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My eyes widened, my knees nearly giving way with surprise. Pleasure warmed me, flowing up my wrist into my throat, my chest, my belly. Down and down, it burst in me, pooling between my thighs, making me gasp.
Lorik groaned as my blood hit him, but I didn’t think it was from pain.
No, no, no,I thought wildly.What have I done?
I might’ve just stepped unknowingly into the crosshairs of fate.
Chapter
Three
There was a half-naked and slumbering Kylorr-Allavari in my bed, the first male to ever lie within its comfortable confines.
And he was held teetering on the edge of death.
He was sweating out the poison—as he had been since midnight—and if he survived that, the infection would take hold next.
But Lorik Ravael was strong. His heart had beat steadily and proudly beneath my cool palm when I’d checked it last. The night nettle was gifting him strange nightmares, and I watched from the doorway as he moaned and thrashed, his wings twitching underneath him. His shoulder was bandaged, but I’d left the wound open for now. It needed regular cleanings, and I needed to keep it packed with fresh poultice every few hours before I stitched it.
My forearm was beginning to burn from grinding the dried wrathweed in the early morning hours, but it needed to be done. Beneath the clean, white bandage, the bite on my wrist throbbed.
Heal him first…ask questions later,I reminded myself.
But I knew from my studies, from stories, fromhistory…that a Kylorr’s bite only triggeredthatkind of response in their mates. Their blood mates.Kyranas—that was what they called them in their language. Their venom reacting with their mate’s blood, creating an overwhelming cacophony of sensation, meant to bond and tether the pairing together. Often forlife.
That was what history said.History.Kyranapairings…I’d never heard of one on Allavar. Not for centuries, at least. They happened commonly on Krynn, the Kylorr’s home planet, because of their deities, because of the magic that infused that world.
But Allavar was different. The rules were different. The magic here was not the same.
I exhaled a slow breath and turned from the doorway. Looking at his face made my chest ache, as it always had. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t fantasized about Lorik in my bed before, though I hadn’t known his name then. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t touched myself to the memory of his teasing grin and mischievous eyes, if I hadn’t fantasized about those wings wrapping around me as he—
“Enough, Marion,” I whispered, my cheeks flushing. This was improper. Having these thoughts about a half-dead, half-naked, half-Kylorr, half-Allavari male, who’d always sent a shiver down my spine. Was I intrigued? Yes. But that shiver also told me he was dangerous. There was something I couldn’t see with Lorik. Something beneath the surface that had always sent a sharp warning spearing through my belly.
And others sense it too,I thought, remembering how most villagers gave him a wide berth at the market.
I thought that, perhaps, it was because of his mixed race. Allavari magic manifesting in a Kylorr? That was an extremely dangerous and powerful thing. Veranis Sarin—or his followers—wouldn’t have been so powerful without his mixed blood, afterall. And while the centuries had softened the fear of that in the villagers, it wasn’t gone. There was a reason why people still looked at Kylorr-and-Allavari couples with a lingering, disapproving stare.
Lorik was a mystery I knew better than to investigate too deeply. Even as I acknowledged that, my eyes strayed to the floor in the front room, to the bloodied remnants of the arrow that had been protruding from his chest.
Reaching down, I gathered up the broken pieces as sunlight peeked through the shutters of my windows. I turned the fletching and the arrowhead in my fingers. Silver metal. But Allavari—though renowned and talented metallurgists in all the Four Quadrants—didn’t use metal in arrows. They thought it a waste of their precious resources. Not even Allavari hunters used arrows anymore.
Sighing, I dropped the tips into an empty bowl to wash and snagged a fresh rag to clean up the memory of midnight. I heard a soft warbling, husky sound behind me and turned to see Peek emerging from beneath the kitchen counters.
“There you are,” I murmured. “That’s where you’ve been this whole time, you little coward?”
He mewed in answer, and I shook my head, reaching out to scratch behind his ears that were nearly as long as his body.
“We have a guest,” I told Peek. “So, be nice.”
Mybraydus’s eyes narrowed. Then he turned his head to regard the open doorway of my bedroom, his back hunching in response. In a flash, he leaped to the cottage door, pawing at it, and I let him out into the front garden.
Turning my face up to the sun, I soaked in the warm rays, even as the chilly air made me tighten my shawl around my shoulders. I was certain I looked like a mess. My nightdress was covered in black blood. Wrist bandaged. Braid askew. Deep circles under my eyes.
I smiled. The sun felt likelife.
That was what Aysia always used to say. She’d woken early in the mornings to catch every last ray. At the orphanage, Correl had been hard pressed to get her back inside most days…likely why my sister’s back and legs had been covered in welts. Likely why I’d done everything I could to learn how to heal her quickly, to make her feel better so she wouldn’t cry at night.
Grief and guilt and memory made my smile fade. The sun’s warmth turned oppressive, and I retreated back into my cottage but left the door open to help air out the stink of the poultice and the fire cups still simmering in the hearth.
