Grave (The Sanctuary Series Book 1)

by L H Whitlock

  “I…” Nora appeared to search for her words. “I knew of a woman who went through the trials. She was killed because Hayme said the child was a female. He…” Her eyes released another tickling of tears, and Grave found himself wiping them away with the back of his hand. “He killed her and the child, right there. In front of all the people. She was so young. Now knowing that it was all for nothing, I feel… It makes me feel so sick.”

  Grave nodded. “I understand.”

  “Deon said some other things. Like you’re very old.”

  Grave chuckled. “I am genetically modified to live in my prime longer than average, but I am not hundreds, or thousands of years old as the most dramatic of rumors say. I’m only a few dozen years older then I look.”

  He could see Nora’s eyes squinting at him, studying and coming up with a guess for his age, and he found himself chuckling, a light feeling floating around in his chest.

  “They say all sorts of things about me,” Grave continued. “That I’m a vicious murderer, that I enjoy bloodshed. The list goes on and on. The truth is…” Grave’s throat tightened with the realization he was about to pour this out to her. “The truth is I had been killing people for so long that I don’t know how to do anything else, and being around people makes me uneasy for that very reason.”

  “Oh, Grave.” Nora’s hand grasped his forearm, and she gasped. She brought back her hand and stared at her fingers, covered in bright red blood. Grave looked down curiously at the wound hidden beneath his dark cloak. He had grown insensitive to pain a long time ago, sometime around his thousandth lashing he supposed, and he no longer even noticed these slight flesh wounds.

  “Grave! You’re injured!” Nora jumped to her feet, her small, warm hands leaving his larger, calloused ones.

  “I’m fine, Naleje. It’s just a scratch.”

  “A scratch! You’re kidding me, right? Your whole sleeve is soaked. Let me see.”

  Grave began rolling the sleeve of his cloak for her inspection.

  “Oh, jeez, just take off the stupid thing.” In a movement faster than he could calculate, she grabbed hold of the fabric on his shoulders and tugged, his hood falling away as the cloak eased from his broad shoulders. Nora stared at him, her face a mixture of surprise, pity, and something he couldn’t quite decipher.

  15

  Nora froze as Grave’s large cloak slipped away from his face. She hadn’t meant to give such a hard tug, but the man was being ridiculous, and she desperately wanted to repay his kindness.

  Suddenly Grave wasn’t just a hooded shadow; he was a man, all masculinity and hard, gruff lines. Looking at his scarred face, she understood why he hid beneath the cloak, and she felt bad for forcing that shelter away from him.

  The rest of his face matched his hardened, squared jawline and thick lips. The feathering of scars she had seen around his mouth, thickened into deep, jagged lines the further up they went. The one on the right stopped just below his cheekbone, and the other serrated its way in a deep curve, then slashed across the bridge of his nose, just missing his right eye before ending into his dark hairline. The wounds had long ago healed, but they left behind nasty indentions that matched the color of his tanned skin.

  His eyes were a dark muddy mixture of midnight blue and green, and his thick black hair looked about as rugged as his attitude.

  Nora’s first instinct was to trace those scars and apologize for his pain, but she knew better than that. Grave wouldn’t want her pity from the past. But the more she looked at him, the more she realized how handsome he was, in a rough, masculine way.

  His face held power, and his eyes a raw possessiveness and determination. Nora felt her stomach clench in a similar way it had clenched when she first kissed Bobby-Ran during a game of King and Queen. Her first kiss. That’s how her stomach felt now, and her skin heated with the realization that she was attracted to this man.

  Not that she hadn’t been before when he was a shadow, but now he appeared more real somehow and even more imposing than before.

  She had originally thought Grave used the cloak to make himself appear larger and more intimidating, but that was far from the truth. Even with the rest of it in place, she realized that the broadness of the shoulders were his shoulders, not just padding. And though it flowed around his feet with each step it didn’t add much girth to him…he was just that thick.

