Page 36 of Hunger in His Blood (Brides of the Kylorr #3)

CHAPTER 36

ERINA

I couldn’t sleep that night, tossing and turning long past midnight.

A hint of nausea crept up on me a few hours before dawn. When I’d thrown up the contents of my stomach, I decided to go make tea in the kitchens. Normally a keeper would be woken for such things, but I would never do that.

Kaldur’s keep was quiet, everyone likely in their beds. I took one of the glowing Halo orbs from my room, and it followed me, lighting the way to the darkened kitchens, casting a golden glow on the looming walls.

When I pushed open the door, I was greeted by a familiar sight. A large yet cozy room, the stone floor having been freshly scrubbed, the stone hearth and oven on one side, neatly arranged with everything Saira would need come morning, and a long wooden table stretching down the center. Dark wood beams were overhead, hung with drying herbs and flowers and little ribbons that Saira’s daughter tied whenever she came to visit.

On the far side of the kitchen lay another hearth, though it was rarely lit except in winter. It was usually more than warm enough in the kitchens from the oven. Next to it was a door that led out toward the North Terrace, where supplies where usually delivered.

I went to the stove and put on a small kettle for water, shoving fire fuel into the open door below before locking it closed. Soon, the griddle turned hot, starting to heat the water, and I went in search of the tea in Saira’s stores. She’d made it for me yesterday, and I found it just where I’d remembered her putting it. A little blue tin that the healer, Ekor, had pushed over to me after my first visit with him.

I listened to the quiet of the kitchen, having not heard a peaceful quiet in a long time. Even in Laras, though I’d been alone most of the time, the noise from the city had always funneled its way past door and windows. And the city had always seemed to be alive, awake at all hours.

I’d missed the quiet, and so I savored it. After I poured my tea, I took it over to the table, trying to ignore the nausea rising. I blew on the surface of the water and took a sip, though it burned my tongue.

When I was half-finished with the mug, I felt my stomach begin to settle. I eyed yesterday’s loaf of bread, still sitting in a basket along the range, and I got that too, digging out Saira’s preserves from the small cellar, hoping she wouldn’t mind.

With my loot, I returned to the table and happily munched on jam and sweet bread. It wasn’t half bad even with the bitterness of my tea.

The door to the kitchens creaked open.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw it was Kaldur. We regarded one another from a distance. I wondered why he was up so late.

He seemed to be wondering the same thing until his gaze dropped to my haul on the table and I saw a small quirk of his lips. Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him.

I studied him as he gazed around the emptiness of the kitchens, as if he’d never seen it before, though of course he had been here many times.

As if hearing my thoughts, he said quietly, “It’s different without people. At night.”

Moonlight filtered in from one of the windows along the North Terrace, next to the dark hearth. He slid onto the bench opposite me, leaning his forearms on the wide expanse of the table.

He knocked on it. “This has been here for centuries.”

My brow raised, peering down at the table with new eyes. “Really?”

“It was a gift from the Kaazor, if you can believe it.”

I nearly jolted. The Kaazor were our enemies to the north of the continent. Once, I knew, there had been peace between us. Now? That was an entirely different story.

What other surprises were riddled throughout this keep? I wondered, smoothing my hand over the black wood. Even that old, it was in incredible shape.

Far too many secrets and mysteries were hidden within these walls, I decided. The age of House Kaalium truly was awe-inspiring. And I felt out of my element, a stranger who was never supposed to belong.

“Why are you awake?” I asked, meeting his eyes. With the table between us, I felt myself relax. When he was too close, when I felt his touch…that was when the turmoil and confusion and longing began.

Yes, it was much better if he was out of arm’s reach.

“I was in my study,” he answered, “and caught scent of you.”

I huffed out a small disbelieving laugh. “You tracked me? Like a lyvin in the woods?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he answered. He dropped his gaze to my tea. “Were you not feeling well?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” I answered, sighing. “And then I started feeling nauseous, so… ”

“You should have woken a keeper,” he said. I shook my head, sighing. “Then find me instead if you’re not feeling well.”

“I wanted to come down here,” I answered, looking around the kitchen. “It’s rare to be here when no one else is. This place is the heart of your keep, you know.”

Kaldur reached for a slice of my bread, already laden with jam. He popped it into his mouth, and I swallowed when some dribbled onto his lip, when his tongue flashed out and he licked it away. My belly tightened. But I breathed in slowly. Even after everything that had happened, I would always think he was the most handsome male I’d ever seen…and I hated that.

“It is quiet,” he agreed. “It’s nice.”

I nodded. “Strangely, I kept thinking about this place when I was in Laras.”

“Why?”

