Chapter Fourteen
Abauna picked at her dinner, unsettled.
She knew she’d been snippy with Rolan today, but she had good reasons. Womanly reasons that he’d never be able to understand and she didn’t feel like explaining. But she never expected him to go this far to make her feel better.
She’d cried when he gave her the apple he was so proud of. He couldn’t have known it, but she loved apples. There was never enough of them in the Hold and they were a rare treat for her people.
That alone would’ve been enough to soften her. But he didn’t stop there.
As she hurried around the kitchen cooking dinner, her eyes had caught on the pale pink flower he’d left for her on the table. Pink was her favorite color.
He brought her things from his foraging often, but this was different. As if he’d searched these out just for her.
It was… the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her.
She should tell him.
And now this. He’d shaved his fur off, and it was clear he’d done it to impress her. To… to appear more normal for her.
If I remove the hair tomorrow, would you touch me again?
She didn’t miss the way he reacted when she smoothed her fingertips along his jaw. But until that moment, she didn’t realize her touch was something he even wanted. It was a silly misstep. Her groom was a male like any other, and males needed relief. It was the first thing she’d learned in bridal training.
But when she mentioned it before, he’d shut her down.
Perhaps he didn’t want relief from her.
“Did I worry you today, when I cried over the fruit?”
He didn’t answer as he finished chewing his food. With the fur gone from his face, it was impossible not to notice the fullness of his lips, the shadows of his eyes. He was handsome beneath it all, but now she could say with certainty, she preferred his natural state.
“Worried is not the word I’d use.”
“What then?”
“Confused.” He frowned, and she missed the rumpled fur that used to be there. “I do not like seeing you upset, but you said you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t,” she insisted.
He nodded as if she’d answered her own question. “See? Confused.”
That made two of them.
She sighed, reaching for her drink. “It’s difficult to explain.”
He watched her carefully. “I wish to help however I can.”
“I know.” Her voice went soft at the reminder of what he did today. “No one has ever given me a flower before, you know. Not special, like this. You are the first.”
He straightened, his food forgotten.
“What about an apple? Has anyone given you an apple before?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes. I’m sorry to report my father had that honor. When I was young, before… well, before I was hated… I went to work with him in the watergardens. There was one fruit bearing tree that gave apples, and he snuck me a bruised one to try.”
“You liked it.”
“I did. Very much.”
Rolan stared at her, his mind working.
“What?” she asked.
“How could anyone hate you, bride?”
Oh, the question of a lifetime. One that was impossible to answer.
She looked at her plate, using her utensil to push the uneaten food around.
“I was just too different, I suppose. Same as you.”
Emotion charged the air, palpable and real, forcing her gaze up to his.
“Were you beaten for it?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But it wasn’t out of cruelty like what was done to you.”
“Was it not?” he countered, and she noticed how tightly he gripped his own utensil.
She shook her head. “I think… I think they were trying to fix me.”
His expression was severe. “Explain.”
Well, this wasn’t how she’d wanted the evening to go, but it was his right to know her history the same as she knew his.
“They beat me mostly to mar my face, wishing for it to scar and leave me disfigured so I would fit in better with the rest of the tribe.” She cringed, remembering those sessions as the other females used to call them. The pain inflicted for such a trivial purpose. “But no matter how badly they wounded me, scars never remained. Then they believed me cursed. Unnatural.”
They’d used every method thinkable. When fists didn’t work, they tried blades. When blades yielded nothing, they used fire. All of it was in vain. She could still feel the pain sometimes when she thought about it too long. Or worse, when it woke her in the middle of the night.
But since leaving the Hold with Rolan, there had been none of those phantom memories.
His face was a mask of fury, but she pressed on, needing him to know the whole of it.
“When the Empress learned of my abilities, she questioned me to know how I’d managed to maintain my beauty. I gave her the truth: I knew not how. But that wasn’t the answer she was looking for.”
“That is why she punished your people,” he snarled. “To make you talk.”
Abauna nodded. “But I had already given her everything.”
“And she had no more use for you, so she gave you to me.” He said this with the utmost disgust, but she knew he directed it at himself.
She was silent as he fumed. She could give him the truth, but was he ready to hear it? Was she ready to speak it?
Instead, she asked him a question that had been plaguing her.
“Are there others like you? With this affliction?”
He blinked, his anger temporarily distracted. “None that I know of. The Empress told me I was to be given a wife so I could mate and make more like me. More… monsters, she said. The Ancients wanted it so. It is why I expected to meet a different female at the altar.”
“Perhaps she considered me a monster as well.”
His gaze touched all over her face. “You are far from it, bride. And I’m beginning to think the real monsters hide in plain sight.”
Indeed.
“I enjoy the way you think, groom,” she said, repeating his words from their night in the cave.
He sucked in a hard breath, his dark eyes doing that awestruck thing again before he returned to his food.
She couldn’t help the way it pulled a smile from her.
Plucking a bite of fish from her plate, she chewed it before asking, “How long did you say it would take for your fur to grow back?”
He glanced up at her from under his brow.
“It will return by morning,” he muttered.
“Good.”
***
Rolan watched his bride sleep as the first streaks of daylight filtered into the bedroom. He’d lain awake for much of the night thinking about what had been done to her. He was right about her being mistreated. It wasn’t lost on him that they were stark opposites, yet so much the same.
