Night Shift (Kate Daniels #6.5)(109)

Jaw like steel, his gaze a cold blade, he only watched her.

“What do you think it means?” Mala hoped to understand him better. “Whatever you believe I would do to you—do to me, instead.”

His eyes narrowed. “You want me to show you? To tame you?”

“Yes,” she said simply, but when his gaze went to her neck, she prayed to Vela for strength and courage, because she didn’t know how she would bear the collar around it.

And he seemed more enraged now than he’d been. No longer cold but hot, with a pulse pounding in his temple and a flush over his skin. He reached for the collar. His voice was hard. “Come here, then.”

First she placed her sword on the table, followed by the daggers from her thighs. Her heart thudded in her ears. Dimly aware of the sudden quiet in the common room, she rose. The jawbones swinging from her belt clicked together as she moved to his side. He stood, so tall, and his gaze locked on her throat. His knuckles were white. The thick leather of the collar had folded under the pressure of his fingers.

His bare chest lifted on a ragged breath. “Put your hands together.”

Why? But she didn’t ask; she simply obeyed. Kavik moved closer, then relief and hope lifted through her when he wrapped the collar around her wrists, instead. He was angry, so angry. But he wouldn’t do to her what was done to him.

Maybe.

Abruptly he yanked on the leash. Her body slammed against his, her armor hard against his chest and her arms trapped between them. His left hand fisted tightly in her hair, tilting her face up. He lowered his and spoke through gritted teeth.

“Now I bend you over this table and f*ck you, before I give you to every soldier here. You want me to show you that?”

Perhaps the first part, one day. But it should not be today. “In a half turn,” she said.

His black eyebrows lowered in a heavy frown. “What?”

“On the full moon.” Lifting her chin farther, she bared her throat to him. “Do you see? No scar. I’ve not yet had my moon night.”

And man or woman, a virgin’s blood belonged to Vela, and only could be offered when she looked fully upon them.

He shoved the band of her cloak aside, searching beneath the thick material fastened across the hollow of her throat where the ritual scar was usually placed. “Krimatheans don’t prize virginity.”

“No.” Most enjoyed f*cking, and enjoyed it often. “But other houses do, and I am High Daughter. It might come to pass that an alliance depends upon a marriage and my acceptability to the person I wed.”

“Yet you’ll take my cock in a half turn? What of that alliance?”

It had never been certain, anyway. She’d only abstained because of the possibility—and this was just as important. “This is my quest,” she said simply. “If you believe that being tamed means being f*cked, then I will submit to you. Only to you. But I prefer to honor the goddess when I do.” When he didn’t immediately respond, but only looked at her as if to determine whether she spoke true, her gaze fell to his strong throat. “You are not marked, either.”

His body stiffened. “My moon blood scars are on the back of my neck.”

Scars. Not one, but many. And Mala suspected that not one of them counted. Blood by rape was not an offering; it was an offense of the worst sort, to the human who suffered it and the goddess who witnessed it. But this time Mala was the one who was silent, because his rage had turned cold again, and now he would decide—to honor her preference, or not. To bend her over this table, or not. But no matter what he did to her, it would not be the same as had been done to him. Because this submission would be her choice. No one forced her.

His gaze like ice, he gathered up the long leash and tossed it up over a ceiling beam. He hauled back on the leather, dragging Mala’s arms up over her head, until she was pulled up onto her toes. The sleeves of her cloak slipped down over her leather bracers, bunching at her elbows. He tied off the leash at her bound wrists.

“Now stay,” he said softly and sat at the table again.

Like a dog. Or a horse. Mala almost laughed, but hearing the same reaction coming from the soldiers kept her quiet. With her back to the common room, she hung from the ceiling beam, suspended with most of her weight on her arms and the rest supported by her toes. Uncomfortable, though not terribly. As punishment, it wasn’t the worst she’d ever suffered.

She glanced down at Kavik. Pewter scraped over wood as he dragged her flagon to his side of the table and drank. Cooling his anger, perhaps. She still couldn’t see how he needed to be tamed.

And she liked him just as well as she had while tending to him after the revenants’ attack. Even better now. She’d taken him for an honorable warrior when he’d stood his ground against the creatures, despite the overwhelming risk. Nothing he’d done since had dissuaded her of that opinion. Instead he’d only cemented it.

She would not regret spending her moon night beneath him. There would be no mere submitting to his attentions. She looked forward to them and fully intended to take her pleasure.

Mala hoped to give him pleasure, too. It would be no hardship. His hair was thick and dark, and his mouth so fine. She liked his teeth, so even and white, and imagining their bite sent a hot shiver racing through her. He no longer smelled like death, but soap and smoke, and she wondered if the taut skin of his neck would taste the same as the skin over his sinewy thigh. Soon she would find out, and trace every rigid muscle with her tongue.