Chapter 16
Every thread of Telok’s being was drawn taut, pulled in every direction with such force that it was a wonder he remained in one piece. The searing rage boiling through his veins was restrained only by the cold, heavy lump in his gut and the weight of his helplessness and distress.
He hated seeing Lacey in pain, hated that he’d caused some of it, that she had suffered so much. He could not protect her from what had already been done, could not avenge her, could not vanquish the ghosts that had followed her across the stars.
Her bottom lip trembled as her eyes filled with fresh tears. “After I healed, I felt just as ugly, but in a different way.”
Telok’s insides drew tighter. “Lacey—”
“I know. I know I wasn’t. That I’m not.” She wiped the heel of her hand across her eyes. “But that kind of mindset is hard to break. Hard to heal from. I still haven’t completely, but I’m trying every day to look at myself and love me.”
“Ah, Lacey…” Cupping the back of Lacey’s neck, he lowered his head to nuzzle her damp hair, breathing in the heady blend of her natural scent and the fragrance of the soap. “I wish you could see what I see.”
He straightened, leaving his hand on her neck, and met her watery gaze. “I look upon you and see beauty. I see strength. I see a spirit brighter and more fiery than your hair.”
Telok covered the scar on her belly with a lower hand. “These marks have helped shape you, but they are not you. They are battles you fought, battles you survived. You are here even after every hurt, after every pain, every struggle. Because you are strong.”
Lacey gave him a little smile as tears spilled down her cheeks. “Ahnset said something similar to me once, and her words really helped me.”
“Ahnset is queen, so you must listen.”
“So I don’t have to listen to you?”
Telok tipped his head to the side. “When have you ever listened to me?”
She chuckled.
That sweet, soft sound flowed straight into Telok’s hearts, easing the pressure in his chest.
He brushed away her tears with the back of a finger as he brushed his thumb along the scar on her belly. “I wish you did not have these scars. Not because you say they are ugly, but because it would have spared you much suffering.”
Her bottom lip quivered as her brow pinched. “Telok…”
After dipping the soap in the water to rewet it, he lifted the bar to her neck. “Always I have seen you. From the first moment, I have seen you. Not your scars, Lacey. You.”
As his hand worked lower, slowly washing, Lacey’s lips parted, and she lifted her chin to allow him easier access.
“This smooth skin,” he said as he ran the soap along her delicate collarbone, tracing the dip at its center with his thumb. Heat built low in his core, radiating into his stem. “These soft mounds.” He trailed the soap down and circled her breast, delighting in its give, its weight.
Lacey’s breath quickened, and her fingers curled into his leg as he neared the round, pink flesh at the tip of her breast. With a single brush of that soap, her nipple hardened.
Telok growled. “By the Eight, the way your human body responds to me…”
Turning his hand, he stroked that tight bud with his knuckle.
Lacey sucked in a sharp breath, and her back arched as she leaned into his touch, her lashes growing heavy. “Telok…”
Crimson tinged the edges of his vision. Throbbing for release from its confinement, his stem pressed forward, held within only by his clutching claspers.
Need echoed through him, down into his bones.
As if her body’s reactions and the feel of her in his hands hadn’t been enough, the scent of Lacey’s desire clouded his mind.
It flooded his nostrils, filled his lungs, and clung to his fine hairs, most concentrated where her slit was pressed against his leg.
That tantalizing flesh was hot and wet, coating the hide beneath it with her essence.
She was right here, yearning for him, succumbing to him, an offering for the taking…
He ran the soap down her stomach and over her scar, making her belly quiver. “These are beautiful because they are part of you.”
Telok’s eyes followed his hand as it trailed lower, toward the source of that heat and that maddening scent, watching his fingers brush the hair above her slit. He purred, and his claspers eased their grip on his slit. “As are these red curls covering your pus—”
“You guys still alive over there?” Cole yelled.
Lacey gasped and grabbed Telok’s wrist, halting his hand. She stared at him with wide, startled eyes, her cheeks flushed.
Telok growled.
I will kill Cole.
She let out a nervous laugh. “I… I, uh, got it from here.”
Snatching the soap from him, she quickly hopped off his leg, her slippery skin easily escaping his hold. She splashed into the water, stumbling slightly before she caught her balance.
“Oh, my God, I can’t believe that happened,” she rasped, almost too quietly for him to hear over the sound of the stream, as she stepped away from him.