  Nora swallowed and opened her mouth to say something, but fear choked her. What should she say? Would she insult him?

  He seemed to mistake her inaction for aversion and stood, flipping his hood back over his face. He turned to leave without another word, and Nora raced forward, grabbing his arm and tugging him until he gave in and looked at her. She knew he could pull away with a simple flex of his muscle, but he didn’t, and with that, a twinkle of hope grew into courage.

  “Grave, stop. I’m sorry. I was just…surprised.” She settled for honesty.

  “I’m sure you were.” Grave’s voice held a note of danger, but she didn’t back away. She had gone through enough brave moments this evening, what was another? She only hoped it turned out better than deciding not to disclose the location of her treasure.

  “That’s not a bad thing. I knew you had scars, I could see them around your mouth. I just… I just imagined the pain they caused you.” Both inside and out.

  “The pain ended a long time ago.”

  Nora smiled and gave him another tug. “Please let me wrap your arm.” When Grave didn’t willingly sit down on the sofa, she crossed her arms and put on her best scowl. “Sit down!” She tried to sound firm but she thought it ended up just sounding funny.

  Grave smirked, his eyes never leaving her face.

  “What’s that smirk for?”

  “Your cute when you’re bossy.”

  Cute! Nora’s cheeks burned. She hated being called cute, but coming from Grave it sent heat rushing through her body.

  When he plopped onto the sofa still fully hooded, Nora glared at him. “And take off that silly cloak. If you’re with me, in private, I don’t want to see that stupid thing.”

  Grave lowered the hood. “You find my cloak stupid?” Grave asked with a raise of his eyebrow. The act tugged on the tip of the jagged line splitting his face.

  Nora’s game wobbled. “Uh, no! I just…That was just—”

  Grave laughed in a way she never expected him to; his head thrown back as he bellowed. He stood up and untied the cloak, setting it gingerly aside like a cherished prize. At that moment, Nora then realized how much it was a part of him.

  She hadn’t been prepared for what she found beneath the cloak. The garment adequately veiled his muscle-bound build. His exposed arms were thick, and clearly weapons in themselves. His legs, concealed with black cargo pants were hard and defined. And beneath the simple, black t-shirt ripples of muscles hinted at their existence.

  Her entire body overheated, and Nora found herself imagining this man in the arena, slaying his competitors, fighting to the death. What a sight he must have been plundering in the arena. Gladiator battles were for the rich and powerful, so Nora had never witnessed one, and thankfully, she hadn’t been exposed to such a thing during her stay at the castle, but her imagination ran wild.

  Then a more primitive, biological vision filled her mind. One of this man dominating his partner in the bedroom. She almost fainted when the woman in the picture morphed into herself.

  “What are you thinking of, Naleje?” Grave asked. “I was under the impression you were going to dress my wound.”

  Nora stumbled into the kitchen for her first aid kit and pulled out a wrapping. Though she managed to shake the images, she couldn’t shake the dampness that had settled between her legs. A dampness she never had when the king took her.

  “S–sorry. I got distracted.” She poured a small amount of antibiotics over the scar, embarrassed when she realized it was only a scratch compared to what he must have been used to.

  While she wrapped his forearm in a cloth bar
ely big enough to wrap around his mass three times, she studied his tanned skin and found similar scars littering the topography. She wondered if they were elsewhere on his form. She imagined so, and his arms were probably mild compared to the scars on other parts of his body. Once completed, she smiled at her work.

  “There, it’s all better now.”

  “If you say so,” Grave grumbled.

  Nora’s nerves had been wound so tight she didn’t realize her true, physical, and mental state until exhaustion hit like a bug sliding down a window, and she felt her body sway with weariness.

  “I’m getting very tired. I think I need to head to bed.”

  “Grave nodded. “I’ll remain here the entire night.”

  “You don’t need to. I know I was just being silly. You probably have things that are more important to do. You have a whole sanctuary to watch over.”

  “Sleep easy, Naleje. You have been through a lot this night.”

