Tricked Out Turning Drastic (Star Keeper Series Book 2), page 36
Jero's eyes went wide as he found the counsel a bit staggering. But then he huffed out with a surprised laugh. K'Vroken were known for their merciless attitudes so Krule's no-quarter comment didn't surprise me as much as it served as a reminder of who he was.
Suddenly Krule growled and moved me behind him in a blurring movement. Two arrows inbound from another direction were rapidly swiped to the left by his arm. They broke as they hit the brick wall on the other side of the alley.
He looked at me. "Kalla, you are a Goddess-like vision with your white glowing wings, but it seems that you are attracting a lot of attention. We need to get you to the…" he paused at seeing the hovering book before us. Lady Silver had just flown over.
Opening her pages, Rescoven's words read, "There is an active order for your detainment by the Legion. Your allies are safer without your presence at the moment. I'll await you and your K'Vroken. Since the campaign is tidying up, I have a favor to ask."
I think my eyes must have bugged out for a moment. Forget the part where he casually deemed the campaign as closing in on orderly and ship-shape with the city exploding in a revolution led by Lord Theros, I was more shocked that he needed something.
That was twice in one night.
From me.
I could feel my smile growing. I waved to Brag and Jero, then tugged on Krule's hand. "I'll be at Vahlta Hall."
Brag looked over his shoulder at me, and then at the K'Vroken. He nodded as if pleased with the idea and then focused on the darkened street below.
"You can't leave now—it finally got good when you arrived," Jero said plaintively. He still hadn't performed the death blow.
Shaking my head, I said, "Precisely, I'm leading them to you—something which I don't want to do."
Jero, having seemed to have gotten over his unintentional low blow, opened his mouth to say something to me but then looked over the side. "Ah, shivit—the male somehow got healed and is trying to climb up here! And he brought friends!"
Braghen quickly ran to the side and they released their arrows together focusing on the imminent threat. Krule seemed indifferent to their plight. That, or he factored they had it covered. I surmised the same—especially with the profound protection spells they had on their collars.
"Pretty bird, you should go now," Jero yelled casting a quick, crazy grin for me over his shoulder.
Krule growled just as I rolled my eyes in humor. Bending my knees about to push off and take to the skies, a muscled arm wrapped around my middle. "You'll accompany me Trick. Your wings are…rather unique."
I snorted. "You mean they're shit when it comes to camouflage. I've mentioned this to Resco but he seems unwilling to change their coloring to match the backdrop—even if only temporarily."
He picked me up bridal style and leaped off the building to the next. My deadly books followed. With his added height, my wings managed to clear the ground and not drag. "Your Keeper is correct. You should never hide your true nature."
I made a face. "Right, but it would be massively convenient to have a robe right about now," I eyed him and his dark garment throwing a not-so-subtle hint. I still held onto the mysterious bag I had taken off of him.
He tsked me. "I will not share."
My mouth dropped but then I narrowed my eyes. I knew he was hiding under it. I saw glimpses of it on his forearms as I was ogling his hands. There had been marks.
"What are you concealing by the way?" I asked even though I suspected. Despite Robert's medusa-like grip on my hair, the wind was whipping my strands behind me as Krule ate up the distance to Vahlta Hall in huge, exceptionally fast strides. If anyone did manage to see us at a distance, I wouldn't have been surprised to have appeared as a literal blur with my softly illuminating wings creating residual photon contrails following our path.
He grunted. "Just trying to mitigate the Balyach's presence in the city with my robe as usual. What happened while I was away?" he deflected.
Whatever. Clutching the bag and crossing my arms, I answered, "Watered my plants, read some books, killed Lord Silian Jesahv in a death match—sparked a revolution." I shrugged. "Not much."
He snorted. Jumping down into a large gap he landed expertly absorbing the blow by bending his knees and rising back up into a run effortlessly. The scenery began to change as we were entering the thick sprawl. "Tricky Kalla, you tease me."
"Strategic K'Vrok, you equivocate," I countered.
He suddenly stopped. Thick, tree trunk-sized vines crisscrossed the cobblestone street in a layered, hazardous web of pitfalls and threatening detours. The filtered moonlight with tonight's cloudy weather barely made it through the living canopy. I was the light source. Shadows were cast out from our duo in strange, elongated shapes.
"Trick, what happened?" he growled as he realized that I hadn't been joking.
"As I said—"
His growl grew and interrupted me as he suddenly set me down on my feet. Like a strange, tense dance between two people, he slowly twirled me as I let him. My breath caught as the moment heated and his dark eyes blazed as he searched for any injuries I may have incurred due to a possible death match having taken place. He bent over as he inspected. "I should have been here to slay your enemies," he said through gritted teeth. I gulped. He was running his large, capable hand up from my heels to my calf feeling for…injuries.
