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“Ayla, stop!” She glanced over at Raskyuil and MaryAnne apologetically. “Of course you can trust us. Ayla is… hormonal,” she finished with a frown. “She always gets this way during her season. She does not mean what she says. We would never hurt your human, Raskyuil. MaryAnne will be perfectly safe with me, I swear it.” She turned an imploring look to MaryAnne—and she believed her.
Some of the tension bled out of her as a mollified look crossed Ayla’s face, her gaze snapping over to MaryAnne as she sank back into her chair with a faint look of surprise as if she hadn’t even realized that she had stood.
“Yes. Yes, of course,” Ayla muttered, swiping a hand across her brow. It was then that MaryAnne realized that what she thought were elegant elbow-length black gloves was actually the pigment of the drya’s flesh there as her claws caught the light. “It is… difficult.”
Raskyuil frowned but leaned back into his chair, his shoulders relaxing a little as his growl faded. “Perhaps you should consider not performing until you are well again.”
Ayla’s horrified gaze snapped up to him, and she shook her head. “We must perform! It is part of our contract with Elwyn. We cannot fail to perform, especially not with the hallowed night so near. He would never tolerate it or forgive it.” She drew a shaky breath and shook her head as she withdrew further into the shadows. “No. I must perform,” she whispered. “All will be well.”
MaryAnne was glad when the evening came to an end. It turned out that her role would be simple. She would fetch what Nivira required and welcome guests into the tent. It didn’t seem like a difficult task; it was no wonder that they felt as if they could trust a human without magic to do it. But something still bothered her when her thoughts turned to Ayla. She waited, however, until they were nearly back to their tent that stood out starkly as a dark wedge cut out from the slowly darkening gloom.
“What was all that about Ayla’s hormones?” she whispered.
Raskyuil slanted a sharp look at her and grunted. “Fae don’t breed often, even less those who have specific times in which they are capable of breeding. A breeding season,” he clarified. “Ayla has fallen into hers, and so she experiences powerful compulsions due to it.”
MaryAnne nodded as she skirted closer to a lamp and further from the shadows. “Ah, so it’s that time of the month for her, basically. I can appreciate that. There are times that I’d kill for a bowl of nachos or some dark chocolate when I’m PMSing. The Ravening definitely made that more difficult for women everywhere,” she muttered.
Again with the look, but the corner of his mouth quirked and he shook his head in amusement as he looked down at her from his grossly superior height. “I find it interesting that a human would feel a sense of sisterhood for a drya’s breeding cycle when it is blood that they crave. And in this case, with no male drya around and aelves being a little too wary of them, human blood.”
MaryAnne’s lips twisted. “Everyone has kinks, I suppose. So long as it’s consenting adults and no one’s being hurt. But I guess that explains your concern because people can get hurt.” She bit her lip as he nodded and steered her toward the entrance of their tent. “You don’t think… She wouldn’t eat children, would she?”
A look of surprise crossed his face, but he shook his head. “That you do not have to worry about. For all their faults, drya are notoriously protective of younglings. They are more likely to slay an offensive adult and take their children from them to protect them behind a gossamer veil of their webs.” His lip thinned. “Stay alert, however. I doubt they would ever harm them, but a drya could be quite talented at hiding younglings away if they feel it is safer for them.”
At least they wouldn’t eat them, and that was a comforting thought if nothing else as MaryAnne followed her troll into the tent.
ChapterTwenty-Two
MaryAnne blushed as Raskyuil stepped into the tent behind her. It was silly. They had spent the later part of the afternoon in the tent, eating and drinking tea; it was ridiculous to suddenly be shy now. His large body filled the tent, however, leaving little room between them as he entered. Her head barely came to the middle of his chest, making her feel very small and delicate when she’d never considered herself anything of the sort before, but the width of his muscular body provided plenty for a girl to hang onto.
And it was the image of such thoughts that filled her mind—his big body rocking beneath her as his large hands wrapped around her hips, his enormous body looming over her as he stepped between her legs that made her flush with her unexpected arousal.
