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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Errok
On the evening of thefourth day of healing, I began to fear that I might have made a mistake. A rare occurrence for me, to be sure. But every day that went by that my mate did not return to the cave sent dread’s claws slicing through my guts. I’d sent her away myself. Told her she need no longer sleep here. Not because I didn’t want her, but because I’d not been able to stomach the idea of her seeing me afraid and vulnerable again. The thought of having another nightmare in front of her, skies forbid, made me want to drive my head against a wall until consciousness fled. I’dhadto send her away.
But I did not think I would make her so angry that she would refuse to see me at all. A Sea Sand warrior had been bringing me my food. And I’d been sleeping so hatefully, terribly,safelyalone.
I missed her. More than I would have thought a man could miss anything. More than food, more than air, I needed her.
And yet, my pride kept me from going to her. Not because I was too proud to beg for her forgiveness – I’d discovered about three heartbeats after she’d left that I was not. As soon as she’d disappeared from sight, my insides had crashed in fear and my throat went tight, swallowing the sound of me calling out her name. No, I was simply too proud to go to her before I was entirely healed. If I went to seek her out, it would be with my full power. And she would agree to come to me because she saw my strength and wanted me. Not because she pitied me.
But it turned out I need not have gone to her at all. I heard a slight commotion in the next cave where the Sea Sand men always kept at least one guard stationed.
And then, a moment later, like a flurry of sun cutting through clouds, she burst into my line of sight, my cave, myworld.
Her cheeks were flushed, her hair loose and brushing her shoulders. Her eyes were bright with some intense emotion.Passionate longing, I hoped, a throb going through me as I got quickly to my feet.
“You can stand,” she said breathlessly, chest heaving as if she’d run here. “Good. You’re strong enough now that I won’t have to feel bad about punching you.”
My brain felt slow as sludge.
She crackled with what I now realized was fury, crossing the distance in quick little steps. Contrary to what she’d told me, she did not actually try to punch me. Doing so would have been futile, anyway. I’d grown too strong in my recovery for her soft hands to have any effect on me.
Any effect besides cracking my chest right open and making my heart howl, that is.
“You didn’t tell me everything.”
Her voice was low. I sensed something in it. Some warning. Tread with careful claws,it told me.
“What are you talking about?” I muttered. I’d hoped our reunion would be marked by soft sighs and her arms around me. Not her hands curling into absurdly tiny fists at her sides.
“About Gahn Thaleo. You didn’t tell me that the storms had affected his lands so badly that his people could barely hunt for enough food.”
Oh. That?
“You did not know about this? I thought one of the main reasons your party was coming out here was to track the storm activity.”
“It’s not about the storms!” she cried. “It’s about the fact that you would have let those people starve for your own stupid pride! Just because you didn’t want to let Thaleo hunt beyond his own territory! I just got informed that the only reason you deigned to let him hunt in neutral territory and save his people was so that you weren’t cut off from access to me. No wonder he wanted to force you into the taklok and kill you.”
“Well, that is both true and not true,” I said, my fury churning to match her own.Leave it to Gahn Thaleo to once again make my mate hate me.
“In the heat of negotiations with your people,” I continued, “when I first realized that the storms had affected Gahn Thaleo so much, yes, my instinct was to tell him, and your people, that I would never let him expand his territory.”
My mate opened her gorgeous mouth and sucked in a huge breath, no doubt about to hurl fist-like words at my head. Whip-quick, my hand cupped the side of her face, my thumb pressing against her lips until her mouth closed to prevent my thumb sliding inside.
“Let me finish,” I snarled quietly, stepping close enough that her chest brushed mine on her next raging inhale. My cock thickened, but I did my best to ignore it.
“That was what I told them, yes. I told them Gahn Thaleo could go ahead and starve for all I cared because I would never let his warriors have access to neutral territory. But I will remind you that, mere days before that, my brother was nearly killed and your own friend Priya was kidnapped by Gahn Thaleo’s men precisely because they were hunting and fighting in neutral territory where they should not have been. It was the same thing for your Sea Sand man. What is his name? Barrow?”
“Varrow,” she murmured against my thumb. The crush of her lips and the drag of her teeth,skies help me, lit my cock on fire.
