Page 15 of Hunger in His Blood (Brides of the Kylorr #3)

CHAPTER 15

ERINA

T here was a balcony attached to my quarters within the South Wing. It was, officially, my first morning in my new accommodations, and I woke up practically beaming, a giddy lightness blooming in my chest. The memory of last night didn’t fade, and I went out onto the balcony, still in my nightdress, and let the rising sun warm my face.

Though there was a chill in the air, I didn’t mind it. I sighed happily. With a burst of inspiration, I flew back inside, collected a thick blanket to wrap around my shoulders and my notebook before dragging one of the wooden chairs out onto the spacious balcony.

The morning over Vyaan was quiet, a hushed reverence. I’d always loved mornings. Loved the possibility of them, when the day was new and anything could happen. Perhaps I’d gotten my optimism from Luc. He’d always felt the same. But for him, a new day brought with it a fierce determination and hunger. For me, it was a softer kind of excited exploration.

With my notebook in my lap, I made a rough sketch of the view. I allowed it to be messy with smears of charcoal. But a mere twenty minutes later, I had my drawing of the view south. I could just peek the edge of the walled gardens, but beyond that, there was forest and mountains in the distance. So vast and wondrous. I wondered what Laras looked like. I wondered if Kaldur had a book like last night, but only of places on Krynn. Places that I could, conceivably, see in person one day.

Something to look forward to, I thought, smiling as I placed a few finishing touches on the messy sketch. Just something to get my hand warm, capturing a moment I would never experience again: my first sunrise in Kaldur’s wing. The first morning of my new reality, of my new life.

Just thinking about last night made me sigh in contentment. For the first time, I thought that might have been the true Kaldur…and he was everything I’d imagined he’d be. Kind and thoughtful. Gentle but teasing. We’d stayed in front of the fire until the embers had burned out, talking of his garden and all the different plants he’d needed to acquire for it. He’d given me a rundown of all the noble Houses within Vyaan, regaling amusing stories of their lore smoke–filled lavish parties. I’d been content to listen, fascinated with every aspect of his life because it was so different from mine. I’d almost been embarrassed, telling him of my own experiences working in noble Houses before I’d come to work in his keep. My stories had seemed so dull, though his gaze had never left mine throughout.

My life was not glamorous or exciting in the way his was. I was all right with that…but for the first time, I wondered if it bothered Kaldur. How different we were. He’d hinted at it when he’d told me he needed to be careful of the optics of our situation. I understood that now, but I couldn’t deny that it still filled me with disappointment.

Still…it had been nice. More than nice, spending time together without being rushed or on guard. It had been a perfect night.

The familiar jolt of wings made me look up toward the sky with bated breath, away from my drawing.

My heart began to speed in anticipation when I saw Kaldur, flying back toward the keep from the southeast, from the territory that stretched beyond the gardens. I wondered where he’d been so early in the morning, but when he saw me sitting out on the balcony, I watched him pause in midair…before approaching my room.

When he was close enough that I could see his eyes, he studied me, coming to a stop a few arm’s lengths away from the balcony railing, hovering. The gusts from his wings stirred the pages of my notebook.

“Good morning,” I greeted, feeling my belly flutter at the mere sight of him.

“Good morning, dallia ,” he murmured, his voice warm and husky. “Why are you awake so early?”

“I always wake at dawn. Mornings are my favorite time of day,” I informed him with a smile.

“Why am I not surprised?” he wondered.

My gaze strayed to the massive stretch of his wings, powerful enough to make it look like he was floating. They fascinated me. I wanted to draw them, the line every vein I could see. “Why are you awake so early?”

“There were reports of lyvins encroaching on one of the outer Eastern villages,” he told me. “I went to go see for myself.”

Lyvins , I’d heard, were vicious creatures and extremely territorial. “Don’t they tend to stay deep within the forests?”

“Typically,” he replied. “I think the South Road construction has been pushing them toward us. But it’s no matter—I’ll handle it.”

“The problem solver,” I said gently.

His grin came softly. “Exactly. Show me what you’re working on.”

I blinked, but I remembered what he’d said in the garden yesterday. He didn’t like not knowing something, and when he didn’t, it made him want to know all the more .

I looked down at my quick drawing, but then I stood. My heart sped when I held it out for him, biting my lip as he plucked my prized notebook from my hands. For a moment, I was worried it might drop, tumbling dozens and dozens of paces below to crash in the brush.

“It’s a quick sketch,” I told him hurriedly. “It’s not anything special. Just something I like to do in the mornings.”

His smile was lightning fast, but then he looked down to inspect my work. There was something quite achingly vulnerable that wiggled in my chest as his eyes roved over the page. I’d never been shy to share my work with Luc, and the children I’d grown up with at Wrezaan’s had always begged for me to read my stories. That was how Kavelyn’s adventures had begun in the first place.

But with Kaldur…it felt different. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“Even your ‘quick sketch’ is better than what I could do in a lifetime,” he complimented. He met my eyes, and his praise felt like a warm, glowing ball lodged in my chest. “You did this just now?”

“Yes,” I said shyly, tucking back a curl of my hair.

Before I could protest, I saw him flip back through the notebook. I bit my lip, a jolt burning in my belly.

“You shouldn’t…”

My voice trailed off, and my face nearly exploded with heat when I saw him land on one of the sketches of him. The one I’d started only a few days prior, the morning before everything had changed. It was a much more detailed sketch, and I could see the obvious flash of surprise on his face when he encountered it.

It was just his portrait, the hint of his wings in the background. But it was his eyes, his features, his scar running down his cheek and the smaller crescent-shaped one I’d added in later on his chin. His full lips which I now knew were soft and warm…

When his gaze came up to mine, he said nothing. Only rose higher above the balcony railing before he gently landed beside me. When he straightened, I craned my neck back to look at him, holding the blanket around my shoulders tighter, as if it were a shield.

“Is this how you see me?” he asked curiously.

That was not the question I’d expected him to ask.

“Y-yes,” I stammered. Then I frowned, cocking my head to the side. I looked from him to the sketch. “Don’t you? Did I…did I get something wrong?”

He let out a chuff of air, sounding amused. His voice was warm when he said, “Would that bother you if you did? If it wasn’t my perfect likeness?”

“Well… yes ,” I replied. My embarrassment was gone as I shuffled to his side, examining the sketch and then back to his face. The sketch and then his face. Kaldur watched it all with glittering, narrowed eyes. I got the impression he was amused at my expense. “It’s in your likeness. Your complete likeness,” I insisted.

I would know. I’d catalogued every detail of him I could whenever I’d encountered him before. Every appearance had made my heart flip in my chest, and…he’d never really noticed me, had he?

“No, it’s not,” he argued.

“Where?” I demanded. “How?”

“Here,” he said, turning his jawline so I could see the sharp edge of it.

“What am I looking at?” I asked, though I was momentarily distracted when he crouched so I could be very, very close to his face. I could almost smell the heat of him, the clean musk from his long morning flight.

He tapped underneath his jaw. There I saw the slight glimmer of a scar.

A shocked chuckle escaped me. “That’s not fair. How would I have ever seen that? I’ve never been that close to you. ”

A knowing smirk on his features. “You have been. You got this scar right,” he told me, tapping his chin.

“I added that one in,” I confessed. “After that afternoon in the sitting room when I was cleaning up the vase shards.”

“Ah,” he said quietly. When he’d smelled my blood for the first time. “Take a good look now, then.”

I did. I wasn’t even ashamed to say that I was greedy with his permission, especially when he was still crouching down for me. Our eyes were nearly level, and I was so close that I could hear the small exhale as it left his nostrils and I could see every minuscule twitch of his jaw.

My hands raised, uncertain, but I wanted so desperately to touch him. When my palm met his cheek, his nostrils flared. I saw something different enter his gaze, and suddenly the moment felt entirely changed. My fingertips traced the long scar over his cheek before ending at the corner of his mouth, feeling the depth of it, wondering how he’d received it. His gray skin was surprisingly smooth, suede-like, and unblemished, save for the silver scars.

When he didn’t protest, I boldly traced over his face, touching his stern brow, the sharp slope of his nose, the blade of his jawline, the slash of his cheekbones. All the while, his silver eyes had lost all signs of amusement. Instead they were heated with a familiar want, which made me feel like flying.

When my pinky brushed the edge of his soft lips, he made a gruff sound and, momentarily, his eyelids fluttered closed. I pulled my hand away.

I cleared my throat, my voice nearly a whisper when I said, “I’ll do better next time now that I’ve seen you so clearly.”

Kaldur trapped my chin with his fingertips when I went to pull away. “This is very good, Erina. Your drawing. You have immense talent. I hope you know that.”

I couldn’t help but beam with the praise. It filled something inside me that had long been empty .

“Thank you,” I said. He released me and then finally straightened to his full height. I wasn’t cold anymore in the brisk morning. My body felt warm and languid like I was under the gentle heat of a summer’s day.

To fill the stretch of charged silence that lapsed, both of us not quite certain what had just transpired, he flipped through the notebook more.

But then he landed on a drawing I’d done of Luc. One I’d done from memory. His familiar features stared up at Kaldur. He might’ve been done in charcoal, but whenever I saw sketches I’d done of him, I only ever saw him in color. Bright blue eyes, sometimes twinkling in mischief or deviance or determination. The light gray of his skin and his curling horns. He had no wings, and he carried the lean build of a human, like his mother.

It was a dirty secret of the Houses…that many of the orphans who ended up in places like Wrezaan’s were bastards of nobles. Bastards they had with their keepers or females below their station in life, some of whom were human. Many of the children I’d grown up with had been hybrids. Some had been human, like me. Others had been Bartutian mixes. Some full-blooded Kylorr.

But Luc had always straddled two worlds, and I thought that was why he’d been so driven to prove himself.

“Let me guess,” Kaldur drawled softly, his eyes suddenly piercing into mine. “Your purveyor of fine perfumes?”

The words reminded me of the vial that was sitting on my new dresser. But I heard a sharp edge in Kaldur’s voice, one I didn’t understand.

“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “Luc. We grew up together. At…at Wrezaan’s.”

“Hmm,” came the sound. He studied me, but I felt the softness of the moment change. I felt awkward, uncertain of his mood. He snapped the notebook closed and handed it back to me. “Let’s go inside. ”

He went through the doors of my room, and I hesitantly followed after him, setting my notebook down on the small table near my bed. The room was more extravagant than I was used to. Not overly decorated, but the detail of the architecture alone, from the arched window panes and the stone-carved reliefs in the walls. The furnishings were very fine and obviously expensive, though slightly dark for my own personal tastes. I didn’t like dark places. Wrezaan’s orphanage had been mostly dark wood walls and gray stone.

Kaldur turned into me, and my breath hitched when he backed me into the wall, my shoulder bumping into a framed map of the Kaalium, though it looked like it was centuries old.

His eyes burned down into mine, and I saw his desire there. Oh.

Immediately, I felt my body respond, as if he was slowly training me. Or perhaps I just wanted him that much. Had fantasized about being with him in my foolish, silly daydreams…and now that I had him, I was eager and selfish.

His head dipped, and I felt his lips run along the side of my exposed neck. The blanket fell from my shoulders, pooling at our feet on the floor, as I tilted for him. The gentle brush of his lips made shivers run up my spine, and I clutched at his forearms when they came around my waist.

“Did you take your baanye ?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” I breathed. “Last night.”

He hummed—pleased, I thought.

“I need you again,” he murmured. “You don’t know how difficult it was not to taste you last night.”

My breath came out in small gasps when he kissed my neck, his lips lingering over the faded markings where he’d fed yesterday morning, before Velle had caught us.

“But we must behave, dallia ,” he said harshly. “This is a feeding only. Nothing more. We can’t forget ourselves. Yes?”

“Yes,” I whispered, but truthfully, I would’ve said anything he wanted. With his hands on me, with his lips on me and the sweet promise of his bite…I would’ve done anything he asked.

It was a powerful, unsettling realization.

He sighed, and I felt the hot exhale of his breath. “Good.”

His bite pierced into me.

And I was in ecstasy, though I fought it with everything inside me.

Just as I’d promised.