Chapter 5 - Goran
GORAN
Madness. Like she had from the first moment I’d met the perfect, cruel woman who now sat in front of me, her perfume seeping into my clothing, my hair, my skin, Rada had drawn me down into madness.
I knew better than to ride back into Mirren to chase her lover.
Her lover. A Beta male, not even a proper mate for one like her.
I rubbed at the bead on one of my braids, wondering how I’d fucked up this badly.
I’d managed to stay away for over nine years.
I could’ve avoided her forever, except that the Emperor of the Deep Waters had called on me to fulfill the liefhald I owed him.
His mate Wren was a few months away from delivering the first kraken to be born in thousands of years, but she’d begun having contractions and worrying her mates.
“I need Ratter,” she’d told me bluntly. “She knows more about Omegas than anyone alive. She can be my midwife.”
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t ever go seeking out the woman who’d consumed me all those years ago. But there was one vow a Starlakian warrior couldn’t escape.
Well, two. I pinched one of the shell beads again, feeling what was hidden inside.
I knew she thought the beads were from a new lover, even a wife.
I knew it was unworthy to allow Rada to believe for a moment that I’d moved on.
I wasn’t going to tell her the truth, though.
It wasn’t her business, and a part of me wanted her to feel the burn of jealousy like I did now, racing to save her Beta.
The burn of hearing her say she was willing to cut my mark out of her was a thousand times worse.
A soft snore interrupted my darkening thoughts. I shifted my sleeping wife closer to keep her from falling and fell into a memory of my own.
The worst day of my life.
“Who do ya think I am?” The woman who owned my soul stood naked in front of me, her dark hair flying around her face as she shook her head. Her eyes shone with silver, and her cheeks were flushed with blood.
She was angry. She was angry a lot, and often with me.
I only wished it didn’t make my cock hard.
My erection was impossible to hide, with the nine gold bars running the length of it catching the light whenever it so much as twitched.
The piercings had hurt as much as any wound from a battle and taken just as long to heal, but it had been the price of being with my love.
I could not regret my choice when she rode me like an avenging goddess.
My cock stretched out on my thigh as I gaped up at her, naked except for the lethal hair pins I’d had made for her. “Stop thinkin’ about sex, Goran! I’m well past pissed.”
“I can see that.” If only I knew what she was angry about, I could enjoy it more.
Did she need me to slay some enemy? Fight some mythical beast in her honor?
My gaze dropped to the dark curls at the apex of her thighs, still gleaming with our combined juices.
Maybe lick her until she dissolved into pleasure once again?
Probably not that last one, when she was this worked up.
Though, her mercurial moods were an enormous part of her charm.
I’d fallen for her fierce, bloodthirsty nature, her razor-sharp wit and lightning-fast thieving skills, her instant willingness to kill anyone and anything to protect those she loved, and even her odd obsession with poisons.
I didn’t consider her love for blades odd, as I appreciated a finely crafted sword more than most.
She held the knife I’d given her moments before like it was an adder, though.
“Did you write these words on the blade, Goran?” It was in her left hand, and the starflower tattoo caught my eye, reminding me who she was.
She was the love of my life, my wife, and someday soon, I hoped to make her my Omega mate, leaving my claiming mark on her shining, pale skin.
“No,” I said carefully, moving to my knees.
Rada was taller than many women, but on my knees, I was only a few inches shorter than her standing.
“It’s a traditional bride knife. We’ve been wed”—secretly, though I hoped she would share the news with her family soon—“for one year today. It’s a Starlakian tradition. ”
She bared her teeth. “Tradition to start poppin’ out little street rats?”
“Ah, uh…” I replied eloquently. “Babes, you mean?”
Her eyes gleamed as silver as the slender knife when she read the inscription aloud, a short blessing that ran the length of the blade alongside the moon’s phases. “Bless our union with as many children as the sky has stars.” She held it out at me, point first. “What in the hells does that mean?”
A chill ran through me. “That someday, we’ll have… children? Little warlords and warqueens?” I shouldn’t have tried to joke. I realized that as I looked down to see the blade had gone through the meat of my left forearm. “My goddess?”
