Chapter 10
Alina
After those first bumpy days, we settled into a routine. I cleaned the house in the mornings, cooked dinners for myself in the afternoons—Voss ate mostly meat, hardly cooked—and mended my clothes in the evenings. Most of the dresses that arrived were average size, and I had to let them out so they weren’t too tight.
All through that, Voss stayed by my side. Patient and helpful, he claimed he had nothing better to do than follow me every hour of every day. It should have been annoying, but his quiet, competent presence made me feel surprisingly safe. Especially when we went out into the jungle.
He showed me the coffee bushes, and we gathered the red fruit into baskets before laying the harvest out in the sun to dry. At a few unguarded moments, I found myself enjoying this quiet, productive way of life, and then cursed myself for setting my poor heart up for disappointment.
Days passed. The two-month deadline crept closer, and Voss seemed to be painfully aware of it. He watched me so intensely sometimes, I felt his eyes burning a path down my body. He was utterly focused at those moments, motionless and honed in on me like a hunter.
Those stares made me blush and then bluster as I grew angry with myself and confused. I shouldn’t react with anything other than fear and reserve, and yet… Things stirred inside me. I refused to give them a name.
It’s natural, I tried to reassure myself. You’re both alone in this big house in the middle of wilderness. So you’re growing attached. You’ll snap out of it once you’re away from here. A few more weeks.
Trying to understand him better, I read the book about basilisks in the evenings while in bed, but it was slow-going. My eyes tired easily in the light of the kerosene lamp, and I was frustrated with myself for having to stop at every long word.
Voss frustrated me, too. I kept reminding myself not to trust him, but it was difficult. He didn’t give me any reasons to fear him, always being polite, restrained, supportive. He never touched me.
And since I didn’t dare leave my room at night, I had no idea if he still slept in the corridor by my door or not. I refused to think about it and pushed the memory of spending a night in his arms far away.
One day, we were picking cacao fruit in the orchard by the house. The fruit was larger than my palm and looked nothing like I had expected. The skin of the ripe ones had a dappled orange color. They looked a bit like a strange kind of ovoid pumpkin.
“Here.” Voss handed me a fruit cracked in half. “You can eat it raw. Try the white pulp.”
“This doesn’t look like cocoa at all.” I laughed, staring at the strange, white pods inside. “More like some kind of mold.”
The skin of the fruit was thick and hard, just like a pumpkin. The seeds were unappealing, but the white pulp covering them was soft and smelled fruity with a darker note. I didn’t even hesitate before plopping some in my mouth.
Voss said it was safe to eat and I believed him.
“Oh, wow,” I said, already reaching for more. “It’s sweet but it also has a bit of a chocolatey taste… I think I don’t need chocolate if I can have this. It’s so good!”
He nodded, putting more fruit onto a large sheet spread out on the ground. Once it was full, he’d gather the ends to make a makeshift sack and carry it home.
“I like the cacao nibs enough to go through the trouble of making them. It’s a bother, though. The seeds have to be fermented and then dried.” He shrugged. “But I guess I used to have nothing better to do.”
I looked up in time to catch one of his intense, coveting looks that made shivers go down my spine. He didn’t say or do anything indecent and yet I suddenly felt naked.
Something unspoken hung in the air between us, almost as if he was telling me without words all the things he’d like to do now that I was here. The better things he could be doing instead of fermenting cacao beans and roasting coffee.
I cleared my throat and looked away, my eyes falling on the ripe fruit gently swinging higher up the tree. “Hey, what about those?”
Voss blinked a few times, as if jerked out of a daydream, and I reminded myself yet again I shouldn’t look into his eyes. And yet, I did it more and more often. Sometimes, when we locked eyes for long enough, his spikes ruffled suddenly, as if a gale whipped through them.
I wanted to ask what that meant but didn’t.
“Well, I have a ladder if you want to pick them. But I usually just get those I can reach. There’s plenty enough.”
I eyed the trunk of the tree and the branches. “You know, it looks sturdy enough. Maybe I could climb up… You’d just have to give me a bit of a leg up.”
I wore soft, comfortable trousers, and besides, I was good at climbing trees. There were large orchards at the farm I worked on, and I often picked apples in the fall.
Voss took a moment to answer. “Oh.”
I glanced at him to see if that meant he agreed. Our eyes met, and I startled. His irises were wide and gold, shrinking the black pupils that usually took up most of his eyes. His scaly face was pinched into an intense, hungry look, and before I could stop it, a frisson of anticipation flared through my lower belly.
Alarmed, I stumbled back. Voss’s expression fell, the dazzling intensity giving way to sorrow. He looked away and nodded. “Of course. Whatever you want.”
And now, I just wanted to growl from frustration. At him, for playing such a good part of the sad, rejected lover. But even more at myself—for letting him sway me.
The warm pulses of curiosity died off in my belly, and I scowled at the ground, trying to talk some sense into my stupid body.
He’s a killer and a beast! And the longer you are together, the more violent he will be. Stick to the plan. Don’t look at him.
I finally reached the portion of the book Voss talked about earlier when he said my scent helped calm him. What he didn’t mention, though, was that every basilisk, once mated, became horrifyingly protective of their mate.
The book talked at length about basilisks ripping apart people and creatures who so much as looked askance at their mates. It described bloody battles and downright slaughter, and the conclusion was that the basilisks who were mated the longest were the most dangerous.
And yet, Voss murdered Liam not even an hour after meeting me. I was afraid to think what he might do in a year or five if he perceived someone as a threat. His species was so violent.
And what if all that monstrous rage turned toward me? That terrified me the most.
Instead of soothing my worries, the book only raised more. And yet, when I looked at Voss who picked cacao fruit and placed it gently on the sheet, I had trouble reconciling him with what the book said his race was like. He confused me to no end.
There was also another thing I barely dared to admit to myself. What frustrated me the most was a vicious, pleased part of me that actually enjoyed the descriptions of gore and vengeance. It was the same part that replayed Liam’s death over and over in my head when I lay in bed at night, relishing the memory with cruel satisfaction.
After all, he hurt me. It served him right.
That very same part of me wondered with curiosity what it would be like to have such a fierce, powerful protector. I’d never have to fear again with Voss at my side. I’d be untouchable.
If only I could trust that he wouldn’t turn against me or use that violence to bend me to his will.
I glanced at him as he waited patiently by the lowest, sturdiest branch, ready to lift me up. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to let him touch me. And yet, my frustration boiled close to the surface, and it finally pushed me toward him.
I was so tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was exhausting to expect Voss to attack me and then be disappointed, over and over. Sometimes, I almost wanted to provoke him to just get it over with.
Test him. Try him. Drive him crazy so he finally stops pretending.
Maybe getting close was exactly what I should do. If my scent was so potent, it might finally shift things and reveal what was hidden.
“Can you lift me? Won’t I be too heavy?” I asked, walking closer. I didn’t look directly into his eyes but I saw them, gold and bright, yet dulled by the secondary eyelids that kept his gaze non-lethal.
Voss snorted. “You’re not heavy at all. Of course I can lift you. Come closer.”
I shivered, his final words giving me a vague feeling of lightness and relief, like an echo of a memory. I walked over, trying to place it. Voss looked down at me, our eyes meeting, and I remembered: he said those same words after he walked into the wedding chamber. Before he showed me his violent nature and killed Liam.
I had a sudden urge to run, but Voss’s big, scaly hands were on my waist already, his hold gentle but secure. I gasped, his touch sending shivers up and down my spine, and then I was up, steadily lifted to the branch.
I tucked my legs up to put my feet on the tree, and Voss held me until I grabbed another branch and gained my balance.
“Take a moment to orient yourself,” he said, and I nodded, pressing my palm to my chest.
But what drove my heartbeats faster and faster wasn’t my new precarious position. I still tried to process how his touch felt on my body, his breath in my hair, and my entire weight in his arms, so strong and secure. The sensations were many and shockingly powerful, and I pushed my hand into my sternum harder and harder, trying to force my heart to slow down.
It was racing way too fast, and not in fear.
“All right,” I said finally when it became clear I couldn’t control my emotions. “I’ll start handing them to you.”
I climbed the tree slowly, mindful of its smooth bark. But soon, I found my footing and started dropping ripe, heavy fruit into Voss’s waiting hands. Once his sheet was full, he piled more fruit under the tree to come back for later.
“I think this will be enough—aaaaaaaaah!”
I tipped too far to the side and the branch I held snapped with a crack. I fell.
A pair of strong, scaly arms caught me easily. I breathed fast, looking with wide eyes at Voss’s face looming above me, his spikes ruffling, his eyes gold.
“Careful, ssalamiya,” he hissed, his tongue flicking out for just a moment, stretching so long, it almost touched my cheek.
And then, he buried his face in my neck, inhaling deeply. My tongue was tied, my heart racing, and I let him, shivering when the smooth, warm scales on his cheek stroked my tender skin.
When Voss carried me toward the house, the cacao fruit forgotten, I still couldn’t find any words to protest.