“I am.”
“And so that is why Barin amused himself with you.” With a sigh, she looked ahead. “My mother spoke well of your father. They met once when she was young. Before the Destroyer. Was that who killed him?”
“No.” Kavik stared at the river, seeing nothing. “Barin came to Blackmoor ahead of the Destroyer. He was instructed to persuade my father to give him the location of a passageway beneath the mountains. My ancestors had trapped the demon there during the time of the ancients. Barin said the Destroyer wanted to use the demon’s power, and such an alliance might save Blackmoor, but my father refused. At first.”
“He was tortured?” Mala’s dark gaze was solemn upon his face. “But that is not all Barin does to those he wants to hurt.”
Of course she understood. Though the details were not always the same, this story was a common one from during the time of the Destroyer. “I had brothers, a mother. Barin gave them to his soldiers. My father revealed the passageway’s location, hoping to save them.”
“Did he?”
His throat burning, Kavik shook his head. “She had been heavy with child—with me. I was all that Barin returned to him. Then he let us go.”
“Because it amused him,” Mala said flatly.
“It did.”
“Where did you go?”
“The Weeping Forest. Not as I live there now. There was an inn at the edge of the forest. My father still had gold, a few servants. But Barin had taken most of his fingers and he couldn’t hold a sword. So I held it for him the first time I returned to the citadel.”
Jaw clenched, she looked ahead again, but held her tongue. He knew what she would say. His father must have been mad. Kavik had only seen eight winters then.
“He was mad,” Kavik said softly. “But the hope of freeing Blackmoor from Barin’s reign was all that he had. And I knew nothing else. Nothing but trying to discover a way to kill him.”
“Until your fourteenth winter, you said. What happened then?”
“We tried an ivory blade under a full moon. It failed, but before we left, Barin decided that would be my moon night. My father died trying to stop them from putting the collar on me. His heart gave out. And I left Blackmoor to earn gold for my army.”
Eyes glistening, she looked away from him again. Kavik had no tears left for his father, or for the boy he had been. All that remained was the icy ache in his chest.
Her throat worked before she spoke. “I vow to you that it will never be a collar,” she said, and the hoarse catch in her breath scraped over his heart. “And Vela will not ask it of me.”
“I pissed in her temple.”
Mala’s shocked gaze flew to meet his. “You did what?”
“I pissed in her offering bowl. Do you think Vela would put me on my knees in front of Barin for it?”
The goddess possessed cruelty enough to punish him that way. Mala knew it. Uncertainty flashed over her face.
His throat seemed full of grit. “If you will not have me in a collar, take off the robe. Abandon your quest.”
“I cannot.” Breath shuddering, she shook her head. “And the taming will not be that. I have to believe it won’t be. I know you don’t trust her. But trust in me, warrior. Please.”
He couldn’t answer. Nudging his mount’s sides, he rode ahead. But as soon as he dismounted, she came to stand before him. Rising onto her toes, she captured his face between her hands, her gaze fixed on his lips.
He caught her hair. “Down.”
“Kavik—”
“Now,” he said. “I have no need for your mouth except on my cock.”
Fire lit behind her eyes. Holding his gaze, she slid down. His shaft hadn’t been hard when he’d given the command, but the touch of her fingers started a brutal ache in his flesh. She raised his stiffening length to her lips.
And kissed him, so gently. Kavik froze. Again, a reverent press of her mouth. Releasing her hair, he ripped himself away from her touch. His chest was heaving, each breath tearing raggedly from his lungs.
Still on her knees, she looked up at him. Her dark eyes were haunted. “Do you have no need for any part of me, warrior?”
He could not stop his harsh laugh. She was everything he needed. All of her.
But he turned away from her. “Not if I can’t fuck it. I’ll wait for your moon night.”
And wait for his end.
IT was three days’ hard journey back to Perca. Mala wasn’t surprised when Kavik retreated into silence again. He didn’t share her bed. Instead she was left alone with her thoughts and the growing ache of the distance between them.