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My jaw dropped, my eyes all but popping out of my head, all anger forgotten. “As in today?” I asked.
“More like as in right now,” Ravik said, a playful spark in his dark eyes replacing his earlier upset one. “Well, after I’m done changing,” he added, looking down at himself.
“Why aren’t you done changing then?” I asked.
Ravik chuckled. “On it, Mistress.”
I couldn’t help the smile that blossomed on my lips.
Damn the man.
He shouldn’t have such an easy time of bringing me down from my temper flares. That was way too much power over me. I feasted my eyes on the sea of rippling muscles in his back and the sexiest, round but firm globes of his ass as he stripped out of his pants and underwear. He opened the door to the bath to take a quick dip after his training. As he stepped through the doorway, he paused and looked at me over his shoulder. The softness, the tenderness of his expression—incredibly odd on his brutish face—made my stomach flip-flop.
“Thank you,” he said with a gentle smile.
My stomach did another somersault, and my throat tightened at the heartfelt gratitude in his voice and in his eyes. Ravik turned around without another word and entered the water.
Damn that twice wretched man.
While inside the compound’s walls, the racers’ stables sat right next to a large set of reinforced doors, granting a side access to the fortress. It opened onto a wide, open field where a group of adult racers ran freely, loosely herded by four mounted Braxians. On each side of the doors, younger racers were being trained inside large corrals, their good actions rewarded with pieces of raw meat.
I approached the fence of one of the corrals, staring at the wondrous creatures in awe. Ravik had been right. Although completely scaled like the battle version of the karvelis, the racers’ proportions resembled the Xelixian cavas. However, they were leaner, their lines more aerodynamic.
The perfect size for me to ride.
Well, not these foals, but definitely the adults.
“Ravik, they are magnificent,” I whispered.
His arm wrapped around me, his hand resting on the side of my bum. “Thank you, little bird,” he said before pressing a gentle kiss on my temple.
Leading me towards the open field, he raised a hand and waved at the men herding the beasts. One of them broke off, followed by a couple of the racers; a midnight-colored one and a dark, royal-purple one.
“Magnar,” the man said, stopping his racer a couple of meters in front of him. He hopped off his mount and struck his chest with his fist in a sign of respect. The man cast a curious glance towards me and, almost imperceptibly, nodded his head, apparently uncertain how to address me, if at all.
“Cormak,” Ravik said, nodding back at the man in greeting.
He raised a palm towards the black racer. The creature approached him, pressing the flat part of his snout against Ravik’s hand.
“This is Sheeroh, the only racer that will tolerate me,” Ravik said with a chuckle.
As if in response to that comment, Sheeroh whipped his scorpion tail over his head and tapped the rounded edge of the stinger against Ravik’s forehead. My stomach dropped at the speed with which the deadly weapon had come at my mate. Yet, the touch had been gentle, controlled. I gaped at the creature, my heart skipping a beat.
“Isn’t that stinger all kinds of lethally poisonous?” I asked, trying to downplay how much that had scared me.
“No more than the venom they can inflict with a bite,” Ravik said, nonchalantly.
I blinked at him, my mind taking a second to process what he’d just said. “You mean, when we had put our hand in the battle karveli’s mouth a few days ago…?”
He nodded, a broad grin on his face, and his obsidian eyes sparkling with mischief. “The trust isn’t that the karveli won’t chomp your arm off, but that he won’t inject you with one of the most virulent poisons on Braxia.”
I felt faint for how recklessly I’d shoved my hand in front of Voltar’s face that day.
“Do not fret,” Ravik said teasingly. “Sheeroh would never harm me. Her big brother would have her hide if she did.”
“Her?” I asked, surprised. “She’s a female?”
Ravik nodded. “They all are,” he said, waving at the team of racers. “The females of the karvelis are called karvalas. The racers are only a subgroup of them, bred specifically for that purpose, or born showing great promise. This beauty,” he said, raising his palm to the second racer that Cormak had brought, “is called Dajia. She’s Voltar’s mate.”
