Chapter 9
nine
“We should bathe here,” Vade said when they reached a river. “This is the last water source before Ricaboro.”
He unbuckled his baldrics and belt, laying the weapon-laden equipment on the ground before pulling both the vest and tunic over his head.
Every muscle rippled down his front, broad shoulders and arms so chiseled that he looked like he’d been carved from marble.
His bronze skin had sporadic scars, most much smaller than she imagined, considering his line of work.
Orelia tripped on a root while staring at him, but as soon as she righted herself, her eyes drifted to the thick, dark hair covering his chest. Her gaze fell to the line of hair trailing below his navel and into his leathers.
He stretched his arms above his head, the movement emphasizing the deep vee of his hips, making her wonder where exactly the vee stopped . . .
“Stop gawking and get in the water,” Vade said with a devilish grin.
She swallowed the saliva that had pooled in her mouth. What in the hells was wrong with her? He’d just murdered people a few marks ago for the gods’ sake!
Not wanting to disrobe in front of him, Orelia crept behind a boulder at the river’s edge and removed her clothing. She cradled her bar of strawberry-scented soap and peeked around the boulder when she heard him enter the water.
Vade surfaced in the dark glossy water and smoothed back his shoulder-length hair. She couldn’t stop staring at his bulging biceps, the one she’d held onto when she thought the Arbors were going to shoot them.
Gods-dammit, he was attractive. Orelia shook her head, hoping it would knock some sense into her. Murderer, she repeated in her mind until the despicable interest in him faded. “Can you face the other way so I can get in?” she called out.
“You worked at a brothel. Surely nakedness is nothing new to you.”
“Please?” Orelia implored.
“No.”
Blowing out a frustrated breath, she ran to the river, one arm covering her breasts and a hand over her crotch. Her toes squished in the soft silt as she waded in and slipped beneath the water until she was submerged up to her shoulders. “Jerk.”
He grinned. “Nakedness isn’t anything to be ashamed about.”
Keeping her chest below the water line, Orelia freed the tie from her hair and tilted her head back, letting the cool water pick through the strands. “I’m not ashamed.”
Vade grabbed his bar of soap off the rock he was using as a makeshift shelf and began cleaning his upper body. “Then why hide yourself?”
She followed his lead and set her soap on a shelf of her own.
Her throat went tight as she watched him scrub his muscled chest. “Some of us don’t want to share our nakedness with the world. Seems not to bother you though,” she said in a poor attempt to deflect her frustrating attraction.
“Definitely not.” Vade searched for something within the rocks, then made his way out of the river when he didn’t find it. He grew taller, and when the two small dips in his lower back just above his ass emerged, she looked away.
He may not have any sense of propriety, but she did.
Orelia noted the gangly branches of the surrounding willow trees skimming the water and the dappled sunlight casting shadows over the area.
Too peaceful of a scene for the bloodshed that occurred earlier.
She wondered if she’d ever be able to get used to Vade’s kind of life, or if watching him kill would continuously ruin her appreciation for such beautiful scenery as this.
She heard a splash, assuming he had gotten back in, but a glance over her shoulder revealed Vade standing on the bank. Orelia barely noticed the small bottle in his hand because she was too distracted by what hung between his legs.
Years in the brothel and she had seen it all.
Cocks of various curvatures and sizes, some hidden beneath hoods, others not.
Some small, some large. Many flaccid, and most erect.
A man’s instrument was an abrupt sight compared to the smooth curves of a woman’s body.
But this . . .this was not of this world.
Even flaccid, his was the largest she had ever seen.
No wonder he was so arrogant.
“You seriously walk around with that all day?” The brazen words left her mouth before she could stop them.
He stepped into the water, monstrous cock swinging between his tree trunk thighs. She didn’t miss the subtle puffing of his chest. “You should see it when it’s hard.”
Orelia sunk into the water until it kissed her chin, knowing her face must have been flaming red.
He cocked a thick brow. “Interested?”
“No,” she said too quickly to be believable. Orelia stayed half hidden underwater, wishing for the heat in her cheeks to subside.
Vade tossed the bottle he’d fetched onto the rock shelf and prowled toward her, cutting fluidly through the water like the knives he coveted. “The color in those round, rosy cheeks says otherwise.”
