. Naked and writhing along the thawing pelts, she cursed him as best she could and sobbed. She blamed him, all of them, for the pain running in a mad dash through her. The prickling of her skin, the throbbing ache between her legs, even the soreness of her ears was all to be blamed upon him. If he’d left her in that cursed castle, never darkened Otaso’s door, none of this would have ever happened.
When his body aligned with hers, naked and boiling with the heat of a thousand suns, she screamed until her throat felt bloody. Shoving at his chest, clawing at his arms, she sought to be free of the scalding warmth bringing her body back to life. With it came the slippery glide of her thighs against one another as she squirmed, his scent thick on her tongue in the warming air.
Er’it’s topaz eyes rose in front of her, lashes wide around the dilating pupil as he took an experimental sniff. Whatever he saw on her face as she bucked in a final bid to be rid of his oppressive weight had him snatching her up. Winding her legs and arms around his torso, he snarled mangled commands at his men and ran.
