Page 32 of Hunger in His Blood (Brides of the Kylorr #3)

CHAPTER 32

ERINA

T he storm was howling outside, but Syndras’s sitting room was warm and perfect. She was reading and sipping from the thimble-sized glass of sweet wine pinched between her fingers.

I was in the chair opposite her, working to mend a pair of trews that had seen better days. I knew that Syndras’s wealth had been dwindling over the years after her husband’s death, though I’d thought that her daughter marrying into another noble House would help her.

But she’d waved away my concerns, telling me that she was just practical and didn’t like to waste credits when she had perfectly good things that just needed some love and care.

That was what I’d always admired about the elderly Kylorr female. She wasn’t like any noble I’d ever worked for, who’d believed that flaunting their wealth and always buying extravagant things was the norm. Syndras lived relatively simply for a noble from a long-standing family. She only kept on one cook because she couldn’t make food to save her life. But all the keepers, me included, had been let go over time, and the sitting room showed signs of it .

My nose was itching from the dust. I’d already swept out her room yesterday and wiped down the windows and surfaces. It had needed it.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” she grumbled from her chair. Still grumbling about it, just as she’d done about all the little tasks I’d done around the home.

“I know,” I said simply, conjuring up a smile for her, “but I want to. It makes me feel useful.”

“You don’t owe me, my dear,” Syndras said for the hundredth time since I’d shown up on her doorstep a couple nights ago. “You need a soft place to land. Not days spent cleaning, especially in your condition.”

I still hadn’t told her who the father was. I couldn’t. Not yet.

“You’re kind enough to let me stay, to let me eat your food,” I said softly, returning my attention to the seam I was mending. I hadn’t sewn anything, hadn’t patched anything in quite a long time. I’d missed it. The repetitive movements felt like a mesmerizing lull, a needed calm. “Tidying a few things is the least I can do. Besides, I would get bored otherwise.”

“You?” Syndras harrumphed. “Bored,” she repeated softly, smiling as she took another sip from her wine. “You’re never bored, Erina. You’re always galaxies away in your head.”

I sobered. “That’s what everyone’s been telling me. They say I need to be realistic.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Syndras frown.

“That’s not a bad thing, little one,” she said. “I think it’s delightful. I think people need to be more like you. Maybe then they wouldn’t be so miserable all the time.”

I didn’t reply. Instead I thought, I’m just as miserable now, so what good is it, really?

I was heartbroken after Kaldur, rejected by Luc—who I’d always thought I could rely on, pregnant, and partly still in denial about it. And I’d returned home with my proverbial tail tucked between my legs because I’d run out of money. And now I was mooching off my friend and old employer’s good graces with no true plan.

So yes, I was feeling quite miserable.

“No word from your daughter yet?” I asked.

“So eager to leave me,” Syndras grumbled. “But no. I’m having dinner with them tomorrow. Many nobles will be in attendance. Trust me—I’ll secure you a position somewhere by the night’s end.”

“I don’t know how to repay you,” I confessed. “You’ve always been so kind to me.”

“You keep this old female company and have always written to me,” she said softly. “When you get to be my age, you realize how little else matters except those in your life who you truly care about and who care about you.”

My throat burned at the sentiment in her voice.

“I do love you, Syndras,” I said. Perhaps I used that word more often than most, but perhaps I felt it more often than most.

“I love you too, my dear,” Syndras replied, but her voice was gruff. She didn’t like to talk about these things, and I bit back a smile as I returned to my work. She added, “And you know you can tell me anything.”

My smile died. “I know.”

We lapsed into silence as the storm raged outside the window. When I looked out, I saw sheets of rain sliding down it and noticed that the curtains needed to be beaten, an accumulation of dust lingering in the folds.

I’d do that tomorrow, I decided. Syndras had grown much weaker these last few years, even though she’d likely take off my head if I dared to say that out loud.

There was a terrible banging at the door. Thump, thump, thump.

Syndras’s head snapped up.

“Who in Raazos’s blood…” she muttered, pushing up from her chair with some effort. “At this hour, in this storm? ”

“Let me get it,” I protested.

