Page 10 of Orc Chained
“That’s how little our oath means to you? Maybe my parents are right about Humans.”
It shouldn’t hurt me. I shouldn’t let it hurt me. “Maybe they are. Is that all?”
If he was still before, now the lack of motion raises hair along my arms and neck. Three soft breaths before he speaks again.
“I understand why you left. I’m not angry. Stay awhile, that’s all I ask. I miss you, Ky’a.”
“Hmm. What do your parents have to say about my return?”
The faint outline of his head tilts, beads in the braids woven throughout his hair clattering gently against each other. The clattering tells me he’s grown it out, maybe to his waist.
“I will protect you from my parents. No one will disrespect you here ever again. I am not the boy you left behind.”
I need to see his eyes. He can lie with his voice—he could never lie with his dark, cold,feraleyes.
I snort.
“I understand you don’t believe me. You shouldn’t. Stay. Let me prove my words with deeds. When you left you broke me, Ky’a. I had to remake myself into a male worthy of you.”
My heart stops for a second at those words. No raging, no snarling, no using his greater strength to dominate me into submission. I’m completely off balance.
He takes another step up. I want to shout at him to get on with it, charge me, pin me against the door, savage me, but stop this slow stalking.
“Ky’a.” Suddenly he’s in front of me, his heat, his greater height. Not quite touching.
My voice trembles. “You can’t have what you want from me, Rath.”
His talons skim my braids. “Accept our marriage. I want you happy, dripping in my come and fat with my babies. I want my best friend back, the lover I let my weakness take from me.”
His fingers slip into my hair and close into a fist at my nape.
“I’m not going to forgive you ever,” I say, “and I’m not going to forget.”
“I’ve seen marriages based on worse.”
“Rath—”
He tugs, and I refuse to gasp when my chest hits his. It’s bare, hard muscle against my nose flexing as I turn my head, my mouth inadvertently brushing his warm skin.
I try not to swallow. “You. . .uhhv. . .gotten big.”
“Everywhere, Ky’a.” He lowers his head, lips pressing against my cheek. “And I’m starving.”
Thinking straight is an overrated skill, but I persevere. I’ve had practice. “You’re hungry? I mean, did you eat, for food?”
None of the words coming from my mouth are coherent.
He chuckles again. “The only thing I want to eat is between your thighs.Twenty years,Kyona.”
Heat rises up my core, floods my stomach and I press my thighs together to keep from releasing the scent.
He inhales.
In a flash, he’s my old Rath again. Cold, vicious, his hand in my hair painful. “Abstinent while waiting for my wife. Can you say the same?”
I know better than to go for my blade. He’s even bigger than Hatthar.
“I don’t want anyone. I don’t want you.”
