Chapter 2 #2
I give a laugh that’s not humorous. “Are you sure? Because I don’t think that’s what I am…”
“You haven’t felt a connection to me?”
“No, well…”
He keeps watching me.
My cheeks heat. “I felt something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I figured it was just a crazy attraction.”
“You find me attractive?”
“Well,” damn it, “I figured that was clear. What with all the staring and what not.”
He grins. “I’m glad, because, Harper, I find you very attractive as well.” And his voice takes on a husky note.
I’m embarrassed, unsure what to say or do.
“The truth is, if they hadn't offered you as my bride, I would’ve taken you as my bride. I wouldn’t, of course, have forced you to marry me, but I would’ve given you an opportunity to get to know me and feel the connection yourself.”
“So I guess this worked out for you.”
“It most certainly did.” He pauses. “And rest assured, this has worked out for you too, because I swear to the gods you will want for nothing, Harper. I will give you everything you desire and more. You will be covered in gold and gems. You will live in the finest castles. You will never be lonely or sad. And I will make you wet every single day, and when you want to come, you’ll come. Every time.”
The room becomes unreasonably warm as he slowly moves his big hands up my good foot and onto my ankle and calf. If I were a different kind of woman, I’d tell him that he’d already become successful in part of his plans for me.
“You’re not at all the way I thought you’d be.”
He looks amused. “Did you think I was just a bloodthirsty savage?”
I hesitate, then decide to be honest. “I thought you might be.”
“That’s because that’s what the Dravari think we are… what we’ve led them to think we are. Humans can be killed, but bloodthirsty, inhumane savages cannot be.”
“Smart,” I say, and it is. If their enemies are terrified of them, they’re harder to fight.
He casts me another glance, then frowns.
“What?”
He slides out from under my feet and sets them down gently, then he goes and grabs another blanket, coming up behind me.
“Your hair is soaking your nightgown. You’re going to be cold all night.
” Then, before I know what he’s doing, he begins to slowly dry my hair with the blanket, his every move gentle.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and my eyes close. “I’ve never had someone dry my hair before.”
“No?”
“It feels nice.”
“Oh?”
He continues to dry my hair, rubbing my scalp, and a sigh slips from my lips. He keeps going as my head falls back, and I realize my head is in his lap. I turn a little and, eyes no longer closed, find myself face-to-cock with his impressive package, which is currently standing at attention.
I sit up in a hurry, heart pounding.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” The thing is, my body might be ready to try out this hunky Hollowborn, but sleeping with a man I barely know, an enemy, would be absolutely insane right now.
“I think I’m ready for bed now,” I say, shifting to stand.
He’s there in an instant, scooping me into his arms. I protest, but he carries me to the bed, shifts me to one arm to peel back the blanket, then lays me softly under the covers, before pulling the blankets over me. He tucks my hair back behind my ears and stares down at me for a long moment.
I don’t know what to say, so I just open my mouth. “I wouldn’t have ever associated the word ‘gentle’ with a Hollowborn.”
He looks amused as he walks around the bed, although my gaze is sliding between his hard chest and obvious erection. “Hollowborns are never more gentle than they are with their mates.”
I’m still digesting that when he crawls into bed and places an arm around my waist, pulling me against him, so the evidence of his arousal is pressed firmly against my ass.
A low rumble comes from his chest, and he takes a deep breath, as if breathing me in.
My nipples harden, and I find myself aching for his touch, and terrified of it all at the same time.
“We barely know each other…” I begin.
“So let's get to know each other,” he murmurs into my ear before rubbing his lips against my earlobe.
Fuck. Shit.
I try to change the topic. “We’re going back to Stormwrath Academy soon. How do you feel about that?”
He rubs himself softly against my ass. “I have mixed feelings. It’s wrong, I know it is, but the biggest thing on my mind is how I don’t want to share you with the Dravari princes.
The Hollowborn rarely share women, and everything inside of me doesn’t want to share you.
My mind is full of the various ways I want to take you, and not a single way involves three Dravaris with their dicks out, even though I’m sure I could teach them many things. ”
I shiver.
“What do you think of that?”
It’s hard to think with his scent, something rich and manly, and his hard body pressed all over me. “I don’t know. The princes and I have a connection too, but they haven’t been the nicest to me. I’m not sure how I feel about them entirely, but I understand that marrying them is part of the deal.”
“It is, which is why I’ll learn to share. My people deserve a better life. They deserve peace. I’ll need to come to terms with the cost of that peace for us.”
“Agreed.”
“And I’m worried about the peace agreement. I trust you, but I do not trust the Dravari people. They have ruined every peace agreement our people have ever made. I’m prepared for them to ruin this one too. I simply don’t want to get myself, or any of my people, killed in one of their little games.”
I’m surprised. “I’ve always heard the Hollowborn have been the reason every peace agreement hasn’t worked out.”
His laugh is a low rumble in his chest. “I’m afraid not, My Heart.”
“My Heart? You called me that before.”
He kisses my shoulder. “That’s because you’re my heart now. I’ll protect you as I would my own heart.”
I’m not sure what to do with a man who talks so openly about his feelings. “What’s Volcaris like?”
“What do you know about our continent?”
“Is it all ash and lava?”
He buries his nose in my neck, inhaling deeply again, like he can’t get enough of my scent, and it’s strangely hot to have him do such a thing.