Telok remained still. A storm raged inside him with howling winds, lashing rain, and booming thunder as desire and instinct clashed with shock and reason. He’d been so close to taking her. How had he allowed that to happen?
How had he lost control so suddenly?
“Uh, guys?” Cole’s voice carried over to Telok. “You all good? I’m about to walk over th—”
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Lacey shouted.
Clenching his fists, Telok drew his claspers over his slit tight enough for it to hurt. If Cole came over here, if he saw Lacey like this, Telok would claw out his fucking eyes.
She is mine.
“Jeez, okay,” Cole replied. “If I hear any screams, I’ll just assume you’re getting rayld!”
Each thump of Telok’s hearts renewed the ache in his cock, and pulses of that agony, that torturous need, reverberated through every thread of his being.
Several segments away, Lacey stopped with her back toward him. Grumbling to herself, she dunked her body into the water until she was submerged to her neck.
The red haze in Telok’s vision receded. His mind cleared along with it.
They were in a stream in the middle of the jungle, days away from Kaldarak, out of sight—but not hearing—of their group.
He’d been moments away from falling into a mating frenzy, which would’ve left them both vulnerable and unaware of their surroundings.
Were any of their companions to have come near while he was in the throes of that frenzy, he wouldn’t have seen a friend.
He would’ve seen a challenger. An enemy to destroy.
This was not the place to claim his Lacey, and that was not the way he meant to make her his mate.
Though infuriating, the interruption had been fortunate.
Perhaps he wouldn’t harm Cole after all…so long as the human kept his hands and eyes off Telok’s mate.
Telok strode to the bank, retrieved some cleanleaf from his bag, and returned to the deeper water.
As he crushed the stalks between his fingers, Lacey made her way toward the shore.
His eyes immediately fixated on her rounded ass, watching it sway as she waded out of the water and walked onto the rocks.
When she bent over to open her pack, Telok glimpsed her pink slit between her legs.
His fist squeezed the remaining cleanleaf as red fog once more swept into his mind.
His legs tensed, preparing to shift his weight and carry him to her in a rush of need, and his stem again pushed against the inside of his slit.
His traitorous claspers loosened by a thread’s breadth, threatening to let his cock extrude.
Shaper, unmake me.
She took out a folded blanket, shook it open, and wrapped it around herself.
It was enough for Telok to tear his gaze away from her.
Turning his back toward her, he scrubbed himself with the cleanleaf, welcoming the abrasion of the rougher chunks he’d not sufficiently mashed; it was something to focus on apart from Lacey.
Something to ground him. The soft inner parts of the cleanleaf fizzed in the water and on his hide, washing away the grime of long travel.
But it could not wash away his desires.
He tore his hair from its knot before plunging fully into the water. As the stream flowed around him, dominating his senses, he raked his claws through his hair. If only it were cold enough to snuff out the flames within him.
Telok blew air from his nostrils before rising. Emerging from the water, he whipped his head back, flicking his hair behind him.
His desire did not matter now. He and Lacey were in the Tangle, surrounded by danger, with far to travel before sunfall. They’d spent too much time away from their companions already. He had ignored his duties for too long.
Gathering his hair in his upper hands, he squeezed excess water from it, breathing slow and deep as he did so.
It is not yet time to mate. This hunt must continue.
When he turned back to Lacey, she was sitting on the rock with her elbows on her knees and her chin cupped in her hands, watching him. That red hair hung loose around her shoulders, beckoning him to run his fingers thr—
Damn my eyes, no!
Had he really expected a few heartbeats of focus to somehow make this easy? Every time he looked at her, temptation eroded his will to resist. Before long, nothing would remain of it but dust, which would be blown away the first time the wind carried her scent to his nostrils.
But he had to hold out. His instincts would have to wait.
He’d told Lacey he would tend to her, and there was one more thing he needed to do for his mate before they rejoined the others and resumed their journey.
Telok stalked toward her. Her eyes remained on him as he retrieved the jar of vineroot oil from his bag and sank down in front of her, folding his legs on either side of himself. “Let me see.”
Lacey sat up, hands falling to her lap as her brow furrowed. “Huh?”
With his upper hands, he peeled back the cloth covering her knees and thighs. “Your scars.”
“Oh…” Pulling her bottom lip into her mouth, she chewed on it, and her cheeks flushed to that delectable pink as she parted her thighs by barely a handspan.
Curling his hands over her knees, he guided Lacey’s legs wider.
