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The idea rattles me because I don’t want to be seen as helpful. Or even someone who cares about her wants. Being thanked is counter-intuitive to everything I have set myself to be.
And yet that gentle look in her eyes continues to follow me, almost as if telling me that I’m wrong. The person I have set myself to be, who helps no one and doesn’t care, is not the person she knows I really am. The idea makes me feel short of breath and panicked.
I stand up abruptly, wanting to get out of there before this weird woman does anything even worse. I’m beginning to really dislike having her around.
I slam the door of her cage shut once more, being extra forceful as if to prove my point that she’s wrong. I’m not a nice guy, no matter what she thinks she sees. I probably only took those chains off so that she wouldn’t be making too much noise and disrupting me upstairs.
“Keep it down,” I snap. “You don’t have the chains on, thanks to me, so I better not hear a lot of commotion down here. If I have to come straighten you out, even your little mother won’t be able to help you.”
“She can always help,” the woman interrupts calmly. She’s not argumentative, just factual, but it still rankles me. I shoot her a dirty look, letting her know what I think of the matter.
Then I spin on my heel, turning away from her abruptly. Making my dismissal clear, I head back up the stairs. She can rot down here for a day while I try to savage the self-inflicted ruins of my home.
The mother, I think as I walk away. What absolute nonsense.
99
VOLIKAN
A day passes.
There is something terribly wrong with me.
My hands, always strong and sure, shake whenever I think of taking the human, and not only with desire. My throat, always ready with a war cry, goes dry. More damningly, the same feet that have carried me heedlessly into battle?
“Just go in,” I mutter to myself. “Go.”
They hesitate. I hesitate.
What the good fuck is this?
Nerves, perhaps. I’ve never had them before, so I wouldn’t know. I tell myself it’s only because I can’t stand her pious mouth and needy, delicate body. I tell myself it’s because I want to take her roughly, and be done with it, and it’s no fun if she likes it.
But my abdomen coils with heat at the thought of her pliant and moaning on my cock.
I might be a liar.
A day of this madness passes, and when night falls, I leave. It feels more like an escape than anything else, which pisses me off because I’ve been made a coward. I almost turn around at the very thought of it, but I can’t. I just can’t. My feet thunder past the door that hides her, and I drink in the stinging rain with relief.
There is always a storm on Galmoleth. This isn’t a world for humans, for dull creatures who are made for sun drenched meadows and gurgling streams. Lightning strikes, and I can feel the electric bite of the air on my skin. It’s cleansing. This is what I need, not some soft, conniving human with uncanny eyes.
I’ll still take her. I’ll make her scream in agony. I just need to get my head straight first.
My feet don’t hesitate now. No, now they carry me past the farm gates of my estate, down the unevenly paved streets, sliding over smooth metal stones until they reach an alehouse on the edge of Ti’lith I know well.
My lips pull back in a snarling grin. I can hear the sound of fighting inside—the crunch of bones, the wrending of flesh.
This is what I need. A fight and ten ales.
“Volikan, our dear patron.” A toothless zonak dares to grin at me, baring his gums. His tunic is two sizes two large. Either he stole it or the soz’garoth who summoned it is blind. “It is good to see you a—”
“Fuck off,” I advise him, shouldering my way inside.
I’m not here for small talk.
The scent of ale and blood, warm and familiar, embraces me like a friend. The alehouse is old, but not older than I am. So little is. Summoned by soz’garoth, it’s built of the same oily black stone as most of the buildings here, and the tables are the same, so slick your drink will slide off if you aren’t careful, or if someone falls too close to it.
It’s a good reason for a fight, not that I ever need much excuse here.
