Ravenous (Taint of the Gods #1)

9. RHYDIAN

9

RHYDIAN

I ’d wanted Rieka in my arms again since I turned my back on her in that hallway when she unceremoniously kicked me out of her bed. From the moment she’d lied to me about not remembering my name. The way her heartbeat quickened at that blatant lie had been amusingly delicious. I’d wanted to go back in the room and discuss had really happened that night and ask her to stay in Keltjar another day so we could correct the misunderstanding. Perhaps with her screaming my name instead of denying it.

What I didn’t want was to have to knock her unconscious to prevent her from gouging my eyes out. That little trick of hers, getting in my head like that was unexpected. I’d never met a Brute who could do that. Perhaps that was why her price was so high.

I’d been planning on talking to her privately, but after connecting with her, skin-to-skin, I’d felt the weakness in her blood. The redheaded Apex who had rushed to her side in The Mess Hall claimed she hadn’t eaten anything in three days. I’d taken her straight to Sal. It took a single moment for Sal’s taint to inform her that Rieka was not only famished but she was severely dehydrated as well.

“Why hasn’t she been eating?” I asked the redheaded woman who refused to leave Rieka’s side. Wolves were such a loyal breed. Eleen, who’d followed me after my utterance in the mess, stared at the young woman, just as curious as myself for the answer. Dark complexion and hair a mix of burnt orange and brown, her hand poised against the edge of Rieka’s cot, she answered without hesitation.

“She gave away her smoked meat. We didn’t know she wasn’t eating alongside us.” The news caused Sal to fetch something else from a shelf and add it to her tray.

Eleen threw her dark hair over her shoulder in frustration, her normally full lips pulled into a thin line. A clear indication of her mood. She turned her copper eyes on me. “Rhydian, is it true?”

“Is what true?” Sal asked as she prepared the fluids to administer to Rieka. Eleen kept her eyes on me, her gaze burning a hole into the side of my head. I couldn’t blame her though. After the shit I pulled with Oric, I was surprised she hadn’t punched me yet.

With her arms crossed over her chest, Eleen responded bluntly. “Rhydian says the new girl here is his wife.”

Sal’s brows raised in astonishment. “Is she?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Eleen’s expression was one of divine fury.

I ignored her against my better judgment and chose to watch Sal instead as she hovered over Rieka’s sleeping frame. The Organic had her hand suspended over Rieka’s right arm, her head making those small minute movements she did when she was using her taint. When she had found it, the vein she wanted in Rieka’s arm, Sal expertly inserted the needle.

At the sudden quickening of Rieka’s pulse, I first thought it was brought on by the pain of the needle, but no one ever felt Sal’s needles. Then I saw her face, Rieka was wide awake, her nostrils flared and glaring at Sal's hand where it touched her arm. I chanced it, speaking to her with the voice inside my head. “If you can hear me, keep your mouth shut or you’ll get us both killed.”

Her head snapped to me, her eyes narrowing. “Keep your thoughts to yourself Bloodhound.”

“You started it.”

She turned her attention back to Sal. “Get your hand off me. Please.” Sal quickly obliged, choosing to take up a different task. Away from us.

“Rieka, this guy says he’s your husband, is that true?” the redhead asked, her tone one of familiarity. A bunkmate I’d wager.

Rieka’s gaze cut through me, a razor of a thousand cuts. “Should you tell them or should I?” she said aloud, her tone daring. Eleen simply continued to glare, her defensive nature likely to interfere in this conversation if I didn’t do something about it.

Tomas, who had accompanied us to MedCom due to Rieka’s violent outburst, and who took his position as Train Justice more seriously than most, would not leave unless he deemed the incident mediated. This could cause issues since he was quite the constant observer, and had not taken his eyes off Rieka since he arrived.

“Could my wife and I have a moment of privacy please?” I nudged my head in the direction of The Cantina carriage door where a crowd had formed following our altercation and prompt departure. Tomas took my hint and swiftly steered Eleen and Sal away from the bed, the redhead taking the slower approach, her gaze lowering and then rising as she surveyed me. Then as she passed, she paused and sniffed the air beside my head. A satisfied smile took shape. “You’ve got good taste in husbands, Ree,” she said over her shoulder to my "wife . "

Rieka’s expression was full of contempt. “Even if the Pillars of the World were collapsing, and the God Sphere falling, I would never be your wife!”

I smiled my most endearing smile and carefully approached the bed, turning my back on the exit.

“Can you please remove that scowl from your face or our audience will think I’m lying.”

“You are lying!” Her eyes fixed me with a violent glare as I moved to sit on the crate by her bed. Pure predator, Rieka angled her body with mine, refusing to allow me any vantage over her weakened state. With the fluid tube still attached to her arm, she turned to sit on the edge of the bed.

I mustered the voice of a relieved spouse and spoke loud enough for any Brute at the door to hear. “I can’t believe you are here.”

Yet for her alone, I said, “I’m going to touch your hands, please play along.”

“I’d rather not. I’d like to keep my bodily autonomy thanks.” Hatred laced her words.

The ones she spoke aloud however were indifferent. “Neither can I.”

I indicated to the carriage exit. “Do we still have an audience?”

Her scowl remained unchanged. “Yes.”

