Page 39 of Taken to Lemora
My mate.
By the time Gorman is finished, Moreth has arrived. They confer briefly before Moreth approaches Essmira, all kindness and smiles. Gorman, meanwhile, takes me gently by the elbow and escorts me into the hall.
“How bad is it, Gorman? Did I…”
The kindest, most stoic male in all of Lemora turns to me then and, in the center of the hallway, cocks his fist back and up, high over his head. The pose looks preposterous. It robs me of whatever I was going to say next.
“Gorman, are you mad? What are you…”
And then he punches me right in the nose.
I fall back with a wild wail, tripping over nothing and landing on my ass. I grab my nose, which is leaking pink blood all over my upper lip, and sputter reflexively, “What…what was that for?”
He doesn’t answer me. Why would he need to? I already know.
He just glowers down at me as he readjusts his robes —robes Essmira made him because she’s a good creature, good enough for Lemora, and far too good for me.Once finished, he says, “Her injuries are superficial, but I will tell Merquin that Essmira will stay here this lunar while she rests. I’ll have a cart return her to Merquin’s estate the coming solar. I’ll also let Merquin know that you are not to see the female again in private quarters without an escort.”
I wince, hatred for this male making me want to fight back, but self-hatred outweighing it. I nod as I clutch my upper heart and then rub my forehead. My horns have stopped vibrating. Now they’re just itching again.
“I thought she was enjoying it,” I offer and the words sound so trite and lame that I wince as they hit the bitter air. “Why didn’t she ask me to stop?”
“She doesn’t know how,” Gorman says, picking the scab across my heart to reveal the wound anew. “If it had been an Oosa on top of her, I’m sure she’d have pretended to enjoy it then, too.”
He digs a grave, the bloodthirsty bastard, throws my body in the hole and showers dirt over me softly. I’ve never felt so low. I’ve never felt like this before. I don’t know what to do. “I don’t know what to do. I should go back in. I should…apologize?” I’ve never apologized to anyone before for anything. I’m not even sure I know how to go about it.
“You haven’tapologizedto her yet?” I meet his gaze. It’s black and burning. “Raingar, Raingar, Raingar…” He shakes his head, straightens and takes a step back. “I’ll be taking the next few solars in my cabin in the countryside while I reconsider my future within this clan. I’m not sure you are the male I thought you were. And if that female ever chooses to forgive you, I want you to be haunted by the knowledge that it is only because she doesn’t know how not to. I, however, do.”
The male who has been my best friend for as long as I can remember turns from me and walks away without another word. Wind billows in through the curtain when he parts it and steps through, and I see faces — dozens of faces — gathered on the other side of it, all watching me and whispering about their naked clan chief sitting on the floor of the hall wishing…just wishing…
And I’m not even sure for what.
Maybe just some way to make it right.
8
Raingar
“Are you sure you’re alright?” I ask her for the eleventh time since we’ve left Merquin’s keep.
“Yeffa, Raingar, I promise you, I’m fine.”
“You look fine.”
“I am fine.”
“Are you sure you’re fine?”
“Yeffa. I’m sure I’m fine.” She snorts a little and it makes me feel lightyears lighter. She has her hair up today and it reveals the lovely red curls on the back of her neck. She’s wearing a simple tunic and thin, linen trousers today, both in lilac. It makes her skin look ethereal and I hate that that feral voice inside of me feels threatened by any male who looks at her and half the females, too.
I’m supposed to have silenced that voice. I’m supposed to be making it right.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt before she’s even finished. It’s hard not to. Seeing her off the solar after she left my keep, she’d had red splotches on her brown skin around her jaw and throat and likely countless other places from where I grabbed and aggressed her.
Merquin, taking one look at the marks, had punched me in the nose. Earlier this solar, Librida had done the same. It’s been six solars, but I’ve been punched on all of them, first by the other clan chiefs, and then by Lyla and Timor.
“I know. I’m sorry, too. I should have said something. I spoke to Merquin about it at great length and I feel more confident now if you wanted to try again.”
“TRY AGAIN!” I shout, startled out of my skin. I shake my head aggressively, so hard that the sight of the other pad pads and Lemoran on the path around us blur into a brown continuum. “Are you mad!”
