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Wanting to help, I followed Canis to where he waited for me. He never bothered to get dressed and sat on the furs completely naked with his back to me. His tanned and muscled torso was so perfect other than the long gash marring his flesh.
I knelt down behind him and took the jar from his hand. “Does it hurt?” I was scared to touch the wound. I didn’t want him to suffer any more than he already was.
“It burns. The injuries caused by the dark force sizzle beneath our flesh for a few days. But it eventually goes away.”
“And this salve helps?” I asked as I opened the jar. I could smell an herb I knew to be used to treat infections back in the village.
“It does.”
I dipped the rag into the water and gently began to dab at the bloody gash. “Thank you,” I said softly.
“For what?” he asked, not even flinching in the slightest as I tried my best to clean out the lesion.
“For fighting. I knew you protected our village, but until I saw it for myself…well, I had no idea the true sacrifice that was made on your part. Every villager would perish if it were not for you and the others.”
“Yes, they would,” was his short and harsh answer. “Every single one of them would die. They would be no match for the power the dark force has.”
By the tone of his voice, I feared I had angered him, which hadn’t been my intent. So rather than continuing on with a discussion that didn’t seem to sit well with the man, I tended to his injury in silence.
Canis was the first to break the quiet of the cave after I had most of his cut cleaned out. “You shouldn’t have followed us. I remember Rood telling you to remain in the cave.”
I swallowed hard, knowing that I had indeed broken a dictate of Rood’s, and also remembering what happened the last time I went against his wishes.
“Are you one to not follow direction? Stubborn, or a fool?”
“A fool, I suppose,” I said weakly. “But I’m sorry. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t just remain as I was asked. Something pulled me to you all. I should have stayed put. I know this. But I couldn’t resist the urge to run toward your howls. I have no explanation as to why.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, and my eyes locked with the amber color of his. I didn’t see the fierceness in his that I had seen when he’d taken the lash from Rood and whipped me with it earlier. This time, there was something different. A connection. A bond of sorts. I didn’t want to look away; if anything, I wanted to be lost in them forever.
“When I watched all of you fight,” I began, “I felt something. Something so strong that I wouldn’t have been able to break away and run even if I’d wanted to. A wise woman in my situation would have run away. Run back to my village and warned them the dark force was near. Or even run in a different direction in self-preservation. But I couldn’t. All I could do was stand and watch…to feel. I could almost feel you all. I could feel the energy you all exuded.”
As I spoke, I didn’t hear the other men walk up behind me. Helm’s voice had me turning in surprise to see them all in a line before me.
“We felt you too,” Helm said.
“You being there seemed to give us a different type of strength,” Beo added.
“You shouldn’t have left the cave,” Rood said, “but we understand.”
“We’ll leave you to be with Canis,” Grimm said. “But we want you to know that we felt you. We welcomed your presence, and even needed it. What this means, we don’t know. But we wanted you to know we aren’t angry with you for following us.”
The men turned and left me to finish with Canis’ wound. Feeling a huge sense of relief that there would be no repercussions for my actions, and no punishment was in store, I released the tension I had been holding in my shoulders that I hadn’t realized was there up until now.
I applied the salve with my fingertips as delicately as I could. When I was done smearing the creamy ointment on his skin, I closed the jar and said, “I hope this helps some.”
Canis turned his body and took the jar from my hand. The connection of our hands sent a familiar tingle to my core. The fact that he was still completely naked was not lost on me, and as I glanced down at his hardened cock, I knew the sexual energy I was feeling was not one-sided.
Again, his eyes locked with mine. Unlike before with the others when I had to be ordered to remove my clothes, or even to have them ripped from my body, I began to voluntarily disrobe before him. Removing my clothing in silence, I never broke my stare with this man. It was Canis’ turn. His turn to claim me. But this time was different. This time, I would offer my body as a sacrifice for all he and the others did for me and the villagers. I would forever offer this sacrifice if the men so desired it.