“I just remember it being so full of life. I think Saira goes mad with it sometimes, the poor thing. But I’ve spent nearly as much time at this table than anywhere else in the keep. It feels strange to realize that…especially since during daylight hours now, I don’t feel so welcome here anymore.”

“You’re welcome to go anywhere you please,” Kaldur answered, frowning. “No one can tell you otherwise. I’ve made that clear to the keepers.”

My gaze flashed up to his. He’d told the keepers already?

“It’s different though. You wouldn’t understand. There’s an unspoken rule among keepers, and I am no longer one. This is their place, as it has always been. But it’s nice to sit in here and remember. I…I think I was quite lonely in Laras. Because I kept thinking about this kitchen.”

Kaldur was looking at me. I had his full attention, I realized. I’d felt the same way once, that night with him in the library. A nice night, one I remembered fondly.

Though I wondered what he’d thought about me then. Had he already been listening to Lydrasa? Had he already thought those terrible things about me?

And if he had, why had that night been so different?

Maybe…maybe he’d allowed himself to forget everything else, I thought, regarding him across the table. Maybe he’d been himself that night.

“What about Luc?” he wondered. I smoothed my finger over my teacup, over a dulled chip. “Weren’t you with him in Laras?”

I shook my head. Thinking about the afternoon with Luc in Kyndri’s Landing…it still stung. It still made my heart throb dully, remembering how different he’d been.

The Luc I’d known was gone.

But maybe…with Kaldur’s offer to replace what had been taken from him, maybe some of the old Luc could come back. Maybe not all, but some.

“I didn’t know how to find Luc,” I said. “I saw him out of a window one day, and it was by pure chance.”

“How long had it been since you saw him last?”

A small scoff of a laugh tumbled out of me. “Nearly ten years.”

Kaldur made a sound. “That long?”

“I hadn’t seen him since he left Wrezaan’s,” I said quietly, remembering that day at the transport depot. I’d been excited for Luc…but I’d also been inconsolable with despair. I’d tried to keep a brave face, but I knew it had hurt Luc to leave me behind, almost as much as it hurt me to go back to Wrezaan’s, knowing he wouldn’t be there.

“We wrote to each other a lot,” I said. “He gave me that perfume bottle when he left. He told me by the time it was empty, we would be in Laras together.”

Understanding flashed over Kaldur’s face.

“So, yeah, maybe I used too much,” I said quietly, shrugging a shoulder. “Because I wanted to see him again. It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t,” Kaldur said. “It’s never stupid to want to see someone again because you miss them. There are some people I wish I could see again, and I’d have bathed in that perfume if it meant I could.”

“Like who?”

“My mother,” he answered, the words a deep timber that melded beautifully with the quiet of the kitchen. “My aunt, Aina.”

I was aware his mother had passed on into the next realm. Judging by the expression on his features regarding his aunt, I could only assume the same thing.

Not his father? I knew the head of House Kaalium hadn’t been back to Krynn in years.

“But the beauty of it is that Luc is still in this realm,” Kaldur finished. “Laras is not so far away.”

“Yes, but the Luc I knew is gone,” I confessed, lulled by the quiet. “He had once been so ambitious, so driven. Laras…that place beat him down. He told me he’d lied in his letters because he hadn’t wanted me to know he’d failed. He didn’t want to see me.”

Kaldur’s silver gaze was luminous in Halo orb’s softened light. “He…turned you away?”

“I only saw him once when I was there. He wouldn’t tell me where he lived. I couldn’t find him again.”

“I have people searching for him,” Kaldur told me. “They’ll find him eventually to make him the offer.”

The one I’d bargained for.

“I just know he works at the docks,” I said, nodding. “I went a couple times, but…they were a lot bigger than I thought.”

“That’s still helpful to know,” he said. “I’ll pass it along. And as for Syndras…she fought a little when a swarm of keepers showed up at her doorstep this afternoon.”

I bit my lip, imagining the scene with the stubborn female. “I should’ve warned her.”

“They explained. She told them that she expects your visit soon. To explain further.”

“But she accepted them?” I asked .

Kaldur’s gaze went to my finger, still smoothing over the teacup’s edge, before he looked back to me.

“Eventually,” he replied.

“Thank you,” I said.

“No thank-yous,” he said firmly.

I didn’t argue. I didn’t have it in me to argue. The change in Kaldur was still confusing to me. A part of me still didn’t trust it. I didn’t know if I ever could.

“I’m sorry about Luc,” he finally said when a stretch of silence came. “That couldn’t have been an easy thing to face, for someone you held out hope for as long as you did.”

The words made my throat tighten.

“But after he has accepted the offer, I’ll take you see him again,” Kaldur added.

A sharp inhale whistled through me. “Really?”

