Page 12

Chapter

Eleven

ANYA

W armth envelops me. Even the stone floor feels delightfully warm, which sends little pings of warning through my mind, but I can’t quite seem to connect the dots. My brow furrows and my hand twitches, sending a sharp aching sensation through it and up my arm. Oh, yes… the healer mended it. A vision fills my mind of a woman still in the first blush of youth with jaw-length blonde hair and brown eyes, a look of surprise on her face.

But why am I on the floor?

Heat coils around me as something scaled brushes against my arm. The muscles in that limb tighten in immediate response, and my breath catches even as I struggle to fight for a state of calm.

Oh. Right. The wyvern. Is it… lying beside me? That doesn’t sound like the behavior of a monster preparing to snack on a human, or even one that intends me harm in any fashion when it could easily just let me freeze on the floor. In fact, now that I’m able to slowly untangle the events in my mind, I would dare say that if it had planned on killing me, it would have likely eaten me long before I woke up the first time. Instead, it cuddled with me in bed, much like it seems to be doing now that I’m on the floor. Cuddling isn’t threatening… right? I’ve even known a few aggressive cuddlers and they are about as dangerous as a pillow. Only threatening if they happen to accidentally smother you.

Blowing out a slow breath, I crack one eye open to peer at the creature lying beside me. Its head is roughly twice the size of an orc’s head, which puts it in large proportions, but not quite as terrifying as something that could swallow even an adult orc in one bite. As if sensing my stare, the eye nearest to me opens, its slit pupil expanding slightly in a sea of amber. It doesn’t move, but returns my regard quietly.

“You… you aren’t going to eat me, right?” I whisper.

“Would you like me to?” it queries in a musically sonorous voice. “I could make it very good for you. Such pleasure would be a little death as it claims you. It would please me to offer this.”

That… is an unexpected offer. Heat rushes into my cheeks as the dragon’s blatant innuendo makes my belly tighten with interest. It seems wrong. I have done some perverted acts over the years to please my gentlemen clients, but I never quite stepped over the line of familiar humanoid features. I know that many of the more monstrous species satisfy themselves with the street girls willing to accept their coin, but I never dallied with more than the occasional elf who lived within the capital or visited on business. A wyvern though… That sounds even beyond what a street girl would accept invading her cunt. It was too other, too bestial, and yet I cannot deny that its whispered promise does things to me, even if my mind wishes to reject it.

“Cease your flirting, Drisk,” Daghel chuckles, and the deep sound makes my head whip around to the chair where the big male is reclined with ease.

Despite his relaxed posture, I get the sense that laughing and smiling are not familiar to him. His laughter sounds raspy with little use, and his smile is merely a hint traced upon the corners of his lips.

“Do not be concerned. Drisk will not harm you. In fact, despite appearances, you are safer with him than any other on these peaks,” he rumbles. “He is quite incapable of harming you.”

He is? I peer at the wyvern as I let this new information sink in, and without a certain comfort base with the monster curled so gently around me.

“Does that include you?” I ask in challenge and am met with another rusty chuckle.

“Yes,” Daghel muses after a long minute. “Unlike Drisk, I can hurt you. You have my oath, however, that I will not. Of all people, you are the one I value the most.”

I scoff a little at his words as I struggle awkwardly to my feet, taking care not to step on Drisk. “Forgive me if a little hard to believe. You don’t even know me. Hell, you don’t even know my name. You just stole me.”

That faint hint of a smile returns as he seems to see straight through me with his dark, impenetrable gaze. “It does not matter. I know enough. I know that Drisk’s scenting led him true directly to you, and that wyvern’s choosing never fails. I know that you are strong and brave. And that you are far bolder and more spirited than you permit others to see—or are willing to see in yourself.”

“And how do you figure that?” I demand.

Daghel taps the side of his nose with a claw, his smile curling further, giving his features a predatory cast. “With you this close, I can smell you.”

I gape at him, embarrassed and horrified at his insight. He can smell me? Suddenly, I feel very exposed. I’ve always been able to control the perceptions others have had of me to at least some degree to hide my vulnerabilities, but there is no hiding anything from him or the wyvern if they can smell my reactions so acutely. I stumble back, ignoring Drisk’s querying whistle of concern. I can’t handle this. I am supposed to have some control here, but I have none— none!

Daghel’s smile disappears, his expression becoming wintry once again as he uncoils from the chair and slowly to his full height. “What are you doing, female?”

“Stop,” I snap, my voice whipping out in a broken lash that startles him enough that he stops in place. His dark eyes, however, search my face as if trying to pry out every secret. “You don’t know me,” I bite out in emphasis.

