Night Shift (Kate Daniels #6.5)(125)

Vela’s voice filled Kavik’s ears. “Look at you, honorable warrior. Look how firmly you stand when she needs kindness more than she ever has.”

He would go to her. He would hold her. But his chest convulsed again, wracking spasms that ripped down into his gut, up through his head. Darkness filled his vision of Mala, then brightened on a pair of milk moon eyes. Vela studied him for a long moment.

“I don’t know why you cry, beast,” she finally told him. “Her mouth is still hot and you said her cunt is the same as any other.”

No. Mala was unlike any other.

“Of course she is. She is my chosen.” Cold fingers pried his hand open. “I will have this coin. It is not worth as much as the one you stole from my temple, but I will consider it a proper offering—and perhaps I will piss in your mouth while you sleep. Happy dreams, beast.”

She tapped his head and all was gone.



SELAQ’S eyes were her own again when Kavik opened his, and found her looking down at him in concern. The dirt floor of the stable was hard beneath his back. The sky was dark.

Mala would be far ahead of him.

His body a solid ache, he rose to his feet and stumbled toward the gelding. Someone had removed his tack.

“Do you know which gate Mala used?” His voice was hoarse with grit, but he could speak again.

“East,” Selaq said softly. “But she turned north after she was outside the city.”

Kavik nodded, then stilled. He looked to her again.

A watery smile touched the innkeeper’s lips. “She left something in me.”

Something that let her see beyond the walls of the city. “Are you all right?”

“I am.” Her gaze narrowed. “You’re a fool.”

He picked up the gelding’s saddle. “I don’t need a goddess’s vision to know that.”





CHAPTER 7





Hood shadowing her face, Mala rode across the empty moors. Unlike Shim, the dun mare would not be punished by Vela. The mare had no understanding of what it meant to be forsaken. The Hanani stallion did.

The mark burned. Her face didn’t feel like her own, but a heavy and swollen mask. But that was only skin and flesh. It was nothing compared to the shattered wound in her heart—and Vela must have been her breath. Because now that she’d been forsaken, Mala seemed to have none left, and every time she tried to draw a new one it never eased the drowning ache in her chest.

She had failed Krimathe. Mala would make no alliances now. No warriors would answer the call of a woman who wore Vela’s Mark. And two years would pass before the House of Krima would know of her failure and attempt to send someone else.

If ever she returned to Krimathe at all. She had failed her quest, but she would not abandon her vows—and before she left this cursed land of Blackmoor, she would see Barin dead.

Though she did not know how to do it. While she’d been wearing the red cloak, Vela might have guided her. Mala could not expect help from the goddess now.

Mala could ask for help from no one else, either. Not even the man who’d tried so many ways to kill Barin before.

Kavik.

As soon as he slipped into her thoughts she desperately tried to shove them away. But it was too late. The shattered ache erupted through her chest and doubled her over into helpless tears. Vela forgive her. She should have been more patient. She should have been more stubborn.

She should have let him stab her over and over.

But, no. No. Her tears passed, leaving only the hot agony of the salt burning in her marked cheeks. She could not believe that was Vela’s intention. The goddess could be cruel. But Mala had believed Vela would not make the taming a cruel one—and it made no sense that she would not be cruel to Kavik, but would be cruel to Mala. She couldn’t believe that the goddess had meant her to love a man, and then ask her to endure as he shredded her heart whenever his fears threatened him.

He’d thoughtlessly, deliberately hurt her. She was not sorry for walking away.

And she had not abandoned her quest. She had not. She had only stepped on the wrong path.

She would find it again.

Pushing her hood back, she looked up. The moon shone fat and bright. Tomorrow Vela would look fully upon all of them, but Mala rode by her light now. Not completely forsaken. And with so much to be grateful for.

“Thank you,” Mala called to the sky, and the next breath she drew was an easier one. “You sent me to him. What you put into my path would have been so much more than I expected. I didn’t come to find love. Only strength. But you chose well for my heart. I wish Kavik had taken the same care with it.”

There was no reply. Mala hadn’t expected one. She was still forsaken.

She looked to the path ahead again just as the mare shifted nervously beneath her. Tension gripped Mala’s neck. Her gaze scanned the barren hills.

A piercing whinny split the night air.

Shim.

No. Oh, no. The mare answered and wheeled toward the call. Mala tried to rein her in. The mare slowed, then fought the bit when Shim trumpeted again. Curse it all. Mala would not saw at this horse’s mouth.

Swinging her leg over the saddle, she slid from the horse’s back to the ground. The mare galloped away and into the dark.

“Do not follow me, Shim!” she shouted.

He did. Within minutes he strode behind her, nose nudging her back with each step. The mare walked alongside him, and every time Mala tried to mount her again, Shim nipped at the mare’s hindquarters and her wild bucking sent Mala flying to the ground again. As if it were a game.