by Aimee Moore
“I had hoped exhaustion would remove the idea from your mind.”
“Well that’s rather sneaky of you. I'm not exhausted at all,” I said, even as exhaustion pulled at my limbs.
Dal quirked a smile. “Even Kraw females succumb to sleep in your condition, Sera.”
“Oh fine, I'm tired. Come, teach me to use this.”
Dal frowned down at his blade, then walked forward. I held my sword steady, awaiting an attack from the man I loved, a swing, a jab, anything. I was ready.
But he did neither of those things. He approached me with a calm that tried my patience, and simply tapped his sword to mine with a light clang, holding it there.
“Move my sword,” Dal said in a quiet voice.
I straightened, looking at our two swords touching. Dal was holding his massive black blade with only one hand, appearing completely relaxed.
“And then what?” I asked.
“Move it first, and you shall see.”
I frowned down at our touching swords, mine dwarfed by his, and put pressure on my blade. It was as if I was pressing my sword to a brick building. I glanced at Dal, his gaze remained steady on me, watching without emotion. Just looking into his eyes like this, aware of all the mystery still wrapped up in that gorgeous face, I wanted him. And it frustrated me. Of course, Dal knew this, and a soft laugh lit the space between us.
I removed my blade, and still his stayed where he had it. I swung my blade at Dal's, and the muscles in his arm tensed a moment before my sword clashed with his, but still his sword did not move. It was easy, in the way that he touched me with such delicacy, to forget that he was so strong.
I let off a sigh. “What is this supposed to accomplish, Dal?”
“Perhaps you should think like a Kraw, and not a woman,” he said with a smile.
“Oh you awful man,” I said with a scowl.
Dal threw his head back and laughed, showing sharp canines as he lowered the weapon.
“There, see, I moved your blade, and just like I said before, I'm a woman who didn't even need to touch you to do it.”
Dal smiled at me, shaking his head. “So you have.”
A moment passed between us where we simply watched each other, him reading my book, and me appreciating the many times I had spent at the mercy of those hands and that mouth.
“Spend the night with me, Dal. We have much to discuss, and I miss you.”
“I would give this sword to spend the night near you, Sera, but we have not gained trust, and so sleep is dangerous.”
I let off a sigh, realizing that he was right, of course, but I still wanted him near.
“Come, show me what you've got, human, and learn how much work you have ahead of you.”
And with that, I began to swing at Dal with all my might, but it still had no effect on him. Training was going to be rough.
Two more days passed. My arms and shoulders and torso ached from my sword work with Dal, my stitches from the confrontation at the leyline throbbed, and I got none of the work between the sheets that I wanted. I was becoming more confident with my blade, my muscles more familiar, but I was still a long way off from moving Dal's sword.
Soon enough, Chatska had healed my wounds with her Kraw herbs, removing the stitches and telling me to keep my pants on around Dal until I healed. The Kraw who led the soldiers was now showing me respect, and though the food wasn't good, I was fed, and feeling better. With Dal at my side, I couldn't stand the cabin fever of my tent any longer and went to stroll among my new army.
Kraw eyes watched me as I held my head high. Children ran up to me, laughing, darting away with a squeal when I looked upon them. I stopped in the strategy tent of the camp, maps of my continent were sprawled and marked in the scrolling script of Kraw language.
Dal assisted to smooth the affairs over. Once or twice I flicked my gaze at Dal when I heard a word I did not understand, and Dal found a way to expand the conversation in his language while still giving me the meaning of the word I had missed.
Most of the Kraw regarded Dal with distaste, knowing of his previous crimes, but in time came to accept him.
The leader of the warriors, Gurlok, was not shy about personal space, nearing me as he spoke in his harsh tones. Shying away would have been weakness, so I stood my ground. Another Kraw had lumbered into the tent speaking quickly of three troublemakers who were coming to have words with me. I nodded at Dal, and he stepped outside, barking orders at the lumbering intruder, and the altercation happened outside.