Vrekk me.
My mind began to wander. I heard shouting somewhere in the distance. Krule stood and grabbed my waist twirling me out of the sudden line of fire and repelling the incoming mahdra hit like it was nothing. Red suddenly flew off while Lady Silver stayed at my side.
We were chest to chest, both breathing heavily. I looked up into his black, alien eyes—eyes that could plunder and raze—they were unfathomably piercing and I couldn't help but wonder about the scenes they had perceived and the madness they had caused before I had ever even arrived on Haell. They were imperfect and full of unrepentant sin laced with a mysterious polar power that I, myself, couldn't deny.
Damn. Tango music was playing. Robert had caught on to my random, beguiled thoughts and our smooth movements.
Suddenly dipping me low, Krule breathed in my neck as an illuminated mahdra shot went over our heads. His razor-like teeth that perpetually jutted out grazed my skin and brought forth shivers that pebbled my exposed flesh. I slowly reached up and ran my hand over and up his horn to the thick base.
"Ahhh, fuck me, Kalla," he groaned out as his body trembled. It wasn't a crude command, no, but it was an effective exclamation since it mirrored my own chaotic, passionate thoughts. He was bothered very little by the scene around us.
"Hands off the Council's consort you vile reject!" a voice called out.
"Kill it like the others before it spreads its disease on the blessed one!" someone else ordered.
I blinked and tried to focus. They still thought Krule was just a reject… And I was a blessed one now? The Council's consort?
Whatever.
I would have huffed in amusement at their ignorance but I was suddenly twirled in a breathless move and brought to Krule's left side as he ripped off his robe and reached behind his back for his klayvore sword. Nearly as long as I was, the black metal unusually glinted, reflecting and refracting my Celestial light out and into the shadows.
And still, Robert had a violin passionately playing with gypsy-like flavor, sliding and hitting notes to a theme of unbridled back-and-forth desire.
I ducked and moved fluidly as Krule demanded. Without verbal acknowledgment, we both knew to follow the intrinsic notes playing between us. Our feet moved, not identically, but in a tandem-type dance that had me dodging and gripping onto him as he countered and blocked spells while getting closer to the now panicking Sahven guards of Lord Drahken and Lord Reshna's house. Two of them were already on fire courtesy of Red hovering nearby.
They were vrekked and they knew it.
Perhaps I would have cared more about their ultimate demise if I had not felt their hatred for Krule when they thought him simply a reject. Insidious, it pervaded their auras and had me judging in a more, unforgiving Celestial way…or in a K'Vroken capacity.
No clemency, here.
I ducked, Krule sliced, and an emblazoned head dropped. Placing the dark, small bag in my mouth to free my hands, I jumped up and wrapped my arms around Krule's neck as he brought me to his back. Like an angel riding a demon, we twirled, unrushed and deadly in a dance of macabre destruction as three other torsos were separated—one horizontally and easy, another nearly ninety degrees vertical from the shoulder down with innards pausing as if unbelieving of their newfound, awful freedom by a cleaving sword. Lady Silver took care of the last male with one solid strike to the guts.
Bodies slopped and fell behind us as Krule left the scene at a sinuous pace, somehow still moving to the cadence of the music, two off, two accented on. Ascending the steps and reaching the doors to Vahlta Hall, he stopped and set me down in front of him and sheathed his giant sword one-handedly.
I peered at him. My heart was pounding.
With the easy kills behind us, I noticed his skin was entirely unblemished of blood. Sans robe, his skin also revealed something else. The marks. More of them. Raised like veins underneath his thick skin in some ancient K'Vrok design, they traced his arms and neck in barbed, wicked swirls. My eyes followed them as they delved under his black jerkin.
Business as usual, the library door on the left opened a crack and several hundred papers flew out into the night. I paid them little heed as a dark, liquid-drenched Lady Silver fluttered happily at them in both hello and goodbye and Red nodded to them in passing respect. My two books slid through the open door into the dark Hall.
Opening my mouth to say something, my words cut off as the forgotten bag fell from my teeth.
Krule caught it easily as a slow, wicked grin grew on his face. "This is why I left," he said in K'Vrok.
The night went quiet. The music stopped.
Blinking, shaking off resulting shivers and warring priorities, I went with my first formulated thought. It wasn't necessarily what I wanted to know the most. "I thought you wanted to do reconnaissance."
"No. I needed to go for another reason." He shrugged. "But I was happy to do as you asked."