  Nora slowly walked away, wishing she had the courage to hug him or offer him a small kiss. But her courage had scurried away, leaving her with her usual meek self and she couldn’t muster the action.

  She stopped in the doorway and looked back to see him faithfully watching the front door, fatigue nowhere close to showing in his face.

  “One last thing, Grave.”

  “Yes.” He looked over his shoulder at her.

  “What does Naleje mean.”

  Silence passed through the room before Grave turned back to the door. “That is for another night.”

  Answers zipped around in Nora’s head as she tried to ponder what the word meant and cursed herself for not having the opportunity to learn more languages. Wariness dragged her to her bed, and she fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of a man in a cloak.

  ***

  The moment Grave had been dreading crept closer as rays of light peeked around Nora’s curtains. He stood and pulled his cloak back over his head and glanced at the closed bedroom door. He looked down at the bandaged arm, now hidden beneath his sleeve and tucked the memory into the back of his mind where it was safe from his demons.

  He stepped outside, closing the door softly behind him and wandered into the forest. His inner savagery growled at him for not taking Nora, especially knowing how soft she felt, how sweet she smelled, and how good she would taste. But a man like him wasn’t meant for someone like Nora. She was soft and delicate and deserved a man who was gentle.

  Even if they did explore each other in an intimate way, would she be repelled by his hard, bulky, scarred body?

  Hope snuck into his mind. She hadn’t run when she saw his face. Better yet, she hadn’t cried for him. Maybe Rikar was right, maybe Nora was worth the risk.

  16

  Nora woke late the next morning to a disappointingly empty house. All night she had tossed and turned with dreams of Grave entering her room and of all the naughty, hot things that followed. Nora still found her womanhood sensitive and wet from the images.

  Before her night of dreams, she had never considered she would be into such rough sex, especially after her experience with Mighton, but in the right, rough and calloused hands, she found immense pleasure.

  Oh, help me. She rolled her eyes and forced herself to remain focused on her task; planting her vegetables. She tried to convince herself that she was ashamed. Not for the dirty images, but for assuming Grave was into such things. Just because he is built like a seasoned warrior who takes charge of everyone around him does not mean that translated to the bedroom. Maybe he was a gentle, slow lover. A naughty voice teasing her ears. But that’s what he is, a seasoned warrior who’s used to winning and taking what he wants.

  “Holy seven moons!” Lit-ta gasped and leapt through the greenhouse entrance, then looked both ways before zipping up the tarp.

  “Oh! Good morn–afternoon. Is it even still afternoon?” Nora murmured, her mind still cloudy. Despite what Lit-ta had been through last night, she seemed to have fared relatively well with only a split lip as evidence of the brutality she sustained.

  “Yeah, whatever. Let’s skip the small chat. Grave slept with you!” Lit-ta’s face held a mixture of emotions, mostly shock, and her question came out as more an accusation then inquiry.

  “Yeah,” Nora said with what she hoped was a lazy shrug.

  Lit-ta blinked at her for several seconds, her wide, red eyes holding disbelief. Throwing up her hands, she tangled them in her thick red hair and paced the tent.

  “Nora! What about the baby! Does he know about the baby!”

  “Wow!” Nora jumped to her feet and slapped a hand over Lit-ta’s mouth. Shock registered on the other woman’s face, and when Nora dropped her hand, Lit-ta’s mouth dropped open as well. Nora peeked back outside and looked both ways, ensuring no one was within earshot of Lit-ta’s loud announcement before zipping the entrance back up and giving them relative privacy.

  “Well, I expected you to bring it up, but not like this.”

  “Oh, come on! How am I not supposed to bring it up like this? Did he crush it, he, she, do you know the sex?” Before Nora could respond, Lit-ta continued rattling on. “I mean, Nora! The guy’s like literally a mountain. He could have hurt you. He could have hurt it!”

  “He is not a mountain,” Nora’s immediate defended, then Lit-ta’s question sunk in. “Wait…what?”

