“You were to be treated with all honor, cherished, respected—”
Her nostrils flared as she faced him and he dropped his hands at her glare.
“I’m a goddamn hunting prize, Ke’lar! A pelt on a floor, a head mounted on a wall. As long as I’m able to breed that’s all the g’hir care about.”
“That is not so! The Betari should never have treated you this way, never made you doubt your worth.” His face worked for a moment. “Never made you fear us.”
“Oh, don’t worry. It’ll take a hell of a lot more to break me.” Summer lifted her chin. “And I’m not afraid of the g’hir.”
“No.” His blue gaze was raw, the comb clenched in his hand. “You simply hate us.”
“After what they did to me? What the fuck do you expect?”
“I am g’hir,” he rumbled, searching her eyes. “Do you hate me as well, Summer?”
“You?” She pushed her hair behind her ears. “That’s not—Look, you’ve got to understand. Ar’ar—”
His fangs bared. “I am not Ar’ar!”
“I know that, goddamn it!”
“Do you?” he demanded. “Do you truly know me to be a different man?”
Summer threw her hands out in frustration. “You said yourself that you’d take a human mate if you had half a chance! That doesn’t make you much different, does it?”
His blue eyes flashed. “I will never treat a mate as Ar’ar has! The arrogance! The ingratitude! I would never have let anyone—”
He broke off and looked away, his grip tight on the comb.
“Look—” She wet her lips. “Ke’lar, I really appreciate all that you’ve—”
“By the All Mother, please do not thank me,” he interrupted, shutting his eyes for a moment. “These wrongs done you, Summer, I cannot ever set to right.” He offered her the comb and she took it from his hand. “The Betari sought to deny you a Day of Choosing, they kept you isolated, prevented you from receiving even the most basic medical evaluation by an impartial healer. They have acted unconscionably.” He took a step back, his voice hoarse. “And you have every right to hate my kind.”
Eight
“What’s wrong with her?” Summer asked, holding her hand up against the pelting rain as Ke’lar dismounted from his place behind her, keeping hold of the reins, his brow furrowed as he hurried to stand before the nervous animal.
He didn’t answer, stroking Beya’s long nose to soothe her, searching her rolling eyes. It occurred to Summer then how much of Ke’lar’s life had been spent in silence out here, how much of it in quiet communication with this creature.
The day had started clear enough, then clouded over. A few drops here and there had turned into a downpour.
“The storm is worsening.” His face was grim. “We must seek shelter.”
“It’s just a little rain!”
It was a ridiculous way of describing this cloudburst. The skies had darkened terrifyingly and the wind was picking up fast but—
“We can ride through this! We have to!” she insisted. “You said we need to get to the other side of the river before nightfall. How much farther is it?”
“Too far.” He shook his head. “We will not make it in time to cross.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I am not,” he said. “Beya is sure.”
She wiped the water out of her eyes. “So we ride faster. We ride real fast and we can get across the river, right?”
Ke’lar glanced in that direction, his long blue-black hair lifted by the wind, his grip tight on the reins, Beya shifting nervously beneath her.
“Right?” Summer prompted, her legs dangling on either side of the multari’s powerful back. There were only two stirrups and Ke’lar used them as he rode, leaving her feet hanging. It didn’t take long for that to get pretty uncomfortable and they’d been riding for hours but she wasn’t about to give up.
“No.” His glowing gaze met hers then, and he had to raise his voice over the sound of the storm. “If she has become this agitated we will not have time to cross the river safely before the waters rise. If they rise quickly we cannot let ourselves be caught in the valley like this.”
“Wait, are we talking flooding here? But—” They weren’t even in sight of the river yet. “How bad? The bridge will still be there. We could still cross.”
He shook his head. “There is no bridge.”
“No bridge!” she exclaimed. “How the hell were we going to get across if there’s no damn bridge?”
“I would swim carrying you, then return for Beya and our supplies.”
“You were going to swim it?” Summer squinted against the rain. “Twice—no, three times?”
“If the storm had not come I would not doubt my ability to get you safely across but—” He shook his head and mounted behind Beya again, turning the multari. “We must make for the mountains.”