Page 22 of Broken Triad

His nostrils flare as he breathes in my scent, tasting the lust between my legs, and his eyes roll back, every muscle in his body tensing as he tastes my arousal. With a growl, he pulls himself away from me. His cock is rock hard, standing thick and huge, the head of it outlined against his black robes. He barks out something in Aurelian—and I know he didn’t smell any paste on my body, or find any trick of herbal magic that they suspect, but I wish he didn’t taste my aching need or the way my body reacts to his almost casual dominance, the way he is able to manhandle me effortlessly.

Krazak stands, growling. His eyes are too wide, fixated between my legs, and I cover myself with my hands.

“You think I cannot control myself, witch? Do you think your spells have power over me?”

My mind races, trying to understand what he’s talking about. “No, please, I don’t, I…”

“Tell me the truth! Why are you here!” He slams his fist against the table, hard, making my whole body shake. I fight back tears.

“I need you to save my father!” I blurt it out, and the three men go silent. Bolden places the ripped dress on top of me, and I pull it against my body, hiding myself as best as I can. I sit up, shaking. “I really did get herbs from the garden to help you. I promise.”

“I don’t need help. Where is your father?”

“In the mines,” I say, quickly. They will only trust me if they think I have something to gain from them. “You can’t even see out of that eye. What if more Scorp come? What about the Aurelian Empire? Do you want to go blade to blade against Aurelians with only one eye?”

I switch my tactic to the one thing he cares about—fighting. The three of them look at each other, and I know they’re conversing telepathically—on whether I’m lying or not.

Krazak grunts, and I can see I convinced him. He gets up heavily from the chair and walks into the huge bedroom, sitting at the edge of the soft feather bed, which creaks horribly under his weight, buckling. He’s stiffer now. When he was walking through the gardens, fresh after battle, he moved fluidly. Now the aches of battle are catching up to him.

Bolden is staring out the window. He’s gripping the back of the chair I was sitting on so tightly, his marble knuckles turn a paler shade of grey, and I can’t help but glance downwards. His black robe is pressed out so obscenely it looks like he’s making a joke by putting a baseball bat under his robes in a mockery of manhood, but there’s no trick. He’s got a cock like a sledgehammer between his tree-trunk thighs, and sniffing between my legs for any hint of poison is driving him mad. His lips are curled back, showing his bright white teeth, and there is a crunch as the wood splinters under his hand, his fists squeezing too tight around the top of the chair and snapping it.

I pull the ripped dress over my body. It shows off my flesh, and I fear it’s more enticing than being in just my undergarments, but I’d feel more naked without it. The three men have showered and changed into fresh, black pressed robes, but I can still smell a slight hint of Krazak’s musk as I approach him with my bag of herbs, trying to keep my hand from shaking.

Sitting, he’s huge. I gently dab the poultice onto his bruised forehead. It’s strange to be so close to him. He’s got a day’s worth of stubble lining his powerful jaw, and some part of me want to trace his chin with my finger, feeling the hardness of his features.

Such a bruise should be agonizing to be touched, even gently, but he stares straight through me, without a flash of pain in his eyes. His nostrils flare, and I know he’s tasting my scent…

And I know that when I was forced against the table, stripped and searched, there was a rush of fear and longing that spread through my body. He can smell it.

“Damn you,” he says, but it’s under his breath, in the Common tongue yet not meant for me.

I swallow, and continue, gently rubbing in the salve despite my heart pounding.

“Why do you serve?” Khra asks from behind. I keep my hand steady.

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you wear servant robes and serve a man so unworthy? He left you all to die.”

I think back to my mother dying, my father’s tears.

“It’s not simple. Life’s not easy out here.”

“It is simple. You should have killed him and taken his things. You’re sharp with that knife. There’s no way a coward who flees Scorp could hold a woman like you captive. Unless you wanted to be held. Perhaps you were born to serve?” There’s a coldness to his tone.

“Are you trying to be cruel?” I ask, keeping my hand steady.

“We are cruel. Isn’t that how you see us? You recoiled when we saved your life.” Krazak spits it out, angry, his biceps tensing.

I don’t know why these three hate me, but they are the only ones that can save my father.

“There are many tales of Fanatics. That you...” I gulp. “That you take humans as slaves. That you sacrifice virgins on your black altars, to your war-god. That you plan to destroy everything.”

Krazak says nothing in response. The three men are deathly quiet. I finish tending to his bruise, and compose myself.

I want to ask if he’ll help save my father. Instead, I look into Krazak’s clear grey eyes. “Do you have other wounds?”

He’s silent.

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