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Maybe I should lie back down. I’m hearing things...
But she said it again. And I saw her lips move with the words.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” I asked tensely, every word placed as carefully as claws upon thin ice.Sorry for rejecting me? Sorry for not loving me? Sorry for making me wait this cursedly long?
I barely breathed.
“I’m sorry for judging you so harshly about the taklok. Like you said, we obviously didn’t understand the cultural implications of everything that’s happened here so far. I didn’t know what Gahn Thaleo’s invitation would mean. I honestly thought you were just being way over the top.”
Her hand curled into a fist under my palm. Her tiny blunt claws scraped my flesh, sending a throb down my spine.
“And I’m sorry for not anticipating this,” she continued. “I should have understood your motivations better than I did. I mean, these things happened in the Sea Sands, too. Gahn Baldor literally launched a full-scale attack on our settlement to get to Theresa. So, I’m starting to understand the culture around this stuff a little better.” Her eyes flashed. “But even so, you need to understand our culture, too! For us, challenging a man to a death match is not an appropriate response for simply inviting a woman and her friends over to his place. Even if she’s supposed to be your mate. There has to be peace here.”
I breathed out heavily, finally allowing her to guide me down onto my back.
“No warrior would have respected me if I had let Gahn Thaleo keep you here without challenging him,” I muttered up at her.
Her response was whispered. Barely audible.
“But I would have.”
Oh, little creature. I do not think you know just how you wound me.
“Well, if Gahn Thaleo wanted you dead-”
“Oh, he does,” I cut in tersely.
“Then why give you any Vrika’s blood and let you stay here to get well again? I know he said he wouldn’t get his healers to tend to you, but why help you at all now?”
“Do you think you and your friends would have reacted kindly to that outcome?” I asked. “If he had refused all your demands and let me bleed out on the stone? No. He is more clever than he is proud. In that instance, he would rather have let me live than risk losing the alliance with you. He had likely hoped to kill me swiftly before any of you even knew about the taklok taking place below. Once I was dead, he would have claimed it was all in simple self-defence, since I had been the one to come here and challenge him. But when you and the other new women came down and tried to stop everything, he knew he’d lost his chance to kill me without human witnesses and repercussions. And he knew he’d potentially lose his place in this alliance if he let me die there. Once I’d been shot, he could no longer claim that my death was mere self-defence, because I’d already been largely incapacitated.”
My abdominal muscles clenched as she skimmed the damp cloth across my waist. Her hand was so slight, and the damp cloth had cooled. So how did that little touch send every nerve aflame?
“Well, we will need to have a talk with Gahn Thaleo,” she said, frowning down at her hide cloth swirling over my bloodied skin.
“If by talk, you mean I need to send an arrow through the centre of his skull, then yes.”
She snapped the cloth away from my stomach, clenching it in a furious fist. She pointed a single, tiny, and oddly intimidating finger at my face.
“No. That is not happening. I told you, there has to be peace. Promise me, Errok. Promise me you won’t retaliate.”
I was fairly certain that this was the first time she’d called me Errok without the title of Gahn attached. It made me feel very odd indeed. I wanted to be recognized as Gahn – recognized for the very thing that should have made me more than worthy of her.
But nothing I valued about myself seemed worthy in the eyes of my mate. Being Gahn meant nothing to her.
But maybe Errok, the man behind it all, could mean something.
What that could mean, I had no idea. Who was that man, the one behind the title and the strength? Who was I, if not the greatest Gahn of the Deep Sky?
Who was I, if I did not avenge myself against Gahn Thaleo?
“You take too eager an interest in protecting him,” I seethed.
“I’m taking too eager an interest in protectingyou!” she exclaimed. “I can’t...” Her voice cracked. “I refuse to go through this again!” She waved the hide cloth in a vague gesture over my chest, no doubt referring to the injury I’d suffered.
She’d said she was glad I hadn’t died. It had shocked me. I knew I had not won her heart yet, and up until tonight, I was reasonably certain that if she ever saw me hanging by my claws from the edge of the cliff, she would walk away and thank fate for ridding the world of me. Perhaps after giving fate some help by stomping on my fingers.
