Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
I leave before I can hear Noj’me translate, and when I return, both of them are seated, their feet carefully perched on the rock outside of the snows. I’ve brought several blankets with me and I immediately wrap one around Rem’eb’s shoulders and then one on his legs. He seems surprised that I’m tending to him, as if it didn’t occur to him that I’d want to look after him.
I guess I deserve that after clubbing him on the head and all.
After I bundle Noj’me too, I take a step back and make sure they’re sufficiently covered and warm. “You’ll get used to the cold after a while,” I reassure them, and give the two a thumbs up. “It’ll eventually feel pretty nice.”
Well, until the brutal season hits, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Then I cross my arms and stare at them, trying to think of what to say. Do I apologize for snatching him when I don’t feel sorry? Tell him that I wish we hadn’t resonated? Because that’s not how I feel. I’m glad in this moment. Elated. There’s nothing broken in me. My body was just waiting for the right guy.
And I’m tired of pretending like everything is okay when it’s not. So I keep my arms crossed and lift my chin. “I’m going to be honest, if you’re expecting an apology from me, you’re going to be waiting a while.”
Chapter
Twenty
REM’EB
Tia tucks blankets around myself and Noj’me as we move outside. It is dark and, impossibly, the wind is even colder than before. The above is strange, cold and open and endless, with the air pushing against my face constantly. The cozy warmth from below is gone, and this place is covered with white fluff that melts when it touches my skin.
Ice, Noj’me had told me earlier. Frozen water. I tasted some of it on my tongue and it seems to be so. I knew it was cold above, and that the world was covered with a chilly white substance, but I did not realize it was water. More than that, I do not know how it falls from the sky when there is no cavern ceiling above us.
But none of that matters right now because I am resonating to Tia.
It is the thing I had hoped for most…and feared the most. Now we are united. Now I cannot separate myself from her easily, no matter how much my people need me. Even thinking about parting from her causes me physical pain, as if my khui seizes up at the mere consideration. The moment I was untied, I wanted to leap upon Tia. To rub my face all over her soft skin and push between her thighs, unfurling my frill deep inside her.
I do not, of course. I control myself, even though sweat coats my chilled skin at the strain of not touching her. Her scent was lovely before—it is addictive now. All the while my heart pounds, my khui sings, and my cock surges. My frill threatens to spread and I pant, hard.
I do not know how Tia’s old suitor – the stranger R’jaal can stand it. He hovers over his yellow-maned female, who now has a khui, much to my relief, but they do not seem as frantic as I feel. Are they just better at hiding it? Or does resonance strike them differently? Is it because R'jaal’s female did not have a khui until recently?
Resonance is maddening to me, at least.
And when Tia suggests we move to talk outside, it is a relief.
Yes. Outside. Where we can be alone together. Where I can touch her and cover her, even in the freezing snows. Where I can bear her to the ground and…
…and Noj’me comes with us to interpret.
Never have I resented another person so much for so little reason.
It is wise for her to join us, of course. She will translate. Yet the things I want to do to Tia require no words at all. I want to press my mouth to hers again. I want to taste her tongue moving against mine. I want to touch her between her thighs to see where she will receive me. I want her to grind up against me like she did before, when she took her pleasure, but this time I want my hands everywhere so I can feel it with her.
I scrub a hand over my eyes. How am I possibly going to concentrate while Noj’me the Attendant speaks our words for us?
We head outside and the cold air slaps us in the face. Noj’me reels and Tia mumbles more of her strange, fluid words and heads back inside the cave, where the others huddle out of the moving air. She returns a moment later with heaps of furs in her arms and takes great care to tuck each one around us, ensuring that we are warm.