She trembled and her chest tightened as she suddenly forgot how to breathe. Her body was not focused on such practical things when it was focused entirely on him, thrumming in a way that she’d never felt for any man she’d met. Her desire defied reason. It was an instinctive hunger that didn’t care that he wasn’t human. Or, ironically, perhaps it was because he wasn’t human. He was big and strong in ways that most men weren’t. A monster to protect her from all the other monsters out there.That seemed to appeal to her base instinct even if he wasn’t what any human would call handsome.
Raskyuil was too large and his features too aggressive to be handsome, his face broad with sharp angles that gave him a ruthless look rather than beautiful like the elves. With the small horns above the heavy arch of his eyebrows, and the three sets of short dark green horns that sprouted along his hair line, there was nothing soft or inviting about him.
His dark gaze brushed her for a moment, and she noticeably heated, sending an ache surging deep into her core, but he turned away, heading for the other end of the tent where a washbasin was set up. She watched him, unable to look away even though she took a conscious breath, gulping in the air now that her body recalled that it needed air to survive. That it was filled with his scent, which made her pussy slick, and her nipples and clit tingle, she realized a second too late.
She squirmed where she stood, practically panting despite her best effort to control her breathing. His body in profile, he stripped off his tunic, pulling it over his head. Her gaze caught on the flex of the powerful muscles beneath suede-soft green skin, and her mouth went dry as she stared. Compared to his arms, which had a thick, bony texture that broke through his skin in rocky formations from his shoulders to his wrists, he appeared shockingly touchable from his chest to his belly where there was nothing but velvety skin.
Desire curled through her, heating her belly, and she became even more slippery between her thighs. She was struck with the irresistible urge to rub against him. She wanted to explore the hard planes of his chest and run her fingers down the taut muscles of his abdomen to his smooth belly. The muscles groups were larger and more pronounced on his nonhuman frame, but she wanted to feel them against her as his large hands slid over her body and slipped between the folds of her sex.
MaryAnne shivered in reaction. It felt wrong to want this. Unnatural. But, gods help her, she wanted it more than anything. She wanted to touch him and learn every part of him, to explore the skin that rippled enticingly with his movement as he cast his tunic aside, and she bit back a sound of complaint when he suddenly turned away completely and gave his back to her. She swallowed a groan, however, upon realizing that just gave her more of a feast for her eyes to explore. Though it wasn’t as touchably soft as his front, it was mesmerizing, a potent reminder of his brute strength as the muscles flexed with his movement.
MaryAnne rubbed her sweaty palms against her legs. Gods help her. His back was broad and powerful, and covered with more of the bony ridges. The clusters were larger across his shoulders and upper back but gradually grew smaller the lower that her eyes dipped. His tail twitched, curling languidly as he bent, and her gaze dropped to it and the reinforced seam of his pants around the opening for his tail. His ass flexed as he straightened again, the muscles of his back shifting as he lifted a large jug of water and poured it into a pot to heat.
Raskyuil turned, and with his crotch suddenly filling her line of vision, MaryAnne looked away, her cheeks burning that she’d been caught staring.
“Stay here. The water should be hot enough for washing when I return.”
She blinked as his words sank in, her arousal vanishing as panic rose within her. He was leaving her there… alone?
“Return?” The question left her a lot louder and sharper than she intended, drawing a curious look from the male.
His nostrils flared and arousal sparked in his eyes, but it only lasted for a moment as he continued to sniff the air and his face suddenly softened with understanding. His booted feet thumped heavily on the packed earth as he strode toward her. She shivered when his big hand cupped her cheek, her eyes fluttering closed as she took comfort in the heat coming from him and how gently that roughly callused hand touched her. There was something sweetly and sinfully erotic in that too.
“I will be gone for just a moment. You will be safe here, and I won’t be going far. Thankfully the galley tent is near this end of the carnival grounds. I will be able to see our tent the entire time while I’m acquiring food for us.” He gave her a speculative look. “Unless you’d like to come with me?”
In the galley tent where everyone monsters would be clustered together, getting their food, hemming her on at every side? Her stomach cramped, and a foul taste filled her mouth with the sick feeling that came over her. She shook her head quickly and forced a wobbly smile to her lips as the last ember of her desire died a quick and brutal death. “No. You’re right. It is better if I wait here, I think.”