I carried on explaining human customs in battle to Gurlok when his large hand was on my shoulder, turning me toward him and away from the maps. Surprise took me as I stepped back, Gurlok's brown eyes darting up and down my leather clad body.
“Your smell. I cannot remove it from my senses. You are a fine mate for a man like me, we shall conquer this world and the next together.”
Gurlok advanced on me, and my first instinct was to step back and become one with the tent wall. But I had gotten very used to channeling my inner Patroma, and I raised my chin up at Gurlok and backhanded him with my stronger sword arm. Unlike Patroma, I didn’t wear spikes and so did not draw blood, yet I was proud to see him recoil.
“Worm,” I hissed.
Gurlok, far from being rebuffed by my actions, turned toward me with a lustful grunt. He came at me again, this time reaching for my shirt with lightning reflexes, tearing the left shoulder away and exposing my breast in a flash of cold air. I threw my hands out before me and blasted Gurlok with fire.
He was blown backward with a grunt, and I wasted no time drawing my sword as I took two long strides toward him. I lit it on fire and stepped on his chest, whirling the blade into his surprised face.
“Do not ever make the mistake of touching me again, or I will cook you in your own blood.” Spittle flew out of my mouth as I ended the last syllable on a snarl. Gurlok kept his gaze on me, lust simmering in his eyes, and gave a single nod.
I didn't like it.
So I pushed the burning tip of my blade into the skin on his chest, flames licking their way up my hands and caressing my face. “I don't think you understand me,” I whispered in a dangerous voice.
Gurlok grimaced, a sharp intake of breath being the only sound in the room besides the sizzle of his flesh. The desire in Gurlok's eyes was being replaced by panic as I pushed harder, slower. Sooner than I had hoped, my sword met bone, and a feral noise of agony came from Gurlok's throat as he looked up at me, the clothes on his chest around my sword point catching fire.
“This is but a taste of what I can do. Don’t forget it.” And with that I removed my blade and extinguished it as I stepped away. I sheathed the sword, then looked down at my torn shirt. Gurlok was standing, keeping his distance from me now, but remaining alert and obedient.
With an annoyed sigh, I looked about the tent and found Gurlok’s decorated belt, with bits of harsh metal formed together to make chiseled armor of sorts over the length of it.
“Give me your belt,” I said in a bored tone.
Gurlok did as he was told, relinquishing the item in large, confident hands, then stepped back from me. I draped the belt diagonally over my chest and shoulder, securing the shirt and my decency. It matched my war queen ensemble well, and I turned my attention back to the maps.
Within moments, Dal came in. He took a deep breath, catching every smell in the tent, and flashed a worried look my way. I quirked half a grin on the side of my face that Gurlok would not see, and bent my head back over the map.
That was the first, and not the last affection I would have to rebuff. Kraw are attracted to power, and I had it in abundance now. It was no wonder Patroma was so strong, she had to fight to keep these aggressive males in their places. I was not strong, and I probably weighed as much as a Kraw leg, but I defended myself without Dal's help ruthlessly, and it gave me hope that when the Warlord finally arrived, I might have a fighting chance. Until then, I betrayed every human secret I could to the race of warri
ors who had murdered my family.
✽✽✽
When night came again, Maggot left his post and another Kraw named Morch, face horrifically scarred, now secured my throne room. He eyed Dal with distaste but did his duty. Dal and I retreated to my quarters, and I sighed as I removed the clattering belt from my chest.
Then the sheathed sword, followed by the heavy leather boots. Each item I removed from my person removed weight from my chest, layers of my facade, and I began to feel the timid girl that was Seraphine of Lambston breaking the icy surface of my heavy Kraw persona.
With a sigh, I worked at my war braids to loosen them just a little. A Kraw female had spent hours on my hair, greasing it with rendered pig fat so that the many war braids adorning my scalp did not have a single flyaway hair. She had told me that my size was deceptive to the Kraw, for size always meant strength. She said that, though the females desired to be large to bear strong children, they saw the power in my deceptive smallness as well, and respected me for being bigger than my flesh alluded to.
