Chapter 12 #2
Opening her bag, he plucked out her waterskin from within. By the feel of the liquid inside, she hadn’t had much, if anything, to drink thus far. He grumbled, “Vi’jatai…”
“I’m not a thorn,” she muttered, crossing her arms with her spear sticking out to either side.
“You are pretty prickly,” Cole said.
“Shut up.”
“See!”
Telok clacked his mandible fangs at the man and hissed.
Cole eased back and held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay! Only you get to call her that.”
Narrowing his eyes, Telok stared at Cole. With his arms bent, the human’s muscles were bunched up again, though they were not as prominent as when he’d preened before. Perhaps Cole was strong for a human, but he could not compare to a vrix. Could not compare to Telok.
If Lacey had been impressed by Cole’s strength…
Telok passed his spear into his lower left hand, stepped in front of Lacey, and turned toward her. With the waterskin in hand, he curled his upper right arm, flexing its muscles.
She leaned back slightly, arching a brow. “Um, Telok?”
Bending his left arm and tensing those muscles as well, he reached for the stopper, plucking it free. He swelled his chest with a deep breath as he held the waterskin to her.
Lacey stared at his arms before briefly flicking her gaze up to his. “Are you… Ah, I get it.” Lips slowly curling into a grin, she accepted the waterskin and brought it to her mouth.
As she drank, her eyes held his, and Telok recognized the small but unmistakable glint of mischief in them.
She lowered the waterskin. Her tongue slipped out to lick her lips, drawing Telok’s focus to her mouth.
That soft, yielding, expressive flesh should’ve been strange to him, but he’d come to find it tantalizing.
He dared not imagine all the things those lips, that tongue, might do. The way they would feel.
Cole cleared his throat. “Starting to feel like you two are having a moment right now.”
Lacey tossed her waterskin and spear to Cole, who flinched, catching them by reflex.
Water splashed Cole’s chest and face. He scrunched his nose. “Thanks…”
Telok couldn’t help but take satisfaction in the human’s displeasure.
Lacey touched Telok’s shoulder, snapping his attention back to her. She’d moved closer, so much closer that he could feel the brush of her breath on his hide.
“Telok, I never realized how big your muscles are.” Her smile changed in a way he’d never seen from her before, becoming sultry, teasing, entrancing. She fluttered her lashes. “Can I see them again?”
With his eyes again transfixed on her mouth and blistering heat roiling within him, Telok raised his upper arms, bent them, and flexed.
She ran her hand down his shoulder, stroking her fingers over his bulging arm muscle. “You’re so strong…”
A shiver stole through him, and his stem pressed against the inside of his slit, contained only by the constriction of his claspers. In spite of himself, a soft trill escaped him, and his mandibles rose.
Lacey eased closer, smoothing her soft palm over his hide. Before he could anticipate her intent, she leapt and wrapped her arms around his, unexpectedly bringing all her weight down upon it.
Telok’s eyes widened as he pitched toward her. He tensed, straightening his body and lifting his arm higher so Lacey wouldn’t fall to the ground or crash into him.
She kicked her legs forward and back, swinging on his arm. “Weeee!”
Telok blinked. She was as carefree and joyful as a broodling swinging from a branch.
Shaking his head, Cole ran palm over his face. “Lace, you’re ridiculous.” He bent down, setting her spear on the ground and propping her waterskin next to it. “I’m gonna leave you guys to, uh…whatever this is.”
“You can’t say you never wanted to do this!” Lacey called as Cole walked away.
“Can’t say that I have. Enjoy climbing your spider tree!”
She chuckled.
Raising her a little higher, Telok tipped his head down and met her gaze.
Lacey grinned up at him. “Hi.”
He chittered. Somehow, despite having a fully grown human female dangling from his arm, he felt light enough to float away on the breeze.
This was foolish, and yet it was utterly endearing.
He’d witnessed this side of her, this playfulness and energy, but she’d never engaged him with it. And…he was enjoying it. Immensely.
He began swaying, making Lacey once again swing upon his arm. She laughed and kicked her feet, adding to the momentum created by his motions.
By the Eight, he adored the sound of her laughter.
“Scarhide, Lacey, you must come,” Garahk shouted from ahead.
Both Telok and Lacey went still, turning their heads toward the thornskull, who stood farther up the incline.
“Ohhh, we’re in trouble now,” Lacey whispered.
Telok huffed through his nostrils. Once again, he’d lapsed in his duties and succumbed to distraction with Lacey. That realization should’ve come with shame, irritation, and a heavy, insidious sense of failure. But he felt none of it.
Instead, he felt warm. Felt content.
“No trouble,” he whispered back in English before switching to vrix and raising his voice. “You go, Garahk. We are coming.”
Garahk’s chitter was deep, his eyes narrowing in mirth. “Be swift, or I will send Ayali to carry you along.”
As Garahk strode on, Telok’s attention returned to Lacey. His mandibles drooped. “No more fun.”
“Nope.” She stuck her plump bottom lip out.
Clenching his jaw against the sudden, wild urge to nip at that lip, he lowered his arm until her feet touched the ground.
She released him and stepped aside. “Guess we better catch up.”
Telok retrieved her spear and waterskin, thrusting the latter toward her along with the stopper that had been clutched in his upper left hand all this time. “Drink.”
“Okay, okay.” She rolled those strange but lovely human eyes as she took the waterskin and stopper from him and drank.
He watched her throat work as she swallowed, and he didn’t miss it as another drop of sweat trickled down her neck toward her breasts.
Prying his gaze away from the temptation that was Lacey, he swept his gaze over their surroundings. He needed to remain vigilant, yet all the while, he felt an almost physical pull to look back at her.
“Can you put this back in my pack?” she asked.
Telok traded her spear for the waterskin, which he returned to her bag.
Another urge crept up on him, subtler than the last but no easier to resist. He could simply take her away.
Take her somewhere quiet, somewhere secluded, somewhere he could claim her beyond the sight and hearing of their companions.
And for a short time, he and Lacey could exist as though they were the only ones in all the Tangle.
She would be his and his alone.
His fingers were uncharacteristically clumsy as he tied her bag shut. The threads of his being were getting pulled in two different directions, threatening to come undone—duty and honor on one side, desire and instinct on the other.
He paused with his hands on her bag, with her scent filling his lungs, with heat pulsing under his hide and instinct shouting in the back of his mind. If he did take her away and make his claim, no one would ever find them. Not if he didn’t want them to.
He could rut her and feed the beast that had been roaring inside him since the moment he’d first seen her. Could finally ease the pain in his stem, finally fulfill the yearning in his hearts. He could make Lacey his mate in truth.
No. Now is not the time.
Because their companions would come looking, and Telok knew that search would not only put the others in unnecessary danger, but it would cause a delay in their journey that could inflict unintended suffering upon anyone in Kaldarak who was relying upon the supplies this hunt was meant to gather.
Drawing in a deep breath, he forced his legs into motion, striding around Lacey and continuing up the slope. “Come.”
Telok heard her boots on the ground as she hurried to keep pace beside him.
He dared not allow himself to look at her.
Not until she caught his lower right hand with hers, lacing their fingers together.
He came to an abrupt halt, hearts thundering.
Warm tingles raced along his palm and up his arm, and something fluttered low in his stomach.
Slowly, he turned his head and looked down at their entwined hands. When he lifted them, she didn’t let go. Her pale skin and slender, delicate fingers harshly contrasted with his dark hide and large, rough, clawed hand.
How could two things that were so glaringly different fit together so perfectly?
“What is this?” he rasped.
She smiled softly at him and squeezed his hand. “Hand holding. Obviously.”
“Ah…”