Page 126 of The Hunter

His chest rumbled with a hungry, appreciative growl and his claspers clutched her tighter as he resumed petting her. “Good. Now sleep, my nyleea.”

Lacey almost snorted. He really expected her to just fall back asleep after that declaration, while his every caress triggered a pulse of desire in her core? While his slit was pressed against her pelvis, radiating heat, with his cock straining to escape its confines? While she could feel her pussy growing slick with arousal?

She sure as hell wasn’t getting to sleep any time soon. Not without a distraction from everything she was feeling, from everything she wanted to do with Telok, everything she wanted him to do to her.

Tentatively, she ran her hand up over the armorlike plane of his chest, trying to ignore how much she loved the feel of his hide against her skin. When her hand reached his shoulder, she slid it to his neck, where her fingers found the set of jagged scars that looked like they’d been left by a beast’s claws.

Telok’s already hard body stiffened. His ministrations paused, and his fingers flexed.

“How did you get these?” she asked as she delicately traced the scars with her fingertips.

He lifted his hand from her hair, moving it to grasp her wrist. She felt the tension rippling through him, and she was certain he was going to pull her hand away and tell her to go to sleep again.

“From a kurghest, long ago.” Turning his head, he guided her fingers to the scar that ran along the left side of his face. “And this.”

She frowned, recalling Telok’s unease when the winddancers had first mentioned kurghests in the jungle camp. “You said you were hunted by them.”

“Yes.” Sliding his hand up to cover hers, he pressed her palm over his cheek. “I was not hatched in Takarahl. My family denned in the Tangle, and from my first strides, I was taught to hunt. My sire was a hunter, as were my mother and my brood siblings. The jungle was hard, but we survived. We had joy.

“One day, my sire asked me to fetch water from the stream as he and the others saw to the hides from our latest hunt. It was not far. At the water’s edge, I saw strange tracks in the mud, left by a beast I did not know. Before I could study them, an ikita rushed from the undergrowth. I moved fast, striking it with my spear.

“I was proud of my kill. I hurried back to show my parents that I had won our family a meal. Along the way, my fine hairs rose, and I felt a skittering under my hide. Something was amiss, but I was too excited to stop.”

Telok closed his eyes, mandibles tucking down. Lacey felt the tightness in his jaw as he clenched it, felt the shudder that stole through him. Vrix experienced their emotions just as deeply as humans, and though they could not cry, they showed their pain in other ways.

She stroked his jaw with her thumb and rubbed her cheek against his arm. “It’s okay.”

He released a ragged exhalation. “My sire once taught me and my brood siblings a lesson. He told us the Tangle devours all. I heard his words, I remembered them, but I did not understand…not until that day.”

Lacey’s brow creased, and her stomach twisted, but she did not stop stroking his jaw, hoping to ground him to the present and let him know that she was here…and so was he.

“Kurghests tolerate no threats in their territory,” Telok continued. “No other hunters. The beasts followed me until I reached my family, and then struck. Their prime, the pack’s male, charged at me first. I turned at my sire’s shouted warning. I remember looking into the fiery pits of its eyes before its claws tore into my neck.

“My sire grabbed me and pulled me back, throwing himself at the beast. My mother yelled for us younglings to flee and hide. She rushed to aid my sire, but two female kurghests leapt out of hiding to attack my brood siblings. All was roars and growls, screams and cries, claws and fangs and blood…such blood.”

“Oh, Telok,” Lacey whispered. Both her chest and her throat were constricting, and her heart was sinking into her stomach.

“My sire fought with all his spirit, but the prime was too strong. I watched the beast catch his throat in its fangs and drag him to the ground. Watched as he went still. And with his blood dripping from its jaws, the beast turned to me again. Before it could attack, my mother crashed into it. She fought as savagely as the kurghest, but she had already taken many wounds.

“She shouted my name as the beast drove her down onto her back. Told me to flee. Even as it shredded her hide, I saw that she was holding it in place. Keeping it atop her so it would not chase me. My hearts thundered with fear and anger. I took up my sire’s bloody, broken spear and drove it into the kurghest’s eye. It clawed my face, and as I stumbled back, it fled.

“I knelt beside my mother. She grasped my hands and touched my face, and I felt none of the strength she had always held.” He shuddered again, emitting a low, mournful buzz. “Her voice was so thin, and she spoke through harsh, gasping breaths. Sticky silk on my wounds. Always carry my spear and bag. Follow the stream toward the falling sun, shelter by night, stride by day. Find Takarahl…where I would be safe. She pulled my face down, touched her headcrest to mine, and then shoved me away.

“Ven’dak losak agar. Do not look back. Those were her final words. And I did not, even when her struggling breaths fell silent. Only as I strode away did I see the female kurghests lying dead…and my brothers and sister unmoving around them.”

Telok turned his head, pressed his mouth against her palm, and drew in a deep breath before pulling her hand away and placing it against his chest. His arms wrapped around Lacey as his eyes locked with hers. “I…have never spoken of this.”

She searched his gaze through her tears. “Not to anyone? Not even your friends?”

“In nearly twenty years, you are the first and only, Lacey.”

Her heart squeezed in pain for him. All these years of silence, of suffering, and he had told no one? “Why?”

“I could not speak the words,” he said, voice gravelly. “I led the beasts to my family. I watched as they died and did not act until it was too late. If I had recognized the signs, if I had seen with all eight eyes, if I had heeded my instincts, they might have lived. It should have been me taken by the Tangle, by the kurghests. Not them.”

“No.” Lacey pushed herself up, grasped the sides of his jaw between her hands, and brought her face close to his. “No, Telok. It was not your fault. You were a child, a broodling. This guilt you’re feeling…it’s normal, especially after a traumatic experience. But your parents fought for you because they wanted you to live, and they would be happy to know that you are. That you have surrounded yourself with friends, that you have found a new home, and a…a mate.”

His eyes, brimming with raw, undisguised pain, searched hers. “And each day, I must fight the Tangle to protect it all. Each thread woven into my hearts is one that fate will sever. I have seen the life fade from the eyes of those I care about, have felt their hearts go still, have heard the final breaths escape their throats. That hurt does not go away. It grows and grows. And if I lose another, if I lose you, it is the scars inside me that will be my end.”