“Once he’s settled, he might be more like himself,” he said. “Like I said, Laras isn’t far away.”

“I would like that,” I admitted, trying to keep back my tears. “Very much.”

That seemed to satisfy him. He leaned forward, taking more bread, slathering on more preserves. There was something almost boyish about the action, and I felt my guard slipping as a smile appeared.

“Hungry?” I asked, watching him take a large bite.

Then I stiffened a little at the flash in his eyes. His irises actually gleamed at the word.

I hadn’t realized how hungry he truly was. But I should’ve known better.

It brought a flush swarming to my cheeks, remembering just how much I’d enjoyed his feedings. Luckily the darkness of the kitchen hid most of it, but he would likely still hear the quickening of my heartbeat.

Kaldur finished the bread. He had mercy on me and said, “I forget time when I’m working. Sometimes I look up and realize it’s nightfall and I hadn’t eaten all day.”

But I didn’t want to skirt around the topic, I realized, listening to him. The old me might’ve. Because it was easier, because I’d been shy.

“How are your feedings going to work?” I asked. “If…if I’m your kyrana .”

“Not ‘if,’” he corrected. “You are.”

“ Since I’m your kyrana ,” I amended, holding his eyes.

That seemed to please him. He leaned in even further, his wide chest pressing into the solid wood of the table’s edge. He slid his hand over the tabletop, toward my hand that was resting there.

I nearly shivered when his thumb brushed my inner wrist. Sparks prickled up my spine, like little fireworks that lit up the sky during the season of Gaara, the season of rebirth, of fertility, of spring.

“That’s for you to decide,” he finally said.

My brow furrowed, trying not to be distracted by his touch. But he was making small little sweeps of his thumb…and it felt nice to be touched.

“I meant…I meant in our contract,” I said. “How many times a day should?—”

A growl cut off the words. Soft, more of a warning than anything aggressive.

“No more contracts—I told you,” he said.

I blinked.

“I told you it would be different this time,” he added. “I meant it. Blood mates don’t have contracts between them. I was the biggest fool in the Kaalium to even try.”

“Then…when?” I asked.

He blew out a sharp breath. There was a tightness in his gaze that hadn’t been there before.

“A feeding between mates should be like…sex,” he answered. I st iffened, but his thumb never stopped in the slow, steady motion over my skin. “The feedings should come naturally.”

There was a thread of panic in my voice when I said, “I—I don’t want sex. That’s not…”

Something flashed over his expression. Something I thought looked like guilt. Or dismay.

“I know,” he said quietly, his voice soothing away the sudden rush of panic. I pulled my wrist away, and he leaned back, dragging his arms back toward himself, giving me space. “I feel like, lately, I have a lifetime of things to be sorry for when it comes to you.”

I remembered that night in his quarters, when he’d been drinking and smoking lore . I remembered the burn of the amber liquor down my throat…and then the burn of desire from the spicy scent of the lore smoke, funneling and winding its way down my throat.

I remembered how much I’d wanted him that night. The ache, the need, the desperation curling down my spine. Because, perhaps even then, I’d both recognized that he’d needed a distraction from whatever had been bothering him—likely about me, I realized now—and also because I’d felt him pulling away. And I’d been desperate to keep him close. Because I’d thought I’d been falling in love with him.

I remembered the way he’d made me come with his touch between my legs, his kiss on my breasts.

He’d tried to send me away, and I’d come back to him. And when I had…

To me, our lovemaking had been frenzied, full of need and desire, and I’d felt like I couldn’t get enough of him. I’d wanted his touch everywhere. I’d wanted his kiss everywhere. I’d wanted him to feed from me while he drove between my thighs, making me his.

To him, the sex had been “fine.”

Remembering that word, remembering the conversation I’d overheard between him and Lydrasa, made me want to shrivel up inside all over again.

On top of that, he hadn’t believed me when I’d told him I’d been untouched, that I’d been a virgin that night.

That was what he’d thought of me. That I would lie about something like that. To try to manipulate him?

I felt myself retreating again, my walls building up around me, trying desperately to shut him away. Because if I let him in again, he would destroy me from the inside out.

I had to think about my child now. A rocky friendship with the father was better than hatred. I wanted to have a good relationship with him for the sake of our child, and especially since we would be in one another’s lives forever …but I couldn’t allow myself to fall in love with him.

Not again, not ever. I wouldn’t survive it this time.

Kaldur stood, gracefully guiding himself over the bench. “Let me take you back to your room.”

“No,” I said quickly, not meeting his eyes. “I’d like to stay a little longer.”

Kaldur lingered, looking like he was on the verge of saying something. Only the words never came.

“Good night, Erina.”