  “Maybe we should get imaging done and make sure nothing happened.”

  Nora knew if she could see herself, the color would have washed out of her cheeks. “Oh! Lit-ta no! No, I didn’t…sleep with Grave.”

  Lit-ta’s arms dropped like limp noodles. “What? You just said you did.”

  “Well… Yes, but—”

  Lit-ta groaned.

  “I mean, I know I said I did, but I thought you meant that Grave slept in my house. Yes, to that. Well, not really.”

  Lit-ta slapped her hands on her cheeks and stretched out her face. “Seriously! You’re killing me here. You’re a terrible gossip! You know that?”

  “Let me finish. I asked Grave to stay because, well because I wanted him to and when I went to bed, he stayed on the sofa and kept watch.”

  “Kept watch? Like some security guard.”

  “Well… I suppose.” Nora dropped back to her knees and poked holes into the soil for her seeds. “Would you like to help?”

  “Of course. Sorry.” Lit-ta dropped to her knees. “So… You and Grave? I mean… Is that really his real name?”

  She left the question open-ended, and though Nora knew where Lit-ta was going with this, she didn’t know how to answer.

  “Well… I don’t really know what we are. I think just friends, maybe, and I don’t know about his name. I haven’t asked.”

  “Oh, Nora, honey, you are so, so sweet and so, so naive.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A guy does not sit on your sofa all night making sure you’re safe if he wants to be just your friend.”

  “Well, isn't that what you call Deon?”

  Lit-ta rolled her eyes and tossed a bunch of fiery red hair over her shoulders. “We aren’t just friends, we just say that. Deon’s…cautious around me and my past. But once I get over my fears, we’ll be properly together.”

  Nora smirked at the other woman.

  “What?” Lit-ta retaliated.

  “Who’s being meek now?”

  “You know, that’s another thing I meant to ask you about. Where the hell did you find the stones not to give up your money to those men? You are crazy! Not a good time to try and make a stand. We’re lucky Grave decided to do one of his many walk-bys at the right time.”

  Nora shrugged. “I know. I don’t know what got over me. I guess I just got tired of being told to do stuff or else I’d get raped.”

  Lit-ta laughed. “I can’t blame you there. You know that kind of stuff will continue to happen as long as they know you have money. Well, as long as you’re female.”

  “Not anymore,” Nora argued.

  “Why do you say tha
t?”

  “I have Grave now.”

  Lit-ta stared at her for a long time, but Nora refused to look up at her and focused on her planting instead.

  Lit-ta sighed and gave up that topic. “So, you going to tell me about this baby?”

  Nora bit her lip and felt a flutter within her belly. She gasped and her eyes swelled up with tears. She knew that she would one day feel the baby inside her, but she hadn’t expected it to happen until much later. She pressed her hand to her stomach and felt another soft flutter beneath her fingertips. She imagined the baby stretching, or possibly even waving—but maybe that was silly, did unborn babies wave? She laughed to herself and rubbed her hand over her hard stomach in thought. For a brief moment her mind wandered to if it was a boy or a girl, but then darker thoughts quickly overtook her again. The thoughts of the baby being forced from her using medicines, even memories of how the baby was conceived churned in her mind. She quickly shut them down and wiped the back of her hand over her eyes to flick away the tears. She didn’t need to go to that place right now. She was safe, and so was the child inside of her, and that was all that mattered for the moment. She had saved this life from a fate a child didn’t deserve.

  “Are you okay?” Lit-ta asked, her hands out in concern. “Are you in pain? Is the baby okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just…Give me some time, I’m not ready yet. I need more time to think..”

  Lit-ta nodded. “I understand. I’m here when you are, and we can get you hooked up to see how everything is progressing. But listen, Nora. You won’t be able to hide it for much longer. Maybe another month at most.”

  Nora nodded as the realization that she was going to have to come up with a story soon settled in. But her mind was only focused on one thing: what would Grave think if he knew the truth…?