Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“I don’t care about your muscles. You literally just propositioned another woman for sex while I was in earshot.”
“No, I didn’t.” He looks baffled.
“I have ears! I heard you!” I gesture back at the camp. “You just hit on Yasmin!”
He tilts his head. “I did not hit her. She declined.”
I feel like I’m going crazy. This always happens when I try to have a conversation with Skarr. It doesn’t help that my pulse is humming in my veins at his nearness. That the khui’s song is moving through me, making heat and need spread across my limbs. “Skarr. I was less than ten feet away. She said she was a virgin and you said you would help her with that.”
“A virgin fighter, yes. I am pleased to spar with anyone so they can enjoy my prowess.”
He says it with such a straight face that I believe him. “It wasn’t about fighting, you twit.”
Skarr frowns. “What else would it be about?”
“Sex!” I practically bellow out the word and then wince when my voice carries across the snow. “She was talking about sex.”
His expression of confusion grows deeper. “But…I would not mate with her. I have already resonated to you, and you haven’t even let me attempt to pleasure you.” He gestures back at the camp, where Yasmin is still sitting by the fire. “If we were in the arena I would say that she cannot mate because she has not won a battle, but I’rec told me the rules are different here. Is there another set of rules I am unaware of?”
I just stare at him. I don’t even know that I can be mad. He’s clueless. Not just that, he thinks everything ties back to battle. I think about what Flor said—about how I had to be patient with him as he tries to develop a personality. I’d scoffed at her words but now I’m starting to realize the severity of the situation.
Skarr doesn’t know how to think outside of gladiator battles and fights. To him, everyone is an opponent.
And somehow I’m stuck with his crazy ass.
“The rules—” he begins.
I cut him off with a raise of my hand. “Stop talking.”
“Vivi,” he says. “Why would you think I would wish to touch another female when my khui has already led me to you? You are the best amongst these females. You are strong and clever. You—”
I cover his mouth with my fingers, because he keeps on talking, and because some small, strange part of me wants to touch him, wants to feel what his skin is like. It’s not scaly like I thought it would be. It’s warm and smooth and supple, and the scaly look is more of a pattern, except perhaps on his brows and the bridge of his nose.
His gaze flares with interest when I touch him, and his tongue slithers out to caress my fingers.
I jerk away…but I didn’t hate that. Not even a little. And that makes me even more messed up inside. “Just…just stay away from conversations about virgins, okay? When they talk about that, they’re talking about sex virgins, not battle virgins.”
“Why would I touch an inferior female when I can touch you?”
But he can’t touch me. Or can he? Because the longer I stay around him, the more resonance pulls me toward him. “I need to go,” I blurt out. “Don’t follow me back to camp.”
“What if I walk at your side—”
“Still no!”
Chapter
Eleven
SKARR
This female is impossible.
I love it.
She challenges me, and there is nothing I love more than a good challenge. Of having to utilize my wits as well as my brawn in order to conquer a fierce opponent. And truly, Vivi is the fiercest of opponents. Any other female would surely be impressed by my prowess and fling herself to the ground to allow me to breed her, but not Vivi. She requires more from me. She knows she is the most worthwhile female ever, and thus I must work that much harder to win the privilege of touching her.
I smile to myself as I return to camp. Every time she tells me no, it just means I must dig deeper.
Ah, I love the hunt.
She avoids me for the rest of the day, but that is fine. I watch her furtively, noticing her movements. She ties the laces of her boots once and then wraps them around her ankle and ties them a second time. Her dominant hand is right. She sometimes squints when an object is far away. Her long mane sometimes blows free from the knot at the back of her head and bothers her, so she tucks it behind her ears.
I memorize all these details, and they all delight me.
“No breeding yet?” Valmir asks.
I shake my head. “She is still having me hunt her. It is like she knows all the things that arouse me. Truly, there is no greater female.”