“Stop callin’ me that.” She grabbed the pink silk robe I’d given her for our one-week anniversary and began pacing in the small cave.
It was decently furnished for a cave, though I hated the necessity of using it.
But my wife’s beautiful scent had been blooming more and more since we’d consummated our love.
If I hadn’t known her to be fearless, I would have believed her fearful of the change.
But no matter how many times I’d asked, she hadn’t shared her thoughts. Perhaps…
Another chill ran through me. Was she coming into her fertility cycle?
My cock was the only part of me that thought that was a good idea.
I’d learned enough about Omegas to know that they had heats once a year at least, and they often needed more than one mate to survive.
Rada would require a group of worthy mates, and a safe nest, and protection for the week or two where she would become insatiable, driven by lust to do all sorts of wild acts.
As if she knew what I was thinking about, she stalked across the cave and dug a vial out of her cloak, drinking it in one gulp before grimacing.
I knew what it was: a tonic to stave off her cycle.
Keeping my features still, I reached down and discreetly wiped the droplets of pre-cum off the end of my cock.
I could never let her know how I longed to be with her during that time.
Someday, I would be. She’d married me, even if she’d refused to exchange mating marks. She was the Warqueen of All Starlak, and I was her Warlord. Even after she chose her other mates, we would be together until the end of our—
“I can’t do this. I’ve got work to do. A mission.
I’m not meant to be livin’ in a cave or a castle, with babies slidin’ out of me every ten months.
I’m not a wife, I’m a spy. How’d I forget that?
” She scowled at my cock. “You made me forget. You and that nine-toothed demon.” Something like regret flashed over her face as she stared at the rungs on my warrior’s ladder.
It had been the first of many sacrifices I would make for her, but the bliss it brought to her made the past suffering worthwhile.
“I’m leaving ya,” she announced, already moving across the cave and grabbing the leather satchels where she kept her stored herbs.
I approached her slowly, like I would a skittish horse. “Rada, my love, my goddess. I don’t want you to be anything but what you are.”
“You want children.” Her voice was too quiet. Too calm. “You want me to have your children.”
I blinked, sensing the trap. “I assumed…” My mouth dried up at the sheer disgust in her expression.
I had to try again. “I don’t need anything from you but to stand by your side.
I want to support you. Protect you.” I plucked the knife out of my arm and threw it toward the mouth of the cave, where it clattered across the stone floor into the darkness.
“Omegas are the ones who choose, my dear wife. You know that. I will forever be amazed that you chose me.”
It was true. I woke every morning knowing how blessed I was. Not only that Rada had deemed me worthy to lie with her, but that the Goddess had found me deserving.
Did I want children with Rada? Maybe someday. But only if she wanted them as well.
Her eyes rose to mine. “You swore you’d give me anything I asked for as a wedding gift. If I asked for your life, your throne, your soul.”
I nodded, suddenly terrified. “I did.” I’d done it the night she gave herself to me, vowed it on my family’s name, and to the Goddess.
We’d braided each other’s hair with the beads, and she’d allowed me to mark her arm afterward with a sign of my liebehald.
As long as she wore it, I would give her whatever she asked. “Anything you ask.”
She stared down at the vines and flowers on her arm now. “I don’t want those things. I want somethin’ else.”
I dropped to my knees. “If it will make you happy, I’ll give it to you. Just tell me.”
“I want you to let me go.” Those mysterious, haunted eyes pinned me in place.
“Let me leave Starlak and be the spy I was born to be. I don’t want marriage, or anniversaries, or babies.
I want to be Ratter of Rimholt again.” Her breath caught.
“I want my name back. I want my life back. I want you to absolve me of my vows and let me go.”
I couldn’t breathe. I was bleeding from my arm, but that pain was nothing. I felt like she’d found an invisible poisoned dagger and plunged it into me again and again. “Please. Rada—” Her lip curled, and I tried again. “Ratter. Please, anything but that.”
She shook her head and pulled her black-jeweled dagger out of its sheath, setting it to her skin at the place where she wore my tattoo, the proof of my vow. Of my debt. “You promised. You need to let me go. And I’ll let you go, too.” A line of blood rose.