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He was still there. Eve could scarcely believe it. She peered out through the cracked bedroom door and eyed the massive Ragoru stretched out over her couch. Were they all so big? The couch was considered large to comfortably fit a family, and yet his legs hung over the edge, the arm of the couch supporting them at the back of his knees.
She gave his feet a curious glance. They were larger than those of even the biggest of men, or perhaps even larger considering that his feet were structured like those of a predator who ran, walked, and stood on their toes. The paws were thick with enormous, dense pads like those of a canine if a dog were ever born possessing such a massive scale in size. She wondered exactly how tall he was when he stood at his full height. Between all the running and then the Ragoru crouching while eating up her pie, she was uncertain just how big of a male he was. She shivered a little as her eyes ran over him. The high council really expected human women to fuckthat? It didn’t seem even remotely possible.
Scoping out the rest of the room, Eve noted with some relief that her grandmother’s pie dish was lying unbroken on the table, and even the fire in the hearth was banked. It wouldn’t take much to get it going again… and she was going to need it. Casting a dour look toward the broken door that still lay wide open—since clearly the Ragoru didn’t even think of trying to, at very least, close it much less fix it—she shivered with the chilly autumn air that filled the house. It was just warm enough still from the banked coals to keep the fog from drifting far into the interior, but it wouldn’t stay that way with a new fire built up and the door repaired.
She bit her lip as she considered her uninvited “guest.” The broken door aside, he at least wasn’t terribly messy. He didn’t’ wear any clothes to leave strewn around the house like Victor had the habit of doing. Nor was there a trail of dirty footprints, as if he had swept all the debris that had come in with him out the door. Even the way the pie dish sat neatly on the table was politer than she expected. He could have cast aside the pie dish once he was finished, and it could have shattered all over her floor. She’d half expected to come out and find the entire place torn apart and covered in filth, and yet the broken door and the large male growling and rumbling in his sleep on her couch were the only things indicative of the Ragoru barging in last night.
For the first time since Victor died, Eve didn’t know what to do. Victor had been the one to give her direction. She’d been young when her parents died, and she’d been lost with her entire world falling apart. Victor had swooped in out of nowhere like a hero. He wasn’t from town—in fact, no one knew where he came from, and he never said, other than a few pithy comments that he traveled in from the east, but all she’d known was that he was there just in time to save her. Then, a few years later, he was gone, and it had happened all over again. Over the last year and a half, she’d had to learn to figure it out and survive on her own, and by the Mother, she would do it again!
Just… where to start? She usually went out to check the vegetables in the tiered gardens on the hills first thing once the fog settled into a light covering of mist for the day. On days when the fog remained thick, she stayed inside. The sun was shining, and the mist covering was light, but she was nervous about leaving the alien in her house alone. What if he woke up and barricaded her out of her home? He certainly seemed intent on claiming it for himself.
Eve jumped as a deep snort erupted from him, and her pulse picked up nervously as his eyes blinked open groggily. They swept over the room and focused in on her as he lifted one of his hands and scratched the dense fur covering his chest. He sat up, and his tongue swiped over his sharp teeth and then rolled out as he gave a monstrous yawn. He watched her shiver in place for a long moment, and his mouth downturned with the lowering of his brow as he glanced toward the broken door. Without a word, he stooped down to add wood to the hearth and stoked the fire back to life before turning toward her.
Eve froze as he stalked toward her. He was even more massive than she had expected! He towered over her, with a chest that was so broad and a body so heavily muscled beneath all of that fur. Her neck craned back, and her eyes widened as he closed the distance between them. She swore she felt something magnetic pulling at her stronger with his every step. Something within his eyes seemed to brighten and fill with heat as he drew closer. Did he feel it, too? Her mind whirled with all the gossip that she’d heard in town whenever she went in to attend the market. Was he going to snatch her up and illegally claim her for his own without going through the proper channels in the citadel? Was he going to ravish her there in the middle of her house until she was so crazy that she begged him to stay?