It was all a headache.
Dal approached me then, running large, calloused hands over the underside of my arms as I worked at my hair, trailing his rough heat up my elbows to my forearms. I smiled at him as his fingers laced with mine, and he pulled my hands behind me, securing them. Dal bit at my neck, a soft growl of appreciation escaping his lips where our skin met. I sighed.
“Tell me what happened today over the maps,” he murmured.
I was distracted by Dal's touch and had to pull myself out of the moment to think coherently. “Mmm... Gurlok wanted what he could not have. I rebuffed him.”
Dal's large canines sunk into the place where my shoulder met my neck, not enough to draw blood, but enough to draw a pulse to the heated place between my legs. “You should have killed him,” he said.
“I have taken enough Kraw lives in this lifetime,” I whispered, arching my back so that my backside rubbed against Dal.
“Then I should have killed him for touching you.”
I turned my head to the imposing Kraw behind me. “Jealous?”
Dal spoke with a soft growl in his voice. “He has dared to try and take what is mine.”
“No one knows that I am yours,” I said. “Perhaps they only know that you are mine, and that’s very different.”
Dal released my hands, allowing me to turn to face him. Large hands clasped behind my waist, drawing me close. “I often wonder if I was a fool to thrust this upon you,” he said.
I furrowed my brow up at him, a self-conscious embarrassment rising within me. “I am doing a poor job of this?”
Dal let a sigh out of his nose, humming a noise of thought in his throat. “You are performing your role very well, perhaps too well for a human. I saw the wound on Gurlok, and I saw the way he looked at you after I entered that tent. And I also noticed this,” he said, flicking at the flap of my torn shirt lying useless just above my breast.
I looked down and briefly wondered whose breasts were under my shirt. “They're getting bigger, and they hurt,” I said with irritation. I glanced up at Dal to see a faint smile ghost his lips.
“I regret that this time in your life is marked by the duties of war.” Dal frowned then, running a hand up my back. “How long, for humans?”
I ran a hand over my belly, which was still flat, and smiled up at Dal. “Nine months.”
“So short a time,” Dal said. “Kraw carry for a year.”
“To me, nine months is an eternity. Every time I leave this tent, I put myself in danger.”
Dal pushed a braid behind my ear, trailing a finger down my jaw line. “You once thought yourself an insect on the wall of my world, Sera. Perhaps then you were in danger. But no longer. Dragonflies are fearsome, and the insects around you see it as surely as I do.”
I quirked half a smile, still picturing myself as an empty-headed girl with naïve dreams and quaint desires. Dal continued.
“But Sera. Do not lose the true color of yourself under the vibrant splash of war.”
I wound my fingers around his neck. “But would you complain if, perhaps, I took a drop of that war to bed with us?”
Lust immediately set into Dal's posture, and I already knew what his answer would be.
Dal picked me up and shoved me onto my back on the bed, and I laughed with joy and anticipation as he pinned my arms over my head. No more talking was needed. I showed him how conquering I could be, and I was happy to find that he was more conquering than I could ever be.
I roused alone in the morning and assessed my situation. Spots on my neck and shoulders were tender, and dried blood flaked away from my hand when I checked. My inner thigh was also punctured from Dal's long canines, and my back and hips had bruises along them.
I warmed just thinking about how the wounds came to be. This mating, as he called it, was delicious, exquisite, and real. The blood that thrummed in my veins thrummed for him with such ground shaking sureness that every wound was a roaring testament to life itself. Perhaps a small part of me had become Kraw, yet.
I washed and dressed with a smile on my face, taking care not to nudge any of my newly sensitive spots. My breasts were especially tender, and that brought a smile to my face too as I recalled how Dal had handled the sore places with exquisite skill that brought me to shuddering climax again and again.
I began to smear mud all about me as usual, and stopped to look at my belly, wondering when it would get bigger. Would I start to show before the Warlord arrived? Would I carry for nine human months, or twelve Kraw months? Would it hurt? Would a Kraw child kill me with its sheer size?