“Then let me take your hand if you want to remain breathing.”

Her heart rate spiked. Feeling a threat in my words no doubt. Yet she still let me take her hand, her skin slightly cold to the touch. When she didn’t rebuke the contact, I took the other as a lover would and caressed them, my thumb rubbing circles where her gloves didn’t prohibit contact.

“My darling, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I was trying to keep you safe.”

She scoffed. “Safe?”

“Choose your words carefully, Rieka,” I warned her in my thoughts.

The harsh lines on her face softened, that piercing grey stare falling to our held hands. She spoke loud enough for our audience to hear.

“After how we parted the last time we met.” And then she continued silently in that way of hers. Into my mind. “Where you kidnapped Kris and sold Blessed to slavers.”

“I swore an oath to find you,” she said aloud, before effortlessly switching to her inner voice once more. “To kill you if I ever saw you again.” First demure and sweet, then antagonistic and hateful.

Beneath those long white lashes darkened thunderstorms rolled in fury within the icy grey.

“You could try,” my inner voice purred. “But then you would never get off this train. God Killer . ” Her expression faltered.

The buyer was telling the truth. She had killed a god.

I hadn’t believed it until this very moment. Somehow the buyer not only knew this about her, but they knew she would be on the rail because she was a Brute. A fact I had severely missed.

With our audience still listening, I added, “I will do everything I can to protect you.”

It wasn’t exactly enticing, getting this reaction out of her. I wanted her to seethe with desire, not rage. But my desires no longer mattered, not where Rieka was concerned. I needed more information, and if antagonising her was the only way to do that, I would.

“You have got to be the first person in the history of Idica to actually kill a god.”

She ripped her hands from mine.

“What do you want?” her inner voice demanded.

There was a mark on her chin, the skin broken and grated. I lifted my hand to touch her there and she flinched. As she turned her head to avoid contact I saw the long red line beneath her jaw. I seized her chin in my hand and she froze in my grasp. Rope burn, the kind that only came from a noose.

“Courtesy of your Kensillan friends,” her inner voice spat.

I leaned in. “You’re alive, are you not?” Her breath hitched when I stopped, barely an inch from her lips.

Your body certainly remembers me.

“I really wish it didn’t.”

“You heard that?” I asked. Those icy pools turned glacial, cold and unforgiving as she stared at me beneath snow-white lashes, her jaw set into a hard line.

“Obviously. But what isn’t obvious is why you are even alive in a place with so many Blessed.” Rieka pulled my hand from her chin and placed it in her lap where she began to rub circles over my knuckles with her thumb. An act. The caring lover.

I was careful to control my heart rate as her next words were spoken.

“It can’t have been easy hiding what you are. I wonder how they would react to find out they had a Bloodhound in their midst?”

It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to assume that because Hemopaths were ostracised in the outside world, here on the rail I would be too. This could work in my favour.

I slid my other hand over hers, halting her caress.

“Probably the same way they’d react to finding out the truth about you.”

The muscles in her jaw clenched. “I think I’d fare better. The gods don’t have a particularly welcome place here.”

“You may be right. But you’ll still be stuck here. That collar is bound to you until death.”

“Unless I make a trade.”

“Make a trade with a god?” It was my turn to scoff. “I think I’d have more luck with that trade than you. Bloodhound vs God Killer. I know which I find more enticing. No Rieka. I think we’re stuck together.”

Her gaze darkened, her tone turning savage. “You expect me to pretend to be your wife until the day I die?”

“Certainly not. The deal was to deliver you by Marian 1st. That’s when the buyer is expecting you.” The timeline wasn’t ideal. Six months was an eternity on the rail. A lot could go wrong in that time. But that was the deal I’d made and I was bound to it.

Rieka slowly removed her hands from my grasp. “You sold me?”

I couldn’t sense the taint in her blood which could mean very few possibilities. However since only Blessed ever survived the Lobby before becoming a collared prisoner of the rail, those possibilities were very quickly whittled down.

“They were very insistent too,” I admitted. “The buyer knew exactly where I’d find you too, though they forgot to mention the part about you being—” I paused to gauge her reaction. “Stilled.”

It was the most vulgar of insults, to be Stilled was to essentially be neutered as a Devolved Human. Sundering required one to physically inhibit their taint. Stilling was entirely mental and a punishment that befell one who had insulted a god so profoundly that they would let the Tainted one live a half-life rather than kill them. It was the only feasible explanation for why she was still alive after killing a god. It would also account for why the buyer wanted her and why I’d mistaken her for human.

Rieka’s nostrils flared. “You bastard. Where is Kris, is she alive?”

“She was when I left her.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because it amuses me. Because I want to. Because I’m a bastard Bloodhound. Take your pick. I don’t really care. What I care about is you staying alive, do you think you can manage that, wife?”

Icy venom fuelled her glare. Rieka leaned towards me and stopped so close that her breath tickled my beard. She raised her hand to cup my cheek. “I missed you, husband,” she said aloud as her thumb caressed my lips.

Simultaneously , dripping with malice and vitriol her inner voice declared, “I hope you bleed to death, Bloodhound.”

I removed her hand from my face and brought it to my lips where I feathered a kiss over her fingers. “And I thought we were getting along nicely.”