Page 9

Chapter

Eight

DAGHEL

A lthough I maintain my icy reserve as I follow Ajek down the long halls of the palace, fury smolders beneath the surface with every drop of blood from my female’s hand. I am livid. With Kael for daring to harm her. With Ajek for insisting that he escort us to our new rookery rather than visiting the healer’s apprentice to see about her wound. With myself for leaving her behind when I should not have let her out of my sight. And yet she didn’t complain. She tore a bandage from her own clothes shortly after entering the palace and wrapped it tightly around her hand, staunching the flow of blood to the best of her ability, but that hasn’t stopped her from falling unconscious from blood loss or the slow, steady drip splattering on the palace floors.

“Can you not do something to keep her from bleeding all over the floors?” Ajek growls as he peers back at me over his shoulder.

“Certainly,” I reply. “That would be going to the healer.” I raise an eyebrow at him, and his lips curl in a sneer.

“Fucking drehl,” he mutters as he resumes facing forward. “I do not understand what Vorn thinks he can accomplish with you. You will bring misfortune to the entire clan. Either by simply being the curse that you are, or because of your failure to abide by any authority but your own. We all know that the clan cannot depend on a drehl.”

“Interesting that you say that when life teaches a drehl one fact quite well: that we are without clan in any way that it truly matters,” I point out as my gaze drifts along the carvings and tapestries of the inner corridor. “All we have is the fear that we strike in others and the begrudging respect it garners us. And I have done that very well. That is what Vorn wants. But,” I drawl so softly that his head turns back to me with a frown, “if my female dies, I can guarantee that whatever he is planning dies with her.”

“Are you daring to threaten your prince?” Ajek demands as he rounds on me.

I meet his gaze without flinching and narrow my eyes as I come to a stop in the middle of the corridor. “I am simply informing you that everything hinges on her welfare. That is the cost of having a pet drehl to command,” I growl. “I will dance to Vorn’s tune for no other reason than for her. Vorn knows this and is counting on it. The most basic truth of the situation is that my loyalty belongs to her, and to her alone. And Vorn is smart enough to capitalize on it. So, if you do not wish to run afoul of the prince with your games, I suggest that you cease worrying about the floors and bring a healer for her.”

Ajek clenches his jaw so hard that the muscle bulges and stands out, as do the veins in his neck. But the male is as smart as I anticipated, and he gives me a sharp nod before resuming his path down the corridor while adjusting his pace to a quicker clip. I stalk after him, my flesh nearly shivering with the effect of the strange energy in the air stirring around me. A pulse that he clearly does not feel or has learned to ignore over the years despite its slow growth around our peaks.

“We are nearly to the stairwell to your rookery,” he mutters. “I doubt she will die of a hand injury. If you kept it clean and changed the rags, it would eventually heal on its own, but I will send one of the apprentices up to you to mend her hand. Since you insist. You may want to rethink it, however. She is dangerous with functioning hands. She not only managed to get Kael’s dagger from him, but drew first blood. She might do worse to you in close quarters.”

I shake my head at the thought, but my cock tightens with anticipation. Such exquisite pain and agony from her hand can only be looked forward to with considerable pleasure. If that is the coin with which I must pay to claim my mate and bind her completely to me and Drisk, then I am pleased to do so.

“I wish nothing more than for my mate to be whole,” I reply in a low voice, only to be met by a derisive snort from the male in front of me.

“I never would have taken a drehl for a sentimental fool,” Ajek observes with a dry chuckle. “It’s your hide. If you wish to take risks, maybe she will save me the headache and just kill you quickly.”

My mouth tightens beneath my flight mask in consideration. “Perhaps.”

Ajek’s chuckle floats through the corridor, echoing with his heavy footsteps. “Obedient to your mate already, are you? I never thought a drehl, of all people, would suffer the same disease as much of our clan.” He pats a hand in the air with his amusement. “Do not worry, you will see. Prince Vorn will show you a different future for our clan.”

I peer at the back of his head, cocking my head. This is enlightening, but I am not surprised. “Will he?” I murmur as we arrive at a dark staircase.

Ajek stops and turns toward me as he leans back against the wall. “Naturally. Males are stronger and more powerful. It is our right to have power over the females who depend on our protection. All other orcs across Helfallow know this. Even pitiful, weak humans understand it. It is our Cold Mountain clans who are ignorant of the natural order of things. The time of our dominion is now.” He waves me toward the stairs. “This is you.”

I incline my head and proceed toward the stairs, refusing to comment on his speech. It is something I have heard before among some males within the clan. Males like Kael, whom I wouldn’t trust with the welfare of a female. They will never understand the reason females have led our clans throughout the ages.

I pause on the steps and glance over my shoulder. “The healer?”

The male grunts and nods. “I will send one immediately. We will get your delicate little female fixed up for you so that you can enjoy her trying to murder you in your sleep. Here… your key.”

He snorts mirthfully and tosses an iron key at me as he pushes away from the wall to head back in the direction from which we came. I shift my mate’s weight to snatch the key from the air with one hand. Holding the cool metal in my hand, I watch him for only a moment before following the stairs the rest of the way to the dark door at the top.

My expression hardens as I regard the entrance to the rookery and slip the key into the lock. The heavy door groans as I push it open, and it occurs to me that I’ve been put in a long-abandoned rookery just off the palace. My lips twist grimly as I pocket the key in the small pouch on my belt. The rookery is cold without any fire to warm it. The entire rookery has the feeling of something long dormant and layers of dust on all the furnishings. I’m not the least bit surprised that, when I enter the bedchamber, there is a similarly thick layer of dust on the furs stacked on the bed and a pile of cold ash in the small, neglected hearth near the bed. It is barely habitable. I growl to myself as I dump the furs from the bed onto the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust. The heavily stuffed mattress beneath appears clean and at least relatively dust free, so I lower my female onto it and gently brush back her hair from her face. She is so small and fragile beneath my claws. I can not believe that she is so fierce.