Orelia retreated until her back found a boulder and she stood waist deep in the river, arms covering her breasts.
The water lapped at the flare of her hips just below her navel as Vade continued to come for her.
It was either run naked up the bank or swim into the middle of the river to avoid him.
She froze instead, feeling too much like prey.
The tips of his dark hair dripped water that ran in lines down his body, getting caught in the bed of chest hair that made him appear more masculine and older than a man of twenty-six.
“What’s the matter, little lamb? You look frightened.
” The deep timbre of his voice skittered down her spine, pebbling her skin.
They were alone in the middle of the woods, and no one would hear her scream.
He could easily take her against the rocks, hand over her mouth.
There was no way his cock would fit inside any woman without there being pain.
Because nothing about him was gentle, Orelia knew if he took her that she wouldn’t survive him.
She trembled, wishing her cowardly legs had the strength to do something. Anything.
He stopped when he was towering over her.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I’d do it when you least expect it.
After all, the meat spoils if the lamb sees the blade coming.
” His eyes drifted to her crossed arms. “I’ve seen plenty of tits.
Though not as many as large as yours, I admit. You don’t have to hide them from me.”
She lifted her chin, not wanting to come off as meek and feeble, despite feeling so. “You don’t deserve to see mine.”
He chuckled. “If I paid enough for you, I could get whatever I want.”
Defiance roared in her veins. “That’s what all men think when they take pleasure girls. As if the woman’s say in the matter means nothing.”
He barked a laugh. “Pleasure girls? Is that what you call the whores? How sweet.”
His mocking tone steeled her spine. “Don’t call them whores. They’re just doing what they can to survive. You wouldn’t know anything about what that’s like.”
His eyes narrowed. “You know nothing about what I’ve had to do to survive.”
Call it courage, call it stupidity, Orelia drummed up the nerve to tell him off.
“I’ve seen enough already to know you kill without remorse or a second thought.
I don’t even want to know how many men’s lives you’ve taken over the years of your abysmal life, some of which could have been avoided, like those Arbors. ”
He stepped into her, and she guessed his hands were in fists underwater judging by how tight his jaw was. “You know nothing of what I’ve endured and nothing of my life.”
She squeezed her arms tighter across her breasts. “And you know nothing of mine.”
“I intend to keep it that way, witch. Besides . . .” Vade ran a finger along her waist down to the wide berth of her hips. Her bold words died in her throat as she wondered what in the hells he was doing.
He gripped her hard enough to bruise, and she hissed. Vade leaned down until he was staring directly into her eyes.
“You’re nothing special. Nothing I haven’t seen before. And your life means nothing to me, only that it’s unfortunately tethered to mine. Once I’m free of you, I won’t have to live with the burden of your presence.”
“Meaning you’re going to kill me once we’re unbound? Cut off my finger and put it in your stone just for laughs?” She practically spit the words.
His touch fell away, dark eyes searching hers. “Don’t tempt me.”
Anger coursed through her at the insinuation. “You’ve killed women before, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” he said curtly.
She scoffed. “You’re a godsless man.”
“Or maybe I’m just the truth you refuse to acknowledge.”
“I’ve never met anyone so disgusting.”
Vade tilted his head. “You believe women are incapable of violence?” He was standing so gods-damned close that his anger hung over them like a storm cloud.
“Not the kind a king would find worthy of death.”
Vade tilted his head back and laughed obnoxiously loud. “So fucking innocent. You know nothing of the varieties of evil. I may have killed more men than women, but you females are certainly capable of the same caliber of violence we are.”
“Not from what I’ve seen.”
“Which is what? What have you seen in your pathetic little life to tell you anything different?” He pressed his hands against the stone beside her head, blocking her in. “You don’t know true evil.”
The air hummed with dangerous intent, and the same cold look he’d worn as he prepared to take Gurn’s life came back. She may not have seen as much of the world as him, but she knew a wolf when she saw one.
Orelia lifted her chin. “I know true evil. It’s looking right at me.”
A vile smile stretched across his face. “Then be careful what you say.”
“You must have a line somewhere. It’s clearly not women, so what is it? Children?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked.