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“She’s waking.” This close to her, I sensed it so strongly: heart beating slightly faster, ears twitching at the sound of my voice, body temperature rising. “Did you bring enough honeyed milk for the both of us?”
Orlaigh raised a brow. “Ye want… milk?”
I offered her a stare that invited no further remark, thumb stroking over Ada’s side to rouse her quicker, no matter how I envied her for this mortal need. “How blessed she is in her ability to sleep away half of eternity.”
I took the warm cup Orlaigh handed me before I sent her for more milk, then watched my mortal waken. The way she stretched sinews and muscles sent a tingle through my limbs.
It extinguished when blue eyes narrowed at me with contempt. “Why are you here?”
“I have no reason to be elsewhere,” I said. “My kingdom has become so dreadfully dull ever since I denied your dead entry, the bit of effort it takes to rest the beasts is negligible.”
She shifted away from me underneath the furs, but no further than my arm hooking around her waist allowed. “Did you sleep beside me all night?”
“My form requires little of it.” Sleep only ever came to me in those rare moments of calm and completion, which had last been over two hundred years ago, my mind weary beyond exhaustion. “But I watched you throughout, yes.”
I had stroked hard flesh that hadn’t known touch in just as long, shaft jerking with the desire to spill my seed deep into her womb. So long since I’d bedded a woman. Still, I understood she required her sleep and so, I hadn’t disturbed her.
I allowed my mortal enough freedom to prop herself up onto her elbow before I handed her the cup. “Warm milk with honey. Orlaigh also brought us fried apples, buttered bread, and cured ham.”
“Us?” She hesitantly took the cup, sweetening lips that had been so skilled around my cock. “Do I have to eat breakfast with you?”
“Whyever not? Even if my form doesn’t require it, I enjoy good food like any mortal.” I broke off a piece of bread and held it to her lips. “Eat. We both know you’re hungry.”
A frightened woman would have refused with an excuse. A docile woman would have eaten from my fingers with a thank you on her lips. And a naïve woman would have slapped the bread from my fingers with a snarl.
But not Ada.
Snarl, my little mortal did.
But then she reached for the entire platter of bread, draped ham over one slice, loaded the edges with fried apple, and started eating even before she lowered it to her lap.
Too proud to accept food from my fingers.
Too smart to refuse it altogether.
After all, escape required strength.
It didn’t displease me as much as it should have; no, it charmed me more than was rational or sane. A dull companion slowed time only further. What an intriguing creature this mortal was. How could this woman hold my gaze with her chin held high, while guilt brittled her bones and shame soured her flesh?
I devoured the piece of bread, moaning at the smoothness of freshly-churned butter coating my gums after such long a time. “How did your husband die?”
Her gaze immediately dropped, going adrift somewhere in the furs. “Climbed the falls over at the Fork of Almach searching for pinweedle moss. The rock was wet and he slipped. A fisherman found him at the bottom of the falls, his body trapped between rocks. Said he drowned, but I think he died the moment he hit the rock. Took a chunk of his head out.”
An accident, yet I sensed how guilt infested the marrow in her bones. “You’re blaming yourself for his death. Why?”
Her head sunk, along with her voice. “Because I sent him up there.”
Neither flesh nor bone were free of failure. Why blame herself for the slick on the rock, the cutting breeze along the fall, or the misstep of a limb? She did to such a degree that the weight of it cumbered even my shoulders.
“Had you love for your husband?”
“What I had was a roof over my head, food in my belly, and my own garden.” She grabbed another slice of bread, eyeing me warily, observing, thinking… scheming. “Even without love, I had it better than most. Only took his belt a dozen or so times.”
“And what offenses deemed pain an appropriate punishment?”
She shrugged. “Talked back in front of the townsfolk, mostly.”
Yes, she was a mouthy little thing, but I quite liked it. It made for excellent entertainment. “Have you not been quiet and obedient?”
