Page 25 of Warlord's Mate
Inhaling a deep breath, she let it out before picking up a piece of the raw meat and holding it near her shoulder. He didn’t take it. She turned her head enough to see him. He’d leaned back, his head now resting on the back of the chair.You’ve got to be kidding me.Not only did she have to feed him, she had to drape herself all over him to do it?
Marcy turned in his lap so she could reach him and held the meat up in front of him. He didn’t move. The bastard was going to make her literally feed him, just as he’d done her. She bit back a curse and touched his lips with the meat.
As if some spell had been broken, the moment the warlord took the bite from her hand, everyone else started eating. The music started playing again, conversations rose until the din of sound turned into one raucous hum of voices.
The warlord leaned forward enough to grab another chunk of theesuaproot and as he’d done before, he brought it to her mouth and offered it to her. Was this how the entire meal would go? Him feeding her, then her feeding him? When she took the food and chewed and the warlord once again leaned back in his chair, she knew that's exactly how it would go. “For fuck’s sake,” she mumbled under her breath, picking up another piece of the bloody meat and feeding it to him.
He never said a word as they ate, nor did his face show any sort of emotion but his eyes—the bastard was laughing at her. She knew it clean to her bones and as she picked up another hunk of the cold bloody meat, bringing it to his mouth, she silently hoped he choked on it.
The dinner party from hell lasted entirely too long. Marcy hadn’t been able to talk to Sara again as the warlord spent the meal asking Toren dozens of questions about dragons and the corporation who ran the entire prison system and she'd done nothing but feed him, offering him cups full of the liquid she’d served the day before. It still smelled like horse piss and burned her nose. It did Sara's as well but her friend didn't look as if it tasted bad, as she was drinking it with gusto.
The warlord lifted the cup and took a sip, then offered it to her. It smelled bad enough she wanted to refuse but when Sara suddenly laughed at something Toren said, she realized it couldn’t have tasted as bad as it smelled and took the cup and drank.
She was right. The smell was deceiving. It tasted nothing like it smelled but it only took a minute to realize, whatever it was she was drinking, was intoxicating. It burned all the way to her gut, and it only took two sips for every bone in her body to feel as if it had melted. Her skin felt hot and even though she was barely dressed, had it not been for all the aliens around those tables, she would have stripped right then and there.
By the time the food was gone, Marcy's head was spinning so fast she was seeing double. She leaned back against the warlord, her head lulling against his shoulder as he continued to talk to Toren. The surrounding conversations grew indistinguishable, and the world looked hazy, as if she was inside a dream. She looked at Sara and noticed her friend nearly crawling into Toren’s lap. Apparently whatever had been in that cup wasn’t made for human consumption.
Like most college kids, she’d smoked her fair share of pot and even got a hold of some laced with a substance no one would identify but whatever it was, it was in the aliens liquor. She didn’t just feel drunk, she felt drugged.
She’d been shown many plants earlier in the day and told which were poisonous and which were not. Did some of them act like narcotics? Apparently they did, because she and Sara were both high—or drunk—off their asses and no one else seemed to be.
The warlord didn’t mind her practically laying on top of him, though, not even when she turned in his lap and threw her legs over his other one and damn near snuggled with him right there in front of everyone. He’d done nothing but placed a hand on her bare thigh and kept talking about whatever it was he was talking about as she tried to focus her eyes. Nothing worked until the warlord’s hand moved, his fingers brushing her inner thigh. They moved back and forth so many times she’d actually spread her legs, sighing when that big warm hand had slid further between her legs, his fingers getting so close to her pussy she’d been wet anticipating the moment he finally touched her. Only—he didn’t. He’d done nothing more than rub her leg, brush the side of it with his thumb and kept on talking as if dragons were interesting or something.
She became so sleepy from nothing more than the soft touches and the cadence of his voice that she finally sat up and pushed his hand away. “I need sleep.” She tried to focus her eyes on his face but failed. “I think I’m drunk.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Do you need help getting to my bed?”
