“I can see where that might be unnerving.”
Thia checked the cooking stew. “Did your father ever have issue with your choice of boyfriends?”
“Not really. From the time I turned fifteen, my father assumed I was a slut, so he didn’t care who I dated. Best I ever got out of him was that he better not find us naked in his bed.”
“I’m sorry, Sumi.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. It is what it is.”
To her complete shock, Thia hugged her. “I think you’re great.”
“I think you’re great, too.” Sumi gave the girl a strong squeeze before she released her and finished making their dinner.
That night, she took sentry duty, and it gave her a whole new appreciation for Dancer’s stamina.
Yawning, she stretched then jogged in place, trying to stay alert.
“You look like an adorable little girl when you do that.”
She jerked around with a gasp to find Dancer standing behind her. “Dear gods, man, make a sound when you move!”
“Not a man,” he reminded her simply.
She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just don’t understand how someone so huge is so silent. It’s not natural.”
He gave her a charming, lopsided grin. “Grow up with two parents who have Andarion hearing and a nasty temper, and you’ll learn to be silent, too.”
“I guess so,” she said with a laugh. “Get caught much?”
“Never. But I was often sacrificed.”
“Meaning?”
“Whenever they got caught, my brothers threw me to the parental units and ran for cover, leaving me behind to face them. Alone. They were both selfish bastards that way.”
She cringed at what had to be less-than-pleasant memories for him. “Sorry.”
Dancer shrugged nonchalantly. “Curse of being the youngest. I never could get away in time. But it gave me a lot of good survival skills. And a really tough ass. For that, I’m eternally grateful.” He took the rifle from her shoulder. “You should go rest.”
“I’m not the one who was poisoned,” she reminded him.
“That wasn’t poisoned. Trust me. I’ve eaten Jayne’s cooking. It’s far deadlier.”
He was so incredibly tempting. More so in that he never really insulted anyone. Not even Dariana. Rather, he had a teasing, fun-loving way of looking at others’ shortcomings and actions.
“I still don’t feel right leaving you to guard us after what you’ve been through, and what you’ve already done for us.”
“Then sit with me and keep me company.” He sank down in front of the small outcropping of rocks so that he could lean against them.
The sight of him there, like that… was more than a mere woman could turn away from. She sat down beside him and made sure to keep a little distance between them.
Dancer gave her a chiding stare. “I don’t bite, Sumi.”
“I know.” She was more afraid she might start nibbling on some of that lush tawny skin. Especially his jaw. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen on any male.
Against her better judgment, she leaned into his arms and let him hold her like he’d done Darice earlier. He rested his chin on the top of her head as his warmth enveloped her. As promised, he kept his hands to himself while they sat there, listening to the quiet desert breeze.
Hauk smiled as he felt Sumi fall asleep in a matter of heartbeats. Only then did he adjust her weight slightly so that she wasn’t pressing so much on the part of him that was most desperate for her. His senses light, he brushed his face against the softest hair he’d ever felt and inhaled her unique scent.
She was the sweetest heaven.
And the most torturous hell.
As he held her, he was rock hard and aching for a taste of her soft, voluptuous body. His back and side throbbed, but he welcomed the distraction from the heavy need in his groin that he could do nothing about.
Closing his eyes, he let her scent wash over him as stupid fantasies tormented him with things he knew he couldn’t have.
Fantasies of her touching him that made no sense. He was an Andarion, fully pledged. She was a human League assassin. Both of them were forbidden to have relations with anyone. Both were hunted by enemies and had a death sentence hanging over them.
Yet as he felt her breath on his skin, none of that mattered. All he wanted was to offer himself to her.
To have her claim him as her mate before everyone. Just once he wanted to know what it was like to be inside a female’s body, and have her hold him while they made love.
Every year since he’d turned nineteen, he’d gone to Dariana in his ancestral temple, in full faith and before his family and hers, for unification. And every year, she’d brutally denied him in front of them all. As if he was defective or unworthy of her.
In the beginning, he’d been hopeful that she’d find some way to forgive him for what had happened to Keris. That in time, she might accept his troth. But that hope had died somewhere in his midtwenties when it became crystal clear that she had no intention of ever seeing his pledge met. Rather, she took a perverse pleasure whenever she opened up his back before their families, and abandoned him to their ridicule and scorn.
When he’d turned thirty, he’d gone to his mother on the eve of another humiliation, and had begged her to negotiate a rare severance with Dariana.
She’d answered his request with the back of her hand. “How dare you shame me with such! You’re a War Hauk. You will do your duty and you will stand before her like the proud Andarion warrior you’re supposed to be, not some sniveling cockless coward! Besides, there is no one else who will have you. Look in a mirror. You’re deformed and revolting. You should be grateful that she hasn’t already broken pledge with you. At least this way, we can pretend you have some value and desirability.”
And as Dariana had done every year before that, when the priest had asked if she found him acceptable for her lineage, she’d sliced open his back and walked out the door. It was the most brutal way for an Andarion female to deny her lineage to a male.
Worse, it’d become a sick sort of ritual for him. One that made him more furious every time he was forced to endure it.
Every year Dariana denied him, he saw more of his mother’s love for him die. She could barely stand to look at him now. She blamed him fully for the shame he brought to their family.
In his heart, he knew Sumi would never do that to him. She would be honorable enough to slit his throat and end his hell. A death sentence for them both. Not force him to undergo public humiliation, year after year.
He took her tiny hand into his and smiled. Of course, she’d need a knife to hurt him. Her delicate hands could never rip open his back, or his throat.
And before he could stop himself, he placed her hand on his cheek and nuzzled it. He didn’t understand how she’d come to mean so much to him so quickly. He wasn’t a trusting soul. Nor did he make friends easily. He expected the worst from others, and seldom was he disappointed.
Yet this tiny assassin had found a place in his heart where very few dwelled. And instead of cutting her out of it, he was allowing her to burrow in even deeper.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Dariana was right. He was defective. He had to be to even think the thoughts that were in his head.
No good could ever come of a relationship with her. Andarions and humans didn’t mix. They never had.
And sadly, no matter how much he might want otherwise, they never would. Humans weren’t welcome in his world and Andarions were voraciously hated everywhere they went outside of their own territories.
When this was over, he’d have to leave Sumi and do his due diligence. Tie his blood to a bitch who hated him. If he was half the Andarion Fain was, he’d say fuck it and be done with all of them.