She had no answer. All she had was the sudden race of her pulse and the strange butterflies fluttering in her belly in anticipation of the unknown and all possibilities, even as she dreaded them. Suddenly, he was there, right in front of her! The Ragoru was looming over her so closely that she could swear that she felt the intense heat coming off of his body and the soft, silky brush of his fur against her arm.
And he strode right past her.
She blinked and spun around in surprise to find the male’s back to her, his head moving as he held the broken door and inspected it. Frazzled, Eve crossed her arms over her chest and focused on glaring at the door. The door thathebroke. Size aside, the way he came through that door spelled out that he was nothing more than a brute determined to barrel through any obstacle to get what he wanted. She was glad that he clearly had no interest in doing all those things that the townspeople gossiped about. She still wasn’t convinced that they were in any way, shape, or form compatible. She was fortunate that the male was apparently no risk to her virtue.
Her mouth dipped a little as a sour feeling settled in her chest. Was there something wrong with her? Though he had his generous moments, Victor had been less than charitable in his comments about her abilities in the bedroom and had made no secret of the fact that he found her a little plain, especially since her figure tended more towards plump than elegant or athletic. But his cock had risen eagerly enough when they had retired to bed in the evening—it had been enough to ease some of her doubts. But now they were all rushing back to her. Maybe there was something lacking. None of the men in town ever offered for her, and it seemed that she couldn’t even attract something as monstrous as a Ragoru.
A Ragoru who, with a shake of his head, just tossed her door out the doorway!
Eve gaped as her eyes followed the door to its undignified crash to the ground. “What are you doing? That’s my door!”
The male gave her a cross look and rolled his shoulders. “It is broken.”
She sputtered for a moment and drew in a deep breath as she aimed a tight smile in his direction. “I know it is broken. Why not just fix it?”
He tapped the spot on the frame where the metal hinges had pulled completely free. Worse, chunks of wood had been pulled away with them. Eve winced. That didn’t look good.
“I do not know how to fix this. The wood here is damaged,” he informed her gruffly.
“Whose fault is that?” she snapped before she could think better of it.
The moment the words left her lips, sounding a lot like begging for repercussions, she slapped her hand over her mouth in horror. What was she thinking? To her surprise, a soft chuffing rumble left him that sounded suspiciously like laughter, and all four of his gleaming eyes narrowed on her.
“Where I am from, we made and stored tools that we would use to repair our dens. It was different. We lashed tough hides over the entrance of our dens, but I am familiar with working with wood.” He gave the doorframe another long glance and nodded. “I carved many things. I could reshape this if you have something sharp that I can use. It would take me a lot of time to scrape this down this by claw.”
“Oh.” She gave him a curious look and nodded. “My father had tools stored in the attic. I don’t think they’ve been brought down more than once since he put them up there. Victor wasn’t much for fixing things, and I only needed to make a small repair in the kitchen once,” she added.
She knew she was rambling. The Ragoru certainly didn’t need to know that, and yet she was relieved when the large male nodded.
“Get them, and I will attempt to fix this barrier.”
Eve licked her lips uncertainly and was embarrassed by the warm feeling that rushed to her belly when his eyes seeped to track the movement of her tongue. “What then?” His head cocked, and Eve rushed to explain. “What will happen then? Are you going to kill me?”
His lip curled in an expression she hoped was disgust, and he shook his head. “Ragoru do not kill females.”
“Then what are you planning on doing with me?” Her words came out more of a pathetic squeak than she wanted, but the Ragoru seemed to take no notice of it as he grunted and leaned against the door to eye her patiently.
“I will do nothing. You live as you please,” he grumbled.
A tiny little spark of hope kindled within her, and she drew a sharp breath. “Are you planning to leave, then?”
“No.” And just that quick, with that one word growled at her, that little spark blinked out in a quick death. He scratched his chest and shrugged. “But I will not force you from the den. You may leave or stay as and when you like.”
