Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
Leda
After my meltdown at breakfast and meeting Venna, I was ready to call it a day. The temptation to tell Bokkan I was exhausted and hide upstairs in his bedchamber was strong. But I refused to give in to it.
I would not let this break me.
I didn’t have a choice when those imps dragged me here, but I’d be damned if I would choose to hide.
I firmly believed there was a time and place for running away or hiding.
The fights you always won were the ones you never started.
There was no shame in avoiding a confrontation if that was the safest option.
But this wasn’t one of those fights. My only enemies were my own mind and emotions. And maybe Bokkan’s horny daemon soldiers.
After we finished eating the second breakfast Masu made, I asked Bokkan if I could see the rest of his manor and estate.
I hoped he was telling me the truth about eventually helping me get back home, but it would pay to be prepared if he wasn’t.
Knowing the layout of the house and the surrounding land was necessary.
If I had to make a run for it, I needed to know the best ways to escape.
His manor was much larger than I realized.
There was an entire wing that he rarely used.
There was a large suite, even bigger than his current bedchamber and bathing room.
He explained it was intended for him, but he didn’t plan to move into it until he found a mate and settled down to start a family.
I found myself laughing when he explained that it was too far from the kitchen.
There were several other rooms in that wing intended for guests and his future children.
The thought of Bokkan with a mate and starting a family gave me a weird feeling.
I managed to brush it off and ended up following him outside.
His second-in-command, Guldan, was running the soldiers through training.
Two daemons were in the same ring where I’d faced off with Talus, and they held wooden swords and shields in their huge hands.
Though they swung the weapons around as though they weighed very little, I winced at the sound they made when they crashed together.
The heavy thunk they made upon impact gave away that the swords were heavier than they looked.
As we approached the ring, the soldiers watching the match eventually noticed Bokkan…
and me. One by one, their attention moved to us.
I straightened my shoulders and stood tall.
Bokkan said he would protect me, and I was beginning to believe him, but I also wanted the daemons to know I was strong enough to protect myself.
Commander Guldan finally noticed that he’d lost the attention of his men and turned to see what the distraction was. When he saw me standing next to Bokkan, he frowned.
He said something to the daemons in the ring and started toward us. The two soldiers went back to their sparring as Guldan ducked beneath the primitive fence around the ring.
“General, is there a problem?” he asked.
Bokkan shook his head. “No, I am merely showing Leda the estate.”
Guldan shot me a sidelong look. “I do not think it is a good idea to have her out here near the other males.”
“I don’t think he asked you,” I muttered beneath my breath.
Bokkan made a choked noise, then cleared his throat and answered, “Leda needs to be familiar with the property. I’m going to show her where the barracks and armory are and also give her a tour of the grounds. Return to training.”
Guldan grunted and headed back toward the fighting ring.
“Come with me,” Bokkan said.
I could feel the eyes of the soldiers on me as Bokkan led me to several large wooden buildings.
Pointing to the one to our left, he said, “Those are the barracks. The higher-ranking soldiers have their own rooms. The rest bunk in pairs.”
I was grateful he didn’t take me inside. I’m sure it wasn’t messy, but I didn’t want to be in a confined space with any of the men in his training. Instead, he walked to the building to our right.
“This is the armory and the training rooms.”
He led me inside, where there was a short hall with three doors. One had an odd padlock on it.
He took a skeleton key out of his pocket. “The armory remains locked at all times.”
I shot him a sidelong look and saw him returning it with a dry one of his own. “Are you warning me so I don’t try to sneak in here later?”
“Perhaps.”
After that cryptic answer, he turned the key.
When the door opened, I stared at the array of weapons with wide eyes.
There were swords of all different styles, none quite the same as those I was familiar with, but close enough that I had an idea of their weight and purpose.
Racks to hold them were along one wall. On another were shelves that held daggers, again of all shapes and sizes.
The third wall held an assortment of crossbows and longbows.
Quivers full of arrows were neatly arranged on the floor along the wall.
As we stepped further into the room, I saw shelves to our right. There were assortments of bottles, lined up in perfect rows. Each row was filled with the same color liquid. The hues ranged from black to purple to yellow.
“What are these?” I asked Bokkan.
“Potions.”
“Potions?”
“You don’t use potions in the human realm? Surely you have witches?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t, and no one I know does. And I don’t know any witches.” I walked closer to the shelves. “What do they do?”
Bokkan moved next to me. The urge to tense up every time he was close to me was slowly fading. Maybe I shouldn’t trust him, but he was beginning to win me over. He seemed to be everything he presented himself to be—honorable, kind, and compassionate.
It was unexpected because his appearance was monstrous. Yet he seemed to be the sweetest man… male…I’d ever met. The juxtaposition was difficult to reconcile.
“The black is a concealment spell meant to be used at night. If you pour it over yourself, you will blend in with the shadows. The yellow is a light bomb. You throw the bottle, and a burst of blinding light will appear.”
“What about the purple and the green?”
“The purple incapacitates your opponents. It won’t work well on more than one daemon at a time. The green is an acid. While it can sometimes be used against opponents, it’s more often used to dissolve things such as lock mechanisms, weapons, or written information if it needs to be concealed.”
“That’s pretty cool,” I said. “How do you keep them from breaking and killing you when you carry them?”
Bokkan reached out and picked up a small leather sack. “These are spelled to keep the bottles from breaking. They also retain their small size and shape even when full.”
“But, if they’re spelled, how does the yellow break when you throw it?”
“With any of these, if you need to throw them and have them work, you remove the cork. That breaks the spell.”
“Doesn’t the cork come out by accident sometimes?”
He shook his head. “No, the spell keeps them in place.”
I took in his explanation, my mind reeling from all the information he’d just shared.
“You have some very interesting weapons,” I commented.
“I’ll show you how they all work once I’m sure you won’t try to use one on me,” he replied.
I couldn’t suppress my shocked laugh. He wasn’t wrong. I would be very tempted to keep one of those bottles with me in the event I needed it. Also, that was my first thought when he began to explain what each of the potions did.
“I’m not sure I like how well you already seem to understand me,” I commented.
“Actually, that is the strategy I would use,” he replied.
Our eyes met, and my stomach dipped. The wall I kept trying to erect between us took another hit. I felt more of a connection with this monster, this daemon, than I had with any human man I’d met in the past few years.
If he was all he seemed to be, he was perfect partner material for me. It was crazy to think about that. To feel the attraction and the beginnings of trust I shouldn’t be feeling.
Bokkan might not be my enemy, but I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to call him a friend, much less more than that.
“Want to see the training rooms?” he asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t allow myself soften toward this daemon. It was too dangerous.
The rest of the day was spent in Bokkan’s company, even if we weren’t speaking. We ate lunch and dinner in the dining room. He had paperwork to do in his office, explaining that he had to finish working on his ledgers.
I’d asked if he had any books in English. He spent some time digging around in his library and came up with a thriller from an author I’d never heard of before.
While he worked, I read.
Then, we got ready for bed. I used the shower in one corner of his bathing room It was amazing.
It felt like washing under a warm rain. When I re-entered the bedchamber, freshly washed, dressed in another one of Bokkan’s enormous shirts and my makeshift socks, and my wet hair braided, he was adding more logs to the fire.
That dipping sensation hit my stomach again. I knew he was building up the fire for me. It was a considerate thing to do. Something I hadn’t expected. I should have, though. In the short time I’d been around Bokkan, he was proving himself to be more than I expected.
I crawled beneath the fur blankets, curling up in a ball close to the center of the mattress. If tonight was anything like last night, I would need to stay close to Bokkan in order to remain warm.
Bokkan went into the bathing room, shutting the doors behind him. That confused me. Why hadn’t he shut the doors this morning? And why was he shutting them now? He had a right to his privacy, but his actions definitely confused me.
I was still mulling that over when I dropped off to sleep.
I felt like I’d only been asleep for a couple of minutes when rough hands grabbed me. I didn’t even have a chance to fight as I had before. There were too many of them pinning my arms and legs to the mattress. And they were so heavy.