“No,” she said firmly. “This is still my House, and I’m not so old that I can’t greet my own guests.”

I bit my lip as I watched her go from the room, slowly and with care. I sighed when she was gone but went back to my sewing. The sitting room was far enough away from the main entrance that I knew it might be a few moments. Perhaps it was her daughter or one of her keepers, come to check on Syndras in the storm.

But before I knew it, the door to the sitting room slammed opened and I was staring at a male that, for a brief moment, I didn’t recognize.

Then I spied mirrored eyes, cutting through the low light of the sitting room, and I froze.

Kaldur.

He was dripping wet from the storm, his clothes plastered to his body like he’d been flying in it for hours on end. He was leaner than I remembered, the shadows of his face deeper, nearly gaunt.

He looked severe, intense, and angry. And… relieved . A bright relief so palpable he nearly swayed with it.

And I was nowhere remotely ready to see him again. Him being here was like a punch in the gut because even like this, he was still achingly handsome, handsome enough to make my heart sting.

Seeing him brought back all the hurt. Rushing back, as if it had never left.

Then panic flared. Luckily the sewing hid my rounding belly from view, but even a week after leaving Laras had made the rapid changes in my body all the more noticeable. Before, I could’ve passed the pregnancy off as a large meal. Now? No one would ever believe that.

“What…how did you know I was here?” came the first shocked words out of my mouth as he stalked toward me. He was dr ipping water all over Syndras’s rugs, and I opened my mouth to tell him?—

“You’re coming with me,” Kaldur told me. “ Now. ”

“No,” I said, easily. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Why is he here? I thought wildly.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Syndras came hobbling back into the room. “ Kyzaire , I must protest that?—”

“This is a private matter between me and my kyrana , Syndras,” Kaldur growled.

A sound squeaked out from me just as Syndras froze, her eyes widening almost comically.

His kyrana ? His blood mate?

“ What? ” I breathed.

My unfocused, stunned gaze went back to Syndras, hovering in the doorway. She seemed equally speechless, merely blinking her bright green eyes as she digested the words.

My eyes went back to Kaldur, who was glaring down at me. Though I had the strangest impression that this was his natural state. The lines of his face had deepened with that expression, as if they were stuck.

“You can’t mean that,” I murmured, suddenly scared and reeling.

No. He was doing this to manipulate me. But for what purpose? He’d made his feelings clear. Was this some ploy to get me back as his blood giver?

If it was, it was a lot of effort on his part. He looked…awful.

“For weeks, I’ve been searching for you,” he grated, his wings sagging around him when he kneeled in front of me, his chest pressing into my knees. “Do you know what this feels like?”

The question was so ragged and aching that it nearly brought tears to my eyes. I didn’t want to feel sympathy for this male. He’d hurt me on purpose, said cruel things, and made me feel so small and discarded and alone .

I want him to hurt, I thought. Then I was ashamed at the ugly thought. The only other person in this entire universe who I’d thought that of had been Wrezaan once.

“It’s not true,” I said quietly. “You’re…you’re lying. I don’t understand—I don’t understand why you would do this! Just let me be!”

Kaldur closed his eyes, a flash of pain scrunching up his expression.

“I’ll make this right, Erina,” he told me when he fastened that gaze back on me. The intensity in his eyes pulled at my heart, pulled me back in, and I couldn’t afford to let that happen. I wouldn’t be a blind, romantic little fool anymore. He’d taught me that. “I just need the chance to.”

“It’s always about what you want,” I said, my voice sounding hollow. “And I don’t care enough to want to please you anymore. So, leave . I’m not going with you. I don’t want anything to do with you, especially after your last letter. You made it very clear what you wanted…and that was me, far away from you.”

His brow scrunched down. “My letter? I haven’t written you! I haven’t even been able to find you!”

“Stop lying, Kaldur,” I pleaded. “Just leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that,” he growled. “I can never do that, so don’t ask me to!”

I didn’t understand it. It felt like he’d ripped open a wound that had just started to heal, leaving it raw and ravaged all over again. Or perhaps it had always been open and I’d just learned to live with it since that night in his study.

