The third day, I woke with a pounding headache and so incredibly nauseous that I slept as much as I could. The bed was still made. My meals were untouched. I never cried. Not a single tear, though inside, I felt shriveled and defeated.
When I woke next, I saw him.
With a gasp, I shot straight up from the chaise lounge, highly aware that my dress had bunched up during my fitful sleep and I had a sour taste of slew on my tongue.
Azur’s red gaze dipped to my bared legs, and I hurriedly tugged the material down, rising on shaking knees to stand before him. He had his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the wall next to where I’d been sleeping.
How long has he been watching me? I thought, panic rising in my throat.
He was wearing a deep green tunic—the color of our dark pine forests in the Collis—that molded to his chest, highlighting ridges and valleys of sculpted muscle. His pants were black, his dagger present at the belt on his waist. He wasn’t wearing his gauntlets, revealing veined hands with long, strong fingers and surprisingly neat and shorn black claws.
He was studying me quietly, those eyes narrowed on me, his chin tilted down. Like a predator with prey, that gaze tracked my every movement. My every breath. My every fidget. And so I forced myself to be still.
Azur flashed his fangs at me when I held my breath—thinking it likely he could hear my thunderous heart—and I couldn’t contain my flinch.
“Gemma of House Hara,” he rumbled, the words drawn out. Mocking though soft. “Daughter of the Collis. I must admit, I expected more from such a noble house.”
I wasn’t surprised at the level of indignation that rose in my breast, even as nausea roiled in my belly.
The sharp words left my lips. I even smiled at him as I noted, “Yet you paid for me. You paid whatever I asked. Whatever I wanted. You were desperate to have me.”
Those red eyes burned. His glare nearly withered me where I stood.
Perhaps my pride would be my undoing. Perhaps it would be a blessing. Perhaps that berserker beast in him could be triggered. Perhaps my death would be quick, a flash of a blade, instead of the slow drain from his feedings. Because thinking of him taking my blood, knowing it would nourish him, strengthen him…it was sickening.
Azur pushed off the wall quicker than I could blink. Then he was leisurely circling me, once, twice, three times, like a beast about to pounce but not before making its prey fearful.
Chills ran down my arms when he stopped at my back, goose bumps rippling across my flesh. My heart felt like it was in the pit of my stomach. His scent drifted to me, a clean, woodsy musk like the silverdrops that bloomed only under a full moon in the Collis or of damp soil after a heavy rain.
His touch came, cool and unavoidable, oddly gentle. He swept my black hair over my right shoulder, baring my neck, his dull claws scraping over the column of it like a warning.
Azur gathered my hair in his large fist…
Then a ragged cry tore from my throat when he jerked my head back by my hair. Not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make me claw at his forearms in panic and alarm. He pulled far enough that my back was arched, my neck completely exposed, my head craned back so I was forced to meet his eyes above me. To look up at him. To submit.
A vulnerable, uncomfortable position. One meant to make a point…that he owned me. That he had the strength to make me do whatever he wanted.
I dug my nails into his forearm, but he didn’t even flinch. I only dug harder, determined.
“Remember how you feel right now,” Azur murmured, his eyes trailing down the front of my body, catching on my heaving chest. “Remember the way your blood is rushing. How you’re desperate and squirming to get away from me. Remember this ache, little wife.”
There was a sting over my scalp as his grip tightened. A whimper escaped me, and I did the only thing I could of. He wanted me to submit to him? Never. Instead, I pressed my nails as deep into his forearm as I could and I clawed hard.
A hiss escaped him. Anger flashed and he pulled me closer. He bent over me. Roughly in my ear, he growled, “Because this is how you will feel every day for the rest of your life, Gemma of House Hara. I give you my word as a son of the Kaalium.”
His head lowered.
“No,” came the ragged plea when I felt the sharp press of his fangs against my neck. But I was powerless to stop it. I was completely exposed to him, made vulnerable and unprotected by his sheer strength.
His fangs pricked at my skin. His hot exhale of air against my jugular made my scalp tingle. He bit—but not hard enough to break my skin. It was a warning. There was only a sharp pressure, and then…
Azur released me.
I gasped for breath as I fell to my knees on the floor, my hands flying up to the bite. The skin was smooth. He hadn’t made me bleed. Not yet.
But I hadmade him bleed, I realized when he stepped in front of me. A small stream of black blood was running from my deep nail marks across his gray forearm. A part of me was horrified at what I’d done.
The other part, however…
I tilted my chin up as he scowled down at me. I glared right back, despite my heaving chest and my wounded pride.
“I will break you,” he promised me softly, those eyes rapt on me. “It is only a matter of time.”
The worst part was that I believed him.
This Kylorr was a sick monster. He’d bought me, he’d brokered this marriage, all because this was a game to him. He wanted to torment me. He wanted to make me fear him. He wanted me to submit. How many others had he done this to? How many other wives had he had?
A thought occurred to me. Were there other wives, even now? Did he go around collecting various females from different species, accumulating them with his wealth, all to bring back to Krynn and keep them locked away for his sick pleasure and amusement?
I believed he would break me eventually. I heard the truth of it in his voice.
However…
“Not before I draw more of your blood, husband,” I promised him right back, meeting his eyes. My voice was unwavering. It was strong and certain.
Azur grinned. A wide smile that would otherwise have been considered darkly handsome, if not for the fact he was a twisted beast inside. Instead that grin filled me with dread and despair and loss and grief.
“I welcome you to try that again,” he warned. “You won’t like what I do in retaliation.”
His black tongue flicked against one of his ivory fangs.
Then his eyes went to my night dress and my unbrushed hair, made even more unkempt by his handling.
Scowling, he said, “Wash yourself and dress. Make yourself presentable.”
“Why?” I gritted out.
“We’re descending to Krynn,” he told me, already turning his back, making his way to the door. His wings appeared even darker than they had in the courtroom, though this time I spied tiny veins, like a spider’s web, running through the thinner membranes. “I wouldn’t want my wife to embarrass me in my own keep.”
The derision and distaste in his own voice was baffling. Still on my knees, I scrambled up to stand, pushing back my hair. Despite the fact that I’d worked myself to the bone for the last five years, I was still a daughter of the Collis from a respectable house. Even though no one knew of our debts, of our shame, my father was still a great and honored war hero. New Earth citizens recognized him from all over the colonies.