My mouth dropped a fraction. He didn't even seem to care about the upcoming war, which yes, he had admitted to a while back. In my hearing, I hadn't heard him at all and had assigned the wrong motives to his actions. Not his fault. No real fault to assign, either.
I just needed to understand the situation better. "So," I paused, "what's in it?"
His hand reached up behind his neck as he kneaded his flesh in a tell of being unsure of himself. He nodded, then said, "Open it."
My eyebrows lifted. It was for me? Wondering if it was jewelry, I didn't know if I was the type. Robert sure took up most of the real estate on my skin, too. Taking the bag slowly from his hands, I didn't once worry for my safety in the surrounding darkness. Rescoven and Krule would take care of it if more Sahven lackeys or Legion members arrived.
I loosened the small cord, pulled open the fabric, and peered inside. There was a box. Taking out the small wooden container, I slowly opened it and saw…
"A retainer?" I asked looking up. "For teeth?"
"It's a kret'kan," he said in a low mumble.
Scrying my memory, a kret'kan was a K'Vroken dental guard that K'Vrok children used in sparring matches to not rip out each other's throats on accident…
I looked down and then up suddenly. As I connected the dots, a smile began to grow on my face.
Chapter thirty-two
He quickly added, "It is not black, I know. The shopkeeper claims the resin my people typically use isn't durable enough for mature K'Vrok teeth like mine. Even with the stronger material, I have to be careful not to bite through it. The color is…"
His words drifted off.
Yes, the color was a bit…garish, delightfully so, especially paired with his midnight appearance. Despite my wings giving off a nimbus-like glow, and even if the mouthpiece were enveloped in the umbra of the swallowing vines at night, it still would have come across as fairly bright. "It's pink, Krule," I said through a smile.
"Is pink a good or bad English word?"
"Good. Pink is good. This is what took you two days longer?"
He nodded and looked out into the softly illuminated street at the shadows being cast by the labyrinth of vines. Bringing his eyes back to me, he said, "I didn't do well with the impression process for my mouth. He refused to work with me after the first dozen tries as it made me gag and become a bit…irritable. I had to convince him all over again—without bloodshed."
"That must have been hard," I said forcing a straight face.
He nodded vehemently. "The male was a rotten kreva dick," he swore using yet another English term I taught him. A kreva was a small snail known in K'Vroken lands.
"So…does it work?" I asked. He looked at me and nodded as the rest of his body stilled. Mine did as well, though it felt as though my heart was beginning to beat out of its chest. "Okay then…put it on," I said quietly.
There was a moment of silence.
"Truly?" he asked.
"Yes."
Grabbing the two trays from out of the box he fumbled slightly and put them in his mouth snapping each to the top and bottom teeth. Not as bulky as I had imagined, it was still a surprise to see his usual demon-like incisors clad in a bright rose.
"Trick, what do I neeth to do? Would you like a written contract firthst?" he asked with a lisp.
The answer to those first two questions would be: 'I don't know' and 'beats me'. Kissing—I mean, properly kissing—was beyond my ken. I figured I'd just verbalize what I knew for sure.
"I don't need a written contract, Krule." I began to wring my hands. To me, the prior agreement thing was just weird. You could even say the whole situation was a bit unbelievable since he had solely left TreValla to obtain a mouth guard to kiss me the human way and not risk injuring my soft skin in the process. He risked life and limb to do this.
Some would possibly say he was being selfish. Others may have labeled him off his rocker…
To me, well, I wanted to kiss him, too. I'd be lying if I said I had never thought about it—imagined it more than once.
I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on my feelings because even without a musical score to go along with the moment, I could still feel the effortless movement we had had between us just keviks ago. It was a dance we had begun dancing even before the sounds flowed around us. Yes, sure, there were bodies behind us. Yes, he had managed to smoothly kill and I gracefully survive…
And through it all, we had moved together. Without words, we had been fluent.
Realizing I had been staring downward thinking at the stone, I lifted my head and closed the distance between us. Relying on the way my body seemed to reach for him, and for once allowing my actions to follow through without denial, I lightly placed my hand on his wrist and moved my palm upward feeling his bare skin and rock-hard muscles.
He sucked in a breath.
Thick and built like, well, an alien, I ran my hands up his arm's length and felt the mysterious marks that no one would clarify for me and then trailed my fingers up and around his neck. With a gentle pull, I urged him downward. Our height disparity didn't put a damper on my resolve. Instantly obliging, Krule leaned down for me.
Softly, I kissed him.
Though no sound was made, the air seemed to vibrate between us. He didn't have his lips puckered and hadn't done anything else but heed my promptings, and yