Page 23

Chapter

Twenty-Two

ANYA

I am drifting so sweetly as Daghel dismounts, drawing me from Drisk’s back as the male’s strands pull free from me, making me shake with bliss. Unfortunately, the cold air and the residual effects of the storm are catching up to me with such strength that I’m violently shivering in my mate’s arms. I can’t complain too much. If not for all the fucking, I would probably be dead. Although I had been warned, the reality of the situation settled with a grim and inescapable weight. I shouldn’t have survived. I don’t know what happened up there. Daghel seemed possessed as he fucked me, and the way my body answered to it and craved every bit of it with a wild frenzy frightens me in retrospect even as I feel a deep, dark craving for it come alive within my core.

“Saved by dick,” I whisper with a chuckle, bringing Daghel’s worried gaze to my face.

He shakes his head but quickly gathers me more firmly into his arms and swiftly carries me to our bedchamber. “Your odd sense of humor never ceases to surprise me,” he mutters as he gently deposits me on the bed.

I grin weakly at him in response, but promptly bury my face in the furs to moan pitifully when he turns away to gather up the largest and thickest of the furs. Gods, I am so messed up. His gentleness makes me feel even worse because I can see the guilt in his eyes. It is obvious that he didn’t get the same charge out of it that I did—or if he did, then it must have made him uncomfortable. Damn.

Oh, Anya, can you be more shameless , I scold myself. Who in the right mind wants to be fucked to the edge of oblivion while practically in the cold clasp of death’s claws?

It did teach me one important lesson, though: the winter storms that are so common in the depths of the Cold Mountains are no joke. And realistically far more than any human could handle. It is no wonder that Zyerk’s king and ruling parliament are content to leave the mountains undisturbed as the northernmost border of the kingdom.

“She is too cold,” Drisk complains, and he belches a startling huge flame directly into the hearth, making Daghel drop the furs with a curse as he runs to smother the tiny embers and flames dancing across our bedchamber’s floor. “Apologies,” Drisk grumbles and grimaces as he settles close to me in an attempt to warm me with the heat of his body.

I hate to tell him that I don’t feel a thing and that’s beginning to worry me. In fact, I dare say that my shivering is getting worse. The numbness doesn’t stop me from jumping at the loud banging echoing from the rookery’s door. I can see that Daghel is tempted to ignore it as he bends to gather the furs that he dropped, but whoever is knocking is relentless and the banging is now a nonstop symphony that works his last nerve until he tosses the entire bundle he’s collected onto the bed beside me and storms from the room with a clipped command to Drisk to keep me warm.

I want to cry for the lack of good it’s doing, but blink back the icy tears before they can drip down my cold cheeks. No sense in making myself even colder and more miserable than I already am. Instead, I focus on trying to control my shivering enough so that the sound of my teeth rattling in my head doesn’t drown out the voices echoing down the hall when Daghel pulls the door open with a surly, “What is it?”

“About time,” an irate female voice snaps, and I imagine that she shoves her way inside from how her voice rapidly increases in volume. “Vorn sent me the moment his guards noticed Drisk dropping into the rookery. I am to tell you that he requests your presence… immediately. I cannot imagine what could possibly be so urgent about Glas Village of all places that it cannot wait until morning. Honestly, it was suicidal that you returned tonight at all,” she berates him.

I grimace. Linahna doesn’t sound happy, but I cannot blame her. It is a cold and miserable night, and the prince has no compunction about sending his sister and the rightful heir on errands for him.

“I cannot. Not right now,” Daghel replies flatly. “I am needed by my wyva’s side. The return was hard on Anya, and she is having difficulty recovering from it.”

“Wyva?” she replies with a note of surprise that promptly fades into fury. “She is your wyva, but you are telling me that you took her there and didn’t stay? Are you completely insane? I had assumed that perhaps you left her here to await your return, and that was the reason for your rush back, but to hear this… where is she?” she loudly demands seconds before I hear a commotion in the hall like a pack of hellhounds preparing to eviscerate me.

Perhaps I should be a little concerned about what is charging my way, but I wince as the entire rookery seems to shake with her bellow. Is my hearing becoming more sensitive, or does Linahna simply have a very powerful set of lungs? I steel myself, preparing for the worst. Perhaps she will think a foolish human too weak for the male she cannot have and will take it upon herself to murder me on the spot to put me out of my misery? It is an insane thought, but I can admit that I’m not feeling quite right. I may be slightly feverish after all.

I slump against Drisk, suddenly very tired, drawing a concerned rumble from the wyvern seconds before Linahna flies into the room with Daghel hot on her heels. Her eyes go round for only a heartbeat before she springs into action and rushes to my side.

“She is practically frozen,” Linahna scolds, a scowl tightening her face. “If you insisted on taking her, why would you ever keep her out so long? And then to fly back… You should have just stayed in the lower village overnight. Drisk would have found a comfortable enough place to sleep and keep warm. Get these wet things off her.”

“I wouldn’t let him,” I admit, forcing the words between chattering teeth. “I wouldn’t let him leave Drisk outside. I-it’s damned inhumane the way wyverns are barred from any of the comforts their orcs enjoy whenever the gathols must attend to the villages. And don’t scold him too much because until now I’ve been delightfully warm.”

She gives me an arched look, but upon peeling off my frozen skirts and drawers, she chuckles wryly despite herself. “I guess I can imagine exactly how you were kept warm. Creative. Insane as all hells, but creative, I must give you that.”

“I did not plan it, female,” Daghel grouses as he nudges her out of the way to drag off my chemise and bundle me up in a thick fur as he rubs me briskly. “Call it a compellation if you will,” he grunts. “Thankfully, whatever it was, it at least did some good by way of keeping her safe until we returned. But I do not know what to make of this.”

“You were keeping her warm all right, but the ice and sleet soaked her through so that the moment she came down from your toasty little romp,” she adds scathingly, “her body temperature plunged. Now she is struggling to regulate her body’s core temperature, so I suggest, if you truly wish to be useful, let me take over drying her while you go get Gwen. From what I gather, she was assigned to this side of the palace, so I imagine that you have a better idea of where her quarters are than I do.”

Daghel grunts reluctantly in agreement, but he carefully releases me and stands when Linahna begins to rub the fur over me. It is clear that he does not wish to leave, but is willing to at least entrust me to her care. It makes me wonder again at how deep their relationship is, but I’m distracted when his dark gaze fastens on me intently.

“I will return quickly,” he assures me in a quiet voice, and I nod in acknowledgment.

Or at least I think I do. My head is feeling so woolly that I’m not entirely sure if it’s moving or if I’m holding it still. I squint at the female briskly rubbing me in Daghel’s absence. I squint at her, and I squint at the door where Daghel just stood a moment ago and I realize he has gone and actually left me with her.

“Daghel must really like you,” I observe aloud, and her lips twitch in response.

“You believe so?” she murmurs, and I nod, this time moving my head more vigorously to be certain that I feel it. I ignore the fact that she chuckles in response. It doesn’t matter, so long as I’m getting my point across.

What was my point again? Oh yes.

“You do realize that all of this is pointless,” I say.

Her eyebrows rise in response, but her rubbing slows a little to gentle pats as she peers at me, meeting my eyes. “Why do you say that, Anya?”

Oh, that must have pricked a nerve. I do feel sympathy for her. She is a lovely female constrained by tradition and expectations and in the midst of all of that fighting for her inheritance. It seems no matter where one is in Helfallow, females must deal with much of the same bullshit. Still, sympathy only goes so far, and she needs to know that she now has zero chance with my gathol.

“He’s mine,” I say bluntly, my mouth completely bypassing the entire speech my brain was hastily putting together in its rambling fashion. “Drisk is mine. They are my gathol.”

Her lips twitch, and I promptly frown in response. Why is she laughing?

“So they are,” she observes, and Drisk cackles in a more subdued series of clicks as he nuzzles my cheek.

I give his muzzle a fond, if clumsy, pat and beam happily. Of course Drisk loves me. Despite being a wyvern, and possessing an appearance that makes one wonder if he is preparing to devour them or not, he makes his emotions readily available and visible for anyone who knows how to look for them.

“I just wanted you to know so that you are aware that, no matter what happens or how anything changes, you will never have a chance with them. It is only fair to say so, female to female. I will never give them up.”

“Is that what you imagine I want?” She chuckles. “I see that Daghel did not explain it well… and Drisk, well, he would not know the situation clearly.”

I frown at her, a little befuddled. “Situation?”

Linahna nods. “Being a princess can be tedious at best and often made it difficult to find many truly loyal and honest friends. Daghel is such a friend, and we have been friends since we were pups. Because of this—and because I knew that I could trust him with anything—I had him pretend to be my lover when we were younger and I was still vulnerable to many of the orcs who were still much larger than me.” She gives me a wry smile. “The females of the royal familial line have a distinguished size, but we are slow to grow into it.”

“He pretended to be your lover,” I echo, my mind shamelessly stuck on that one tidbit of information. “Wasn’t that difficult?”

She shakes her head. “Not at all. We were never romantically interested in each other. I was never interested in any male, to be honest.” I blink at her in confusion, and she laughs and begins to rub me briskly with the fur once more. “While I would not mind having a male to suit my purposes, it would only be to pleasure and breed my mate.” She pauses and gives me a meaningful look. “My female mate.”

Oh. Oh! “Daghel was your beard!” I exclaim as the pieces fall together despite my mental fuzziness.

Linahna chuckles and gives me a curious look. “That is an interesting expression—one we do not have, but I believe I can defer your meaning well enough. But yes. He provided for me, and every so often I helped him with some necessary release when he required it… manually,” she adds with a grimace. “No offense, but there is no way I would have allowed him to mount me. It was far safer to mount him in order to help him find the release he needed. I would like to think that it also prepared him for Drisk when he arrived.”

“I see,” I murmur in fascination. They gave each other a hand then and, by doing so, cemented a deep friendship. That is something I can comprehend even in my current state. What’s a little pegging between unattached friends?

She pauses and gives me a worried look. “You aren’t offended, are you? I know that humans can be particular about some things but?—”

“No, of course not,” I interrupt her with a laugh. “Just as long as we both understand each other when I say that whatever Daghel needs from here on out, I can more than give him,” I assure her, drawing a pleased chuckle from the princess.

But her words do give me an idea. A fabulous idea of how I can utilize my special talents in a way that is certain to please him and win his heart entirely. He likes pain and clearly… other things… as much as I do. It will make the perfect gift for my gathol!

She squeezes my arm companionably, but I immediately grab her hand and beam at her earnestly. “Can I trust you with anything?”

“Of course,” she soothes, and I wonder just how crazy I must have looked in my feverish state when I asked for her to respond that way.

Something to worry about later.

“Good, because I have a request.” I pause and glower at Drisk until he turns his head away from us with an indignant huff before motioning her closer. Her eyebrows rise but she leans in, curious. “It’s a very special request,” I whisper. “I have a gift in mind.… a very special gift for my gathol for Gehl.”

The corners of her mouth draw up in a sly smile. “Do tell.”

Her smile broadens as I whisper it into her ear, though I am more than a little alarmed at how quickly my strength is fading as I am talking. Finally, I settle back on the bed with a yawn, and she pats my hand reassuringly. “Not a problem. I know exactly where to take this project.”

I return her smile tiredly. “Thank you.” My eyes flutter closed and I yawn again as the chill continues to seep deeper into me, making me sleepy. “Apologies. I really feel quite odd.”

“It will be okay. I didn’t think that this would stabilize your temperature, but I hoped that it would at least prolong things for a bit before you fell unconscious.” I hear her sigh and the rustle of furs as she wraps another one around me. “It is only nature that a cold body would shut down to conserve strength. But never fear. You are in no immediate mortal danger. You may sleep without fear. Gwen is coming. You will wake up, and when you do, you will be right as rain,” she murmurs, her voice fading to a distant purr as the cold blackness encompasses me.