He inclines his head slowly in acquiesce. “Then tell me. I wish… we wish to know you.”

A bitter laugh falls from my lips as a shiver of fear overtakes me. I feel like he is humoring me, no matter how serious he appears. And how would I know any differently? I can’t scent his reactions. Not only do I not have the upper hand, but it turns out that I’m also at a serious disadvantage. Drisk lifts his head from the floor, his amber gaze following me as I scramble away from them.

“This… this isn’t going to work,” I mumble, and I can feel the weight of their gazes as they narrow upon me. “It may be fine with the other women your people have dragged to the mountains, but I… I can’t do this.”

“You cannot give us your name?” Daghel’s query sounds almost offhand, but his focus is intent on me as if trying to solve a puzzle.

How do I make them understand? Monsters I can deal with, but this is different and somehow even more terrible.

“Start with your name,” he rumbles. “It is a small thing, and we can go from there.”

“Anastasia,” I say automatically, but then let out a miserable laugh. “No. No, it’s not. Anastasia is a guise… a game I play with clients. Anastasia is nothing but a mask that I put on that reflects back to men every single fantasy.”

“Then who are you,” Drisk hisses, and the sinews of his wings strew slightly, all the long anterior fingers and flexible wing spines. “This that you speak of does not define you. Speak your truth to us so that we may see you.”

“Anya,” I whisper. “I’m just Anya. A girl who is… nothing.”

“False!” The word cuts through the air, startling me as the wyvern rises on his powerful legs to peer down at me. “You are mine.”

“And mine,” Daghel growls.

I stare down at my bare feet. The floor is growing chilly again. I can feel it seeping up through my soles to meet the cold gathering in my chest. “I’ve done… things to survive.”

A chillingly fast clicking sound fills the room, and my eyes fly to Drisk. Is that… wyvern laughter? By the gods, it’s disturbing.

“Survival is all that is important,” Drisk observes, his wings snapping to his sides against as his arms fold casually in front of him as he regards me with what I swear is an air of amusement. “So, why do you fear? I can smell its perfume. Fear is an enticing delicacy but not from you… never from you,” he purrs earnestly.

“I… fear that if I cannot hide some parts of myself, that no one could want me,” I admit as my mind goes back to my hasty efforts to acquire my match with David Mallory. “I have always given men everything they wanted because it was always just my body… always just… flesh. My thoughts and feelings were always my own. But this… If you two can smell what I’m feeling or somehow gain insight into my thoughts that way…”

“You feel that it invades your privacy,” Daghel finishes, his head inclining thoughtfully. “It makes you feel vulnerable.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “And more than that… I’m far from innocent. More so than most women who have joined your clan.”

I jump at the sound of Drisk’s clicking laughter as the wyvern ignores the sharp look Daghel casts his way. I shrink slightly at the sound, but then gasp in surprise when his neck snakes toward me and his muzzle practically knocks me off my feet as he gently headbutts me.

“Absurd human morality,” he chastises. “Orcs do not care about such things, and wyvern care even less. A cunt is a free cunt at a female’s discretion to use, just as males enjoy their pricks. We are only territorial upon finding our mates.”

That is a remarkably revolutionary sentiment. And… I believe him. Despite his strange, inhuman coldness, there is a raw honesty there that makes me want to weep with gratitude. No condemnation. He couldn’t care less and was making that abundantly clear. A tear leaks from my eye to run down my cheek and is immediately followed by another.

“Are you so burdened with shame?”

I shake my head. Of course not. I have always been the mistress of my destiny and have never felt shame for even a moment for what I’ve had to do to guarantee that my needs are seen to.

“Then what?” Daghel prods.

And here we come to the crux of the issue that I loathe to admit.

“I do not wish for you to regret taking me. I wanted to keep control of the situation and feel secure in demanding that you keep me because I thought you would and could never know me any more than I wished you to.”

“That will never happen,” he growls, and he strides across the floor to me to cup my cheek with his dangerously clawed hand. “You are ours, Anya, and that is all that will ever matter. From here we carve our future together.”

Drisk hums his agreement, and something gradually loosens within my chest, a tension I carried for ages without even realizing it. I’m still uncertain what the future holds, but I sense a burden of release that leaves me feeling more like myself than I have in ages as the guise I carefully cultivated for so long slowly unravels. A spark of excitement comes to life inside of me as I savor the feeling of Daghel’s palm on my cheek. Only then do I notice the warm curl of Drisk’s tail around my leg as each male comforts me in his own way.

The corner of Daghel’s mouth suddenly tips, pulling his lips tight around his tusk as I get a glimpse of his sharp fangs. “Welcome, Anya.”