I put the thought of death out of my mind. It was too late for that now; nothing could be done. I would address the problem when it happened.
Refreshed, lighter than before and ready to take on the world, I stepped out of my quarters. The war hounds weren’t in the small chamber between my room and the throne room, but I shrugged and pushed aside the tent flap. Chin held high, I strode into my throne room and stopped cold. Someone else was sitting in my seat, and I didn't need an introduction.
Chapter 25
Never in My Worst Nightmares
The Warlord smiled down at me with teeth that had been filed to points.
He was a massive Kraw, taller and darker than the others, the tattoos on his face making him more horrifying than I imagined. He towered over Dal, who stood by the throne with regret in his features. The dark nightmare’s shock of black hair stood straight up in the middle of his head, blazing down the back of his skull in a neat row flanked by war braids.
The skulls of what appeared to be children were worked into those dark braids. The leather adorning his person was blood red, the piercings in the hard part of his nose and the hairless tip of his chin being actual assembled finger bones. If I had to assign one word to the Warlord it would have been death.
I tried to channel my inner Patroma, but I had no idea what Patroma would have done when met with a superior figure. She had always been the top of the world, the one thing I both feared and respected. But now, in the face of the Warlord himself, I felt like an imposter. Everything I wore, every ounce of mud on my skin, everything I had said to every Kraw before this was an embarrassment, a paltry fraud. I was a fool.
I fisted my hands and raised my chin, hoping to portray strength to this creature. I glanced at Dal and he gave the tiniest shake of his head.
The Warlord laughed, a deep and imposing sound that seemed to make the very pebbles in the dirt shake with fear. “So you are my new Eyes and Ears,” he said in his impossibly deep voice. It reminded me of the cold, bottomless depths of a well. Suffocating.
“I am,” I said.
The Warlord laughed again. “You killed Patroma. You are no bigger than a suckling hound.”
“I need not answer for my height, for my skill has proven itself many times over.” I flicked a glance at Dal, and he turned away quickly.
The Warlord glanced down at Dal, then back to me. “Y
ou look to this swine for answers?”
“I look to him for signs of abuse on my property,” I said.
A slow grin spread the Warlord's face, and he sat back in his chair. “What is your name, puny human?”
“Seraphine.”
“What tricks have you employed to draw my Eyes and Ears to the tip of your impotent weapon? Who do you think you are, whore, to march into my camp and impose your will upon my people?” That voice rang with the immovable finality of death.
I didn't glance at Dal. I raised my chin, straightened my spine, and stared at this frightening embodiment of eternal nothingness. I spoke in the most dangerous voice I could muster.
“I am Seraphine. I am human, and I wish to see your Kraw march upon my capital and destroy the leyline as much as you do, because I understand that Kraw are the salvation of my world.” Words that never would have left my lips upon my capture over a year ago. My family would die twice over upon hearing them.
The Warlord showed all of his pointed teeth in a black smile. “Very well, Seraphine. You stand here before me and Patroma's carcass rots in hound bellies, which tells me that you are cunning. My warriors respect you and salute your presence, which tells me that you employ the power glowing around you with force and ruthlessness.
“And you bear wounds on your person that also tell me you can withstand Kraw lust. Perhaps, if my new Eyes and Ears pleases me, though your frail size leaves doubt, I will allow you to continue your reign as my second in command.”
Out of my peripheral vision, Dal's muscles tensed. I had to play my cards right. So I marched past him, grabbing a rolled up map of the capital from the table next to my throne. I brought it to the Warlord's feet, unrolled it, and focused my gaze on the lines under my fingers.
“Here is the human capital, Elanthia. The council are Gifted like myself, though not nearly as powerful. I will be an advantage to you, should you choose to use me.”
“I'm not sure if I'll choose to use you, frail human, but if I do you can be assured that I am going to see if you are as frail as you look.”