I was hurt and angry. Embarrassed because Syndras was watching this unfold.

“We can talk back at the keep,” Kaldur finally said, standing, though he reached down to take my hand.

“I’m not going with you,” I said, a little growl of my own.

His eyes shot with fire. “And I’m not leaving without you. I’ll live in this fucking room if I must, but I will not be parted from you again. Ever.”

He was mad. He must’ve been. Or delusional.

“You told me to never contact you again,” I told him, glaring as I forcibly tried to jerk my hand from his grip. “So how dare you do this! How dare you do this to me!”

“I never said that,” he clipped out. Glaring again. “What are you talking about?”

“Your letter!” I yelled out, frustrated tears beginning to drip down my cheeks, which made his tight expression pull even further.

“ What letter?”

“ Kyzaire, ” came Syndras’s careful and hushed voice. I’d never heard her use that tone. “I think it’s best if you come back in the morning. After you’ve cooled down.”

“I’m not leaving without her,” he replied, his mind set, her words dismissed.

Finally, he pulled me up from the chair, and the trews I’d been mending, entirely forgotten, fell to the floor.

“We can talk about this back at the?—”

His words abruptly cut off when his gaze lowered to my rounding belly.

His hand was curled around the back of mine, and I felt the palpable tension shoot through him, fascinating and tangible. Such strength, I thought, dazed.

“What…” He trailed off, the word nothing but a stunned exhale. Then I felt tension rip through him. Apprehension shot through my belly when I saw the muscles in his shoulders begin to tremble and grow, becoming larger.

“Kaldur,” I said quickly, my gaze darting to Syndras, “don’t.”

“Is that mine or his ?” he growled. His voice was becoming darker, more gravelly. More unrecognizable.

I’d never seen a Kylorr go into a berserker rage. I’d only ever heard about them in stories, the trigger almost always a sense of anger or a need to protect and defend.

I knew which one Kaldur’s would come from.

Two things became apparent to me.

The first being that Kaldur had no idea about the letter that had been sent to me. He’d had no idea that I was pregnant, nor had he written it or had knowledge of it.

He wouldn’t be able to fake this . The sheer emotion and shock, the rage and the sorrow—which didn’t make sense to me…those couldn’t be faked.

And the second realization was that if I didn’t get Kaldur out of Syndras’s home, he might very well go into a berserker rage right here and now and destroy it entirely.

“I’ll go with you,” I said quietly. “Let’s leave now.”

Kaldur blinked, his nostrils flaring. His shoulders lowered, but his voice was unchanged.

“Is that his ?” he asked again, the words clipped, his eyes a darkening tunnel of rage and, strangely, despair. “Is that his child? Tell me right now, Erina, or I swear on Raazos?—”

“No,” I breathed. “It’s yours, Kaldur. The child is yours .”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Syndras lean against the wall, as if she needed it to support her weight. My alarm grew, though Kaldur seemed to process the words.

“Mine?” he growled.

“Yes,” I whispered, pressing my hand against his cheek—the side that was scarred, a scar I still didn’t know how he’d received. His skin was so hot, like he had a raging fever. “Let’s go. Now. I’ll return to the keep with you. But let’s leave now.”

He pulled me against him immediately, and his clothes soaked me. But what surprised me was that he pressed his face into my neck and a tingle rushed down my spine when I felt his deep inhale.

“Missed you, missed you,” he murmured, “but I found you now. I’ll make this right—I promise. ”

My eyes stung with tears. He was trembling and his skin was so hot that steam was rising off his wet clothes. He’d been close to a rage. He hadn’t known I was pregnant. Then who’d sent the letter?

It didn’t matter, I decided. Not right now.

I needed to get him away from Syndras and back to the keep.

“Take me back,” I ordered him, feeling the press of my belly against him. “Take me back home.”

His shoulders finally relaxed at the words, and all I felt was relief. Over his shoulder, Syndras was studying me.

She inclined her head at me. A thank-you. A confirmation. A promise.

Outside, the storm mirrored the maelstrom of my thoughts.