Despite herself, her breathing slowed, the throbbing heat mellowing with every forceful knead. Even now, he knew exactly how to touch her.
“Better?” His warm breath rasped against her cheek.
She bit back a howl. Because no, nothing about this was better.
Yes, the terrible mind-stealing burn was dulling to a low flame, but something equally as troubling was filling her chest instead.
No one had ever tended to her before. His caretaking marked her deeper than the rough snap of his rope or the devastating touch of his hand.
The starving, half-mad part of her surged, trembling and needy, toward the new experience. She craved more.
Unmoored, she tried to pull away. “I-I am in comfort now.”
“Good.” Crouching, he released one ankle chain. “I like your phrasings. You make my language sound a lot prettier than it is.”
A swell of something unfamiliar. Pride. It hadn’t been easy to learn the Other language. No one in her pack spoke it as well as she. They thought it was beneath them to learn. She’d had no choice. Not if she wanted to survive trading with the Others and save her people. “Th-thank you.”
That single word seemed to push him over the edge.
He shot back to standing, looming above. “Fuck protocol. Everyone should have a name. Choose one.”
Her startled gaze flew to his. “A name only for those who—"
“Choose or I’ll do it for you.” His voice snapped with command.
“Why you do this?” She might have been trained to obey without question, but she’d always had rebellious thoughts running through her mind, and for once, here with a non-pack-member, she would find the courage to voice them.
“Maybe it’s just what we savages do.”
In truth, she had always wanted a name. She’d given Sharluff one in a show of defiance and with the secret wish that, like her ostracized pet, she would one rotation have someone defy the curse and call her something besides Gazi. See her as something besides an abomination. After touch, after acceptance, it had been her greatest longing.
How strange that, like so many wishes she’d never voiced out loud, her captor would end up being the one to provide her with it.
“Decide.”
A far-off memory prodded her mind. “In…in early seasons” the image flickered and solidified, “the sister of my birth-bearer give me name Nayla. A secret between us, unknown to Talg.” The reminder that someone had once cared enough to believe she was worthy of a name squeezed her lungs and pressed down on her chest. It…been long time, but I like that. I only few planetary seasons old when sister join birth-bearer in the Void and I alone again.”
Her captor’s scowl deepened and she feared she’d displeased him. When he spoke, however, his words were kind. “I’m sorry about your birth-bearer and her sister. Sorry you were left alone.”
She looked at the ground. No one had ever said such things to her before. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Nayla.” The name sounded exotic in his guttural tones. “Your birth-bearer’s sister gave you a beautiful name.”
She swayed on her feet. Acknowledgment. Recognition. Respect. She had not understood how much it would mean to be greeted with a name until it happened.
His palm smacked his chest. “I’m Grif.”
Still in a near daze, she mouthed the strong, sharp sound. A name as aggressive and guttural as the man himself.
“Say it out loud.”
Her gaze flew to his. His hard stare was locked on her mouth, his look no longer gentle.
She swallowed. “Gre-ff.” The sound came out huskier than intended. She liked saying his name. As Gazi, she did not usually have the privilege.
He growled, the circle of black in the middle of his eyes expanding so wide it nearly swallowed the green whole. She recognized the look. She’d seen it enough on Talg’s face before he commanded her to her knees.
Shock slammed through her. Until now, she’d thought she was the only one lost to the fires her captor ignited.
She’d been wrong. The savage wanted her. Just as much as he’d made her ache for him.
Her body swayed toward her tormentor. “Gre-ff…”
He stiffened, dropping the hand that had been rising toward her.
“Fuck me.” He took a step back. “You, wild thing, are a complication I don’t need.”
12
Grif set the last bit of camouflage on top of his snare and stepped away, his future dinner—a creature that reminded him of a cross between a New Earth rat and a chicken—dangling over his shoulder.
He’d left Nayla chained back at the cave with the excuse that he was going to look for dinner and her beast, Sharluff. In truth, he just needed some fucking air.
He’d found lots of the creature’s prints and erased them as best he could, but he’d discovered no sign of the actual animal. It was just as well. He wasn’t in the mood, the desperate pleading in Nayla’s voice as she begged him not to kill her pet…well, it had soured any thought of such a hunt.
So, small game it was.
Addressing his larger problem wasn’t as easy.
Puzzle pieces were starting to come together and not in the way he’d expected.
His enemy was looking less like an evil bitch and more like a victim with every passing heartbeat.
She hadn’t even had a damn name. Or been touched in any way meant to elicit pleasure. And she acted like a smelly, feathered predator was her family, best friend, and savior rolled into one, maybe because it was.
But she still had secrets she refused to share. She was still the same flesh trader she’d been before. Not to mention the commander was still on his ass and Malin and his knives weren’t going to give a shit about her past.
Which meant he couldn’t end the interrogation.
Even if he was getting the gut-blaring sense that prying Nayla’s secrets from her was going to cost them both.
Especially because there was no pretending she didn’t fascinate him in ways no female had before.
A warning rippled across the back of his neck like ghostly fingers. The whisper of sound. He shoved dinner into a crevice and dropped, folding to his stomach. He pressed into the overhang as if they were one. He might not have seen anything, but he listened to his instinct. It had always served him well.
Sure enough, a few heartbeats later, a shadow passed below. Definitely not Sharluff.
Grif was glad for his perch, and the fact that he was upwind. His first assessment of the form below was human, then animal because of the silent, sleek way it moved, and then Grif knew. He was looking at someone from Nayla’s pack.
A male humanoid. Attempting to locate Grif’s captive.
Not going to happen.
The pack male was no more than five feet six, but stacked with solid muscle, his broad chest making him appear almost as wide as he was tall. It looked like he could crush a rock between his pecs alone. Someone as tiny as Nayla would be no match against that kind of strength.
He was also bald, with a flat nose and sharp pointed ears, and, unlike Nayla’s golden skin, this male’s flesh was a patchwork of gold, red, and black that enabled him to blend in disturbingly well with the cliffs as he worked his way along the path toward the pit where Grif had first trapped his captive.