“It is mostly ash and lava, which makes it a difficult place to live, but there’s also life there.
Many animals live in the ash and lava. Plants have learned to grow in such difficult conditions.
There’s a lot of beauty. We live in stone structures, in areas where the lava doesn’t flow, and we rely a great deal on the sea for food and supplies.
The thing is, we can’t get everything we need there, which is why we try to come to Volcaris, but the Dravari people do everything they can to prevent us from coming to their lands.
We have to land at Gore Rock, as you know, before coming to Volcaris, and your people have positioned a wealth of dragon riders there to stop us from coming to your continent.
It’s been this way for as long as I can remember.
The Dravari act like we’re the ones who want war, but we’ve never wanted war. Just to live.”
It’s weird hearing his side of things. Weird because it could be true. There’s nothing in what he says that I can disprove. Still, it’s hard to imagine my people as the aggressors after all I’ve heard about the Hollowborn.
“Our people live in a harsh environment, which has made them tougher, but we’re not tough in all things.
We prioritize our families, our spouses, our children, above all else.
My own mother and two sisters are well-cared for and quite happy.
It’s important to us that our men are not just warriors, but good people too. And if they aren’t… we handle it.”
There was something omniscient about the way he says, “we handle it.”
“What are your sisters and mother like?”
“My mother is a fierce warrior by her own right. When my father died, she took over as ruler of our people until I came of age. I would’ve allowed her to rule longer, but she felt I was ready.
And I was. She taught me well. My older sister has a hard head and a hard heart, but it has served her well.
She imprinted on a man who is soft in all the ways she’s hard, so they complement each other well.
My younger sister is still unwed, but she’s waiting to imprint on someone.
She’s gentle and soft for a Hollowborn, but that softness has resulted in a beautiful artist who is talented with a brush and has the voice of an angel.
She gives comfort to all the soldiers on their hardest days. ”
“Did it impact you to spend most of your life in a family of mostly women?”
He shifts behind me, moving me closer. “Women can be soldiers, but they often choose not to be. They tend to understand the complexities of emotions, values, and our roles in this world on a deeper level than men do. For example, when my father died, the men gave me liquor and patted me on the back, but my mother and sisters sat down with me, and we spoke about our many great memories with my father. They allowed me to cry. They allowed me to mourn the loss of everything I would never experience with him, while sharing their own sadness and fears. So, although I would never call women ‘soft,’ for lack of a better world, they taught me to be soft when I need to be.”
My chest feels warm, and my mind spins. There’s so much to unravel in words, from the realization that the Hollowborn seem to treat their women as equals, unlike the Dravari, to the fact that Sevrin does seem to be able to connect on a more vulnerable level than the three princes, likely because of the strong women in his family.
The picture that I’m beginning to form of this man is a good one.
“What about you and your life?”
I stiffen, coming back to the present. “Mine isn’t as interesting…”
“It will be to me.”
I get distracted by his warm breath on my shoulder for a minute before I manage, “I grew up in a small town and learned to be a healer from my mother. I have a wonderful father who is a hardworking farmer, and my three idiot brothers help him run the farm. I have my best friend, Arthur, someone I’ve grown up with, and now I’m doing everything I can to become a good dragon rider, because that’s what’s important to Ebron and I. ”
“And you were happy growing up?”
“Very. I mean, sometimes I wished I had a sister to help even the numbers against my brothers, but my mother often acted as my friend and confidant.”
“You’re close to your family then?”
“Yes. I even had a fiancé that I didn’t want, and my family did their best to handle him, even though his father is a powerful man.”
He tenses behind me. “If he’s still a problem, I can deal with him.”
“That’s sweet,” I say, “but Lucien, Prince Lucien, handled him when he got a little too bold.”
“I’ll have to thank him for that.”
I’m not sure Lucien would like that.
“You want to hear something strange?” he asks.
“Okay,” I say, listening intently.
“I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”
“I admit I feel a bit of the same way, even though all of my instincts are screaming at me to not feel that way.”
“Why?”
I glance back at him, meeting his golden-eyed gaze. “You’re a stranger to me, Sevrin. We’re in a bed together. We’re barely clothed. I’d have to be a fool to trust you.”
He leans up a little, our lips inches from each other.
“Then be a fool, Harper, because I’m never going to hurt you.
I’m never going to touch you unless you want me to touch you.
I don’t see you as my possession. I don’t see you as my property.
I see myself as your possession. I see myself as your property.
And I think that you just allow yourself to be mine as long as I make you happy, but that I could lose you if I ever failed to worship you the way you deserve to be. ”
Well, now I just want to jump on him and fuck his brains out.
He presses a featherlight kiss to my lips and says, “Go to sleep, My Heart. You’ve had a long day, and you need to heal. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
I nod and look away, swallowing around the lump in my throat.
He adjusts himself against me, and his massive erection is right there between my thighs, making itself known. I force my eyes to close, but I’m burning up for this man. Aroused and frustrated. I know it can’t be Ebron, because he’s not near his mates, so this arousal is all for him.
For Sevrin.
I open my mouth, trying to decide how best to tell a man that I changed my mind and want to be fucked by my sensitive, overly caring, new husband, but I can’t seem to find the words.
Frustrated, I close my mouth again and tell myself it’s time to get my mind out of the gutter, but I keep seeing him naked, drenched, with a cock the very gods would write about.
Fucking hell.