“Nope, I got it.”
She struggled to her feet and staggered, catching herself on the edge of the table. She blinked, tried to clear her head and started for the warlord’s hut, hoping she made it before falling on her face and only realized once she made it that she hadn’t told Sara goodnight.
The leather flap covering the door was harder to push aside than it should have been and once she let it drop behind her, she grabbed onto the wall and stared around the room.
Soft light lit every corner and standing next to the bed was Jityria. She wasn’t positive but was pretty sure the woman was sneering at her.
Marcy took a few steps in, staggering toward the bed. The room was hot, and she suddenly had on too many clothes. She reached for the knot at the back of her neck and blinked sleepily on the way to the bed. Jityria grabbed her by the hair before she could sit down. “Did he take you to his bed last night?”
Marcy tried to pull her hair from Jityria’s grasp without luck. “Define—taken to his bed.”
The fist in her hair yanked harder. “Did you mate?” The words were spat in a low, harsh tone, her head jerked forward until she was close enough to Jityria to kiss her. “Your days are numbered,sevit.”
Jityria slung her away from the bed—by her hair—letting go so quickly, Marcy lost her balance and fell, her forehead slamming into the leg of the wooden table against the wall. The impact rattled her teeth. She moaned and tried to get up, but a swift stab of pain hit her in the back, just below her ribs, and prevented it.
Marcy rolled her head enough to see Jityria raise her leg, the toe of her boot hitting her in the same spot she’d felt the other pain. The swift kick stole her breath, and she laid there, trying to breathe through the pain as Jityria left.
She lifted her head and started crawling to the bed, undignified as it was, but only made it halfway across the room before she fell. To her relief, the searing pain in her head, along with her inebriated state, made her lose consciousness, her last thought before passing out was that the warlord would kill Jityria for kicking her and she couldn’t wait to tell him.
Jorrick ignored the disgruntled outrage of the dragon’s mate yelling at him, which only angered her more. She was screaming loud enough to wake half the camp but keeping them under constant watch would ensure they didn’t do anything stupid, like try to steal his prize in the dead of night.
Stepping into his hut, he drew up short at the sight of Mar-see face down on the floor. She was sprawled in such a way he could tell she’d been crawling. She and her friend couldn’t handle theswoquix.
The herb the drink was made from burned going down and he’d drunk enough in the past to cause the slight euphoric sensation it was known to produce. Mar-see and her friend who were both humans, or so he’d been told by the dragon, had consumed very little of it and both were wobbly as they walked away from the table. Apparently walking hadn’t been as easy as it appeared to be for this one.
He let the flap fall back over the doorway and removed the blade at his hip. It still had a few splotches of blood on it. His anger over Reitlas hurting the human burned like acid in his gut all over again. It was a wonder he hadn’t killed her. He looked over at her as he removed his bandolier. Her dying now would get him nowhere. He needed her to get to Allok and having that taken away from him …
He pushed the thought away. He had other things to worry about, like where Aris was. Guilt hit him hard enough to make his knees go weak, and he sat down on the small stool by the table. He should have been out looking for him, not hosting guest as if he hadn’t a care in the world or trying to assert his claim on the human by putting on the display he had during their meal. He should have made her stand at his side as he had the night before but he wasn’t a fool. He knew once that dragon and his mate tried to leave, his little human would want to go with them so he’d made his position very clear where she was concerned. She was his, plain and simple. He just hoped his show of dominance didn’t cost Aris his life. There was nothing he could do about it now, though. Even if he sent another team out to search for him, or even went himself, they’d be doing nothing but stumbling around in the dark and there were more nocturnal creatures here than he liked. The central fire pit and the sentries high in the trees around the perimeter of camp was the only thing that kept them from tearing through the village and slaughtering them all as they slept.
Jorrick removed his boots and stood, then stooped down to pick up the girl. The moment he turned her over, he froze. A good portion of her forehead was varying colors of blue and black and a small trickle of blood had dried at her hairline. He looked her over for other injuries and saw a large bruise on her back.