He went to the door but paused at the threshold. I watched when his forehead pressed into the carved wood, and I heard him take in a deep breath.

Then he spun, striding back toward me.

“What you overheard that night in my study, with Lydrasa…that was a lie. Perhaps one of the worst I’ve ever told.”

My heart skipped. I stared up at him. He splayed his hands on the table, leaning toward me so that I had no choice but to meet his gaze. It was nearly a glare, but I knew that anger wasn’t directed at me.

“What a fucking laughable word for what we had that night. Fine ,” he growled, no humor in his voice. “ Fine . That word will haunt me, and it should.”

“Kaldur—”

“The truth is that I fucking burned for you,” he told me, his voice quiet and low and deathly serious. Every word in that sentence was clipped, as if he wanted me to understand each and every one. To make his meaning clear. “I have never desired someone as much I desired you that night, Erina. And I hated it. I hated that you could have that much control over me.”

My heart was beating so fast in my chest that it felt like a caged animal.

“So no, it was not fine , Erina,” he continued. “It was soul crushing because at that time, I thought you were just using me, that you loved someone else. I gave into you because I had never wanted you more. It was fucking sexy—the way you opened up for me, the way you felt around me. All your sounds and moans…I wanted to bottle them up all for me. That night will always be burned in my memory because of it. Raazos’s blood , I get hard just thinking about it,” he growled.

I nearly gasped, his words feeling like they were drowning me, pulling me deeper and deeper.

“So you need to know that because I can see it in your eyes. Right now. You believe that I don’t desire you, and you couldn’t be more wrong about that. You are the only woman I desire now. Just as I know these are just more words to you. But in time, you’ll see how serious I am about this.”

“You…you really haven’t been with anyone else?” I whispered. He’d told me he hadn’t fed from anyone else, but I’d just assumed…

“No,” he rasped. “My body has been fucking dead since you left. I don’t want anyone else.”

How many times had I dreamed of Kaldur saying this to me? Only in my wildest of imaginings .

Of course, in my mind they’d been a soft confession, a romantic one, and not quite so harsh, rough.

But I thought that this felt real . Raw and vulnerable. I realized…I wouldn’t want it any other way.

“I wish I could open up my mind to you, so that you would know I was telling the truth,” he confessed. “So that you would know I’m not a lying bastard, just trying to get you into my bed again.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I felt a strange sensation in my belly, a fluttering. Like my body was waking to him.

“Which, just to be clear, I fully intend to do,” he admitted. I nearly laughed, but I didn’t think I could utter a single sound right then. “I might not be a lying bastard, but I am a selfish one. So fair warning, Erina…I do intend for you to be in my bed— our bed—again, and then I’ll do everything in my power to keep you there for good. Do you understand?”

His expression was thunderous, the intensity in his eyes magnetic. He was waiting for my answer, and I tried to make my tongue remember how to form words.

“Yes,” I finally whispered, “I understand.”

He exhaled a long slow breath, finally standing to his full height, not looming over the end of the table. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t affected by his words, by his promise.

I wondered if it was possible to give into someone sexually while keeping one’s heart safe.

I didn’t know if that possible, especially for someone like me.

That fluttering returned to my belly, and I gasped.

“ Dallia ?” Kaldur asked quickly, rounding the table to stand near me. He crouched until we were eye level. “What’s wrong?”

“I felt it move,” I whispered, looking down at my rounding belly. “Right here. Ekor said I might feel it soon, but I?—”

I pressed just below by belly button, a surge of emotion welling up in me.

It was silly, but it finally hit me that I was pregnant. Logically, I knew that. But I’d been so emotionally drained in Laras, and upon my return to Vyaan, that I hadn’t really felt it for myself.

“Oh gods,” I whispered, a rush of tears falling my eyes. “I’m pregnant. I felt the baby.”

Kaldur pulled me into him as I began to sob, the strong wave of realization, of fright, of relief, of awe drowning me beneath it. I’d bottled up my tears for so long that they just came pouring out of me so forcefully it was jarring. This was more than the acceptance that I was pregnant, however. It was also Kaldur’s confession. It was all the emotions I’d kept wrapped around me like armor.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered against him, my face pressed into his chest.

“ Don’t, ” he said, his hand coming to hold the back of my neck, his other going around my waist. I felt it rest on my side, his fingertips skimming over the bump. The warmth of his hand felt comforting, even through my nightdress. “It’s all right. I’m here.”

A part of me hated that he was like this. That one moment he could make me burn and the next he was a strong column of support to lean on.

Maybe I wasn’t wrong about him, I thought. And that thought only made me cry harder.

“It’s okay, dallia ,” he whispered, his hand resting on our growing child. “I’ll take care of you both. I promise.”