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Threatening to drag me back.
CHAPTER TEN
Errok
Ispent the rest ofthe day with Togo as my only companion. We hunted desert rakdo for our meals and watched the settlement with brooding eyes. I did not bother engaging in any more feats of strength. My earlier display with the boulder had not had the desired outcome, and my muscles needed some time to recover. By nightfall, I was in a foul mood indeed. Togo and I remained up on our chosen ledge, staring down at the evening fire.
My mate was there, along with some of the other new women. I felt sick with longing. Longing to go to her, to touch her. To have her look at me with something other than disdain.
And when I saw the pregnant new women, smiling beside their mates, that longing grew even sharper claws.
Cursed skies, I wanted that. Needed that. Needed my mate content at my side, her middle heavy with my cub.
It will happen.
I’d vowed both to her and to myself that she would one day love me.
I just had to figure out how to make it happen.
It was very difficult not to fly home at top speed and hold Lerokan over the edge of a cliff by his hair until he told me how he’d won Priya. My hands curled into seething fists as I thought of my little brother so perfectly, hideously happy at home with his own willing mate.
I got little sleep that night. The fits of slumber were punctuated by the stiffness of my muscles on the hard rock ledge. I was struck by the battling sensations of wanting desperately to return to my own comfortable bed, and knowing that all the comfort of said bed would be worthless if Zuh-Tephanie was not in it.
Having slept so uncomfortably, it was not difficult to force myself to rise at dawn. Zuh-Tephanie was due to leave today. From the ledge, Togo and I observed a small group forming among the tents of the settlement, lit by the slowly rising sun. The group was comprised of Sea Sand men and two Bitter Sea warriors Grim and Tok, whom I recognized from the mountains, as well as new women.
When my mate emerged from the new women’s tent, heading for that group, my sore muscles tensed.
It was not so bright yet as to require the use of her eye shells or hood. The rising sun painted her lovingly in shades of milky pink and golden red. Her shoulder-length brown hair shone. Her oddly pale skin glowed, luminescent and clear.
In that moment, I hated the sun. Hated it for touching her, for warming her perfect skin, when I could not.
I glared at the rising orb, wondering if I could try to shoot it down. My aim was certainly good enough. The only question was the distance...
That question would have to wait.
“Come, Togo,” I commanded. He rose from where he’d been sitting, and I leaped up onto his back. Together we dove off the ledge.
