Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
I'm disgusted with him for being so selfish. Disgusted, but not surprised. I bite back a bitter laugh and shake my head. "And what happens to me when you leave?" I can just imagine how well it's going to go over with the people here when Azar fucks off and leaves us at the mercy of dragons again.
I wait for his glib answer. I wait for him to say something like how he's going to take me with him, or he'll set me up with some other sort of fort sugar daddy, or some other equally demeaning answer. To my surprise, he says, "I haven't figured that out yet, either."
I glance up, looking at him. He seems…distressed. As if this is something he hasn't considered. "Not gonna take me with you, huh?"
"I cannot." Azar's expression grows increasingly troubled. "Salorians are not supposed to take…consorts."
Of all the things I expected Azar to say, that's not it. He's not supposed to have a woman? I pause in my fanning, because I'm seeing Azar in a different light, and I'm not sure what I think. He demanded a consort when he recovered, and demanded that it was me, the only woman he knew in the fort. He knew me because I tended to him. And it makes me wonder. "You didn't have someone back home?"
"Someone what?"
With confusion written all over his face, it's obvious he has no idea what I'm talking about. Salorians…don't take companions? Did he really just take me to impress the militia? Because he thinks it’s what the man in charge does?
Is this man a damn virgin?
I think about our first encounter. How he'd looked so stunned when I serviced him with my hand. Oh hell. If he's a virgin…that makes things really, really awkward between us.
"Never mind. I should work." I fix my attention on my patient and ignore Azar until he leaves again.
Chapter
Nine
AZAR
Dinner that night is pleasant. While there is still a bit of hesitation in Melina, the simmering animosity seems to be gone. She is weary by the time she arrives for dinner, and tells me that her patient felt well enough to go home that night. She droops over her plate, and I suggest politely that she take a cool bath and go to bed early. She gives me a look that might be gratitude and retreats, taking a big piece of bread with her. By the time I retire for bed, she is fast asleep, the windows open once more and her body outlined by the thin sheet. I remember my promise to get her an assistant, and make a mental note that I must determine what she would like in such an assistant.
A female one, I think. I do not like the idea of her spending every day with a male who is not me.
Decided, I climb into the bed next to her. Her scent fills my senses, and my cock hardens again. I'd give anything for her to turn over and touch me. To tell me that she's changed her mind and wants my protection. That she'll do anything for it.
Even that fantasy does not sit right. I like Melina's fierceness. I like that she questions me and demands more for her people. I wouldn't like her cowed and weak and begging for my favor. I want to earn her affection. With that resolve in mind, I drift off to sleep…
…only to jerk awake again a short time later, gasping for air.
I bolt upright, pressing a hand to my brow as I suck in breath after breath. My head feels polluted, and I take a moment to reach out to each of the drakoni I have captured, affirming the bond that entraps them to me. They remain in place, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
"Azar?" Melina's sleepy voice makes me turn. She sits up, too, the covers spilling in her lap and revealing her nearly bare breasts. Her nightclothes seem to get smaller and smaller, and I know it is because of the heat and not because of me. Even so, it makes my frustration surge. She reaches out and touches my arm, and just as quickly, my frustration vanishes at that gentle caress. "Are you okay?"
I grunt. "It is nothing. Just a dream."
"Sounds more like a nightmare." She gives my arm a sympathetic rub. "You were making some weird noises in your sleep."
"Weird?"
In the darkness, I sense she shrugs. "Like you were frightened."
A vision flashes through my head. Of my dream, of my skin crawling. Of the Rift, pulsing. Of bugs creeping over my skin and tearing into my flesh with dagger-like legs. Of an eye from above, powerful and all-seeing, looking for…something. I'd woken up before it saw me, but the malignant sense of it remains on my skin, and I feel the absurd urge to bathe again.