She gasped and shoved a hand between her thighs, pushing the towel down to cover her slit. “Telok!”
He growled. Releasing her legs, he grasped Lacey’s wrists with his upper hands and leaned over her, forcing her arms back until her palms were on the stone behind her. “Hands here.”
“But—”
Telok silenced her with a sharp hiss. “Hands. Here. You will let me tend you, and you will not move unless I say.”
Lacey stared up at him with wide eyes. “Oh fuck…”
“Say you know my words,” he commanded.
“I do.”
He didn’t miss the way the black circles in her eyes expanded to nearly engulf the green, the quickening of her breath, or the rise and fall of her breasts, which were concealed from him only by a thin, tucked-in cloth.
Easing back, he released her arms. She kept them in place as he pinched the cloth between his claws and folded it back to lay around her pelvis, exposing her pussy again.
“Oh my God, Telok,” Lacey whispered, toes curling into the moss as her knees twitched inward.
“Do not move.” He forced his attention to his hands and told himself her slit was not right there, that it wasn’t spread before him like the petals of a flower, coated with morning dew. Told himself the scent of her arousal wasn’t strengthening again.
Telok opened the jar. The strong, familiar scent of vineroot oil diluted Lacey’s fragrance, but couldn’t overpower it. Lifting her right leg, he straightened it and rested it over his bent foreleg. The angle turned her scar more directly toward him.
He didn’t allow his eyes to follow the path of that scar, knowing all too well where it led.
Tipping the jar, he drizzled the vineroot oil over her thigh, letting it drip onto her scar. His upper hands closed around her inner thigh.
Her muscles tensed, and he flicked his gaze up to her in warning.
“I’m not moving,” she said breathlessly.
“Good, vi’jatai. This will hurt, but the pain will pass. I promise.”
As gently as he could, he massaged the oil into the scar and the skin surrounding it with his thumbs.
Lacey released a small groan of pain, and he again felt her muscles tense, but she did not shy away from his touch as he slowly worked his way up.
The higher he massaged, the louder her breathing became, until she let her head fall back with a strained moan.
That sound squeezed his hearts, and yet…he couldn’t tell if she’d made it purely out of pain. It was clear his touch was hurting her, but the scent of her desire remained undiminished. Was she somehow enjoying this despite the discomfort?
When he reached the point at which the scar changed course, near where her thigh met her pelvis, he paused. He felt the pull of an unseeable tether, bolstered by the insistent lure of her scent, and his gaze fell upon her slit.
Telok gritted his teeth. His hands twitched, and a shudder coursed through his body as the fire inside him roared back to life. It was so close. Just a little higher, just the slightest shift of his finger, and he’d be touching her pussy. He’d be feeling its warmth, its slick. Feeling her.
“Telok?”
Lacey’s voice dragged his attention back up to her face. She’d lifted her head to look at him, her lips parted, her eyes smoldering with desire. Beckoning him.
Not here. I will not take my mate here.
But fuck, he wanted to know what it would feel like to have her slit wrapped around his stem. Wanted to know what she would feel like within.
Focus. Must focus.
Telok forced his thumb into motion, smoothing oil into the last bit of the scar. His hearts pounded as he withdrew his hands, leaned back, and switched the position of her legs. The faintest tremor coursed through his hand as he dripped oil onto her left thigh.
Keeping his eyes on her scar, he massaged along her leg, feeling the weight and heat of her gaze upon him all the while.
Everything within Telok was tensed when he finished, making his movements stiff as he closed the jar, returned it to his bag, and took out the roll of cloth he kept for bandages.
With quick, thankfully smooth motions, he wrapped her thighs, neatly tucking the ends of the cloth to secure it into place.
Leaning over Lacey, he caught her jaw. He was all too aware of her thighs spread to either side of him, separated from his hide only by the bandages, was all too aware of the warmth pulsing from her core and the quivering in her breath.
I should not…
With a low purr, he dipped his head and pressed his mouth to her soft, soft lips. He moved his mouth over hers, wanting to leave his mark on her in this small way. Tingles spread across his face, and liquid fire pooled in his belly.
She shivered, releasing a shaky exhalation, and Telok took her breath into himself.
Somehow, he broke the kiss. When her lashes fluttered open, and her eyes locked with his, he stroked her jaw. “Good female.”
Before he could give in to his instincts and do anything more foolish, he pulled away from her and rose. “We must rejoin the others. Dress yourself.”