I am captivated by her. And I have been ever since Drisk tore through the top of the train and showed me the first glimpse of what he knew by scent. My mate. Our mate. I can feel it deep in my bones now that I’ve had a moment to get a good look at her and draw her scent deeply into me. I understand why our ancestors valued the wyvern’s choosing so highly. Although an orc’s nose is keen, and among the Cold Mountain orcs it is even sharper because of our breeding, a wyvern can scent for miles.

I should summon Drisk. He could manage well enough on his own in gathering the furs from our bed and returning with them so that we can keep our female comfortably warm until I can clean out the hearths and fires can be lit. Reaching up with one hand, I unfasten the flight mask and toss it on the bed. Opening my mind to Drisk, I softly whistle the precise notes of our call. Although the connection, once made, is more difficult to access without the assistance of the strands, I’m grateful that it is one benefit that developed over the years. I am also aware of the fact that it is a condition that no other gathol enjoys. His hum of response returns immediately, rolling through me with his affirmation.

“We have been assigned a new rookery within the palace cliff face. Bring the bedding and whatever you can manage,” I instruct him as my gaze drifts disdainfully over the chamber. “It needs a lot of work.”

“No welcoming fires? Imagine that,” he scoffs wryly, and I cannot help but grimace in agreement. “Is that what the spoiled princeling wanted—to give us a new rookery where he can keep us under this thumb, to use us?” There is a note of sly speculation in the wyvern’s mental voice that brings a reluctant smile to lips.

“Not exactly,” I reply. “It has… conditions. One of many that comes with being permitted to have a mate.”

“He thinks to permit us to mate?” The wyvern’s amusement sharpens lethally with a distinct edge of bloodlust that seems to be unparallel among wyverns to my knowledge. “Who here assumes to control our mating? You should slaughter him and let his blood run over the stones as a warning to any orc who seeks to set their boot upon you.”

“That would do remarkable things for our mate’s acceptance,” I reply dryly. “I do not wish her to be alienated from the clan as we are. The clan may hold some odd sort of respect toward us as Vorn says—and wants to capitalize on—but that does not mean that they will be welcoming to her. Especially if we start slaughtering its prominent members.”

Drisk grunts in reluctant acknowledgment. As much as he despises the Cold Fang Clan and insists that being a drehl is not only a special mark, but that the clan is somehow beneath me, I know that he will not do anything that will harm our female.

“What do we need?” he replies sourly.

“There’s not much of anything,” I grumble. “We will need most things transferred to our new rookery to make it livable. But our first priority is for our female. She is cold and injured?—”

“Injured?” Drisk falls deadly silent at the other end of our bond.

“Nothing the healer can’t fix,” I quickly assure him. “Our mate has proved to the clan that she possesses teeth. This will elevate her within the clan’s esteem. And I have dealt with the offender in a way that will make him rethink coming anywhere near her.”

“You should have dealt with him in a more permanent fashion,” Drisk observes with a mental snap of his teeth.

“I wanted to,” I admit, and the darkness rolls in my gut in sinister agreement.

“But you did not wish to make things more difficult for her,” the male echoes with a sigh. I get the mental sense of his movements as he broadcasts them to me through our bond, but I am distracted by a sharp knock at the door.

“The healer is here,” I inform him. “Let me know when you have arrived at the eastern gateway of the palace rookeries. I will identify our rookery when you get here.”

“The eastern rookeries are nearly falling down.” I hear the resigned dismay in his voice, and I understand the fury he is holding back in that one simple statement.

One of these days, Drisk will attempt to burn the entire Cold Fang territory to the ground, and I do not know if I will have the strength against my seething darkness to stop him.

Reluctant to leave my female’s side, I slide off the bed and head toward the door as another knock, this one somewhat harder, echoes through the rookery. I walk through the main chamber, the echo of my passage within the nearly empty space emphasizing its decrepit state. A fist strikes the door again and barely sounds once before I wrench the door open and peer down at the female staring up at me with wide brown eyes with a large steaming washbasin in her hands.

My brow rises in response. A human? That is unexpected. I didn’t know that Ahandra had a human among her apprentices. As I stare down at her, I gradually become aware that she is shrinking uncertainly into herself.

“I-I’m Gwen. T-there is a h-human in n-need of healing?” she whispers.

Although I’m not blocking the entrance, I realize that I may be standing just close enough to make the female uncomfortable. Stepping back, I wave her through with a grunt. She scurries through with a nervous glance cast in my direction, and I close the door behind her.

“This way,” I rumble and turn abruptly to head through the rookery.

I hear the rush of footsteps follow behind me, but I don’t look back. She seems uneasy with my focus on her, so I keep my gaze trained straight ahead until we arrive at the bedchamber. I enter wordlessly and take a seat on a large chair at the other end of the room, facing the bed. My gaze falls upon my female, and from my peripheral vision, I see the apprentice hurry through the room. Her tiny gasp of dismay echoes through the bedchamber, but I avoid looking directly at her, though the water in the large bowl she is carrying sloshes loudly in a way that makes my ear twitch. At least the little healer seems to be properly caring for my mate as she carefully unwinds the rudimentary bandage and bathes the wound.

Settling back in the chair, I cross my arms over my chest and wait for Drisk’s signal. Given her gentle care, I am certain I can trust her with my female when I must go down the tunnel chamber that provides a direct access point for the wyvern into the rookery.