Perhaps the Empress wasn’t so wrong when she said he would be given a bride who was suited to him.
His gaze traced a path around Abauna’s eyes where long lashes rested upon her cheek, over her dainty slanted nose, to finish at the plump bow of her lips.
There was not even a hint of a scar in her skin.
If she hadn’t told him of her abuse, he never would have known.
He wanted to kill the ones who’d hurt her, no matter that they were far away now. He wanted to break them into pieces with his bare hands.
Only watching her now, safe and at peace, kept his mind sane.
He’d kept the pillow firmly between them even though he longed to touch her more than ever. After testing her skin and the curve of her cheek, he would connect every freckled dot across the bridge of her nose.
Mine, his heart thumped on repeat.
But not fully.
Only halfway—his half to be exact.
She stirred and this time, he didn’t bother turning his gaze away to pretend he hadn’t been staring.
“It’s back,” she said with a sleepy smile that choked him all over again. “You’re back.”
“I told you it would return by morning,” he murmured, trying to absorb her smile to soften the disappointment of being denied her touch.
She hadn’t said no directly, but he knew that’s what she meant.
He would honor her wishes and not ask again.
“Good.” She nudged the pillow out of the way, revealing his furred chest. “I like you better as you are.”
He frowned. “Was it that bad, wife? My visage?”
Her smile twisted into something new. Something… shy.
Shy? He’d never known her to be so.
“No. Not bad. Just… not you. Not the groom I’ve come to know.” She moved, her small hand inching across the bed.
As he realized she intended to touch him, he froze, not daring to move a muscle. Not daring to respond at all. He couldn’t let her know how desperate he was for a connection. For a connection with her. For if he did, would she steal it away like the Empress?
No. His bride was kind, not cruel. Nothing like the Empress.
But she had implied no touching. Did he misunderstand her?
Rolan could feel his body vibrating with the anticipation of her touch, but he grit his teeth, determined to keep calm and not react in a way that would frighten her. The things he wanted… he wanted them fiercely. He wanted to call her his completely. He wanted her to be his bride for good. And with their vows incomplete, there was no bond except the one he felt for her in his heart.
And it was only one-sided.
He watched her face carefully as her fingers finally grazed his fur-covered arm. He waited for her to cringe, waited for her grimace. For her to jerk her hand away and pretend it hadn’t happened. Even forced his eyes to stay open when they wanted to close in bliss, because he knew it was coming.
But it didn’t.
Instead, her brow lifted as she felt his hair and… and dug her fingers even deeper.
“It’s soft,” she whispered. “I didn’t expect it to be.”
She went to one elbow, her hand slowly petting up his arm to his shoulder, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes from rolling backward in his head. Pleasure lit him into a million tiny fires, the flames of them torching his veins.
Her exploration continued to his chest where his fur was thicker, but she froze as a telling whimper escaped him.
Her eyes found his, concerned. “Groom? Have I harmed you?”
“No.” The word exploded from him on a labored breath. What was happening to him?
“No?”
He shook his head, willing her to keep going. But when she did, an odd sound erupted from his throat unbidden. What was that? He blinked, certain she would pull away, but he was helpless to stop the satisfied thrum that rattled his chest beneath her roving fingers.
Miraculously, she grinned. “Purring again.”
“Again?”
She nodded. “You did this in the cave. In your sleep, when I got close.”
“It’s a great joy to be touched,” he confessed as a shiver rolled through him. “I adore it more than you can know.”
Her eyes met his.
“You’ve not had enough good touches, groom.” Her voice was soft with understanding. “Safe touches. Now you’re starved for them.”
All he could do was nod.
All he could do was trust her.
“I wish to try something,” she whispered.
“W-what is it?”
“Another kind of touching. Something I’ve never tried before. But you must be very still.”
He nodded. “I will do anything you ask, bride.”
The ghost of a smile lifted her lips, but it was her eyes that had him transfixed. They were trained on his mouth as she leaned in… closer… closer… her breath a heated pant between them, until she slanted her face over his and pressed their lips together.
The strange purr stopped abruptly.
Everything stopped. His breath, his thought, his heart.
He was either dying or this was another dream.
Confusion gripped him. This was a kiss. He knew a kiss involved using your mouth because the Empress had told him of it when they were still children. He even knew husbands and wives were meant to share this. The same as mating. But he didn’t know what to do now that his bride’s soft, soft mouth was so close to his.
Oh, her mouth was so very sweet to him. The most precious piece of her he’d discovered yet.
Would she let him touch her back? Was it too much to ask?
Before he could try, her lips moved on his, brushing like a stroke of paint, and his body responded sharply. Beneath his trousers, his cock swelled and hardened in an instant, jutting from his waist obscenely to tent the sheet.
Fear shot through him and he pushed her back.
“We must stop,” he blurted, frantic with the thought of her seeing his reaction. What would she do if she noticed the desperate need of his body? He couldn’t take the chance that she might be disgusted.
A crease formed between her eyes. “O-okay.”
When she leaned away, he rose quickly and shielded his waist with a nearby tunic, then started for the door.
“Wait, where are you going?” she asked, her voice different than it was before.
“I must see to something. I will return soon.”
It was all his strangled throat would allow.
Because he was about to blow his release right here, in his pants, for his bride to bear witness.
And he’d surely die from the shame of it.
One way or another, his body wasn’t yielding. The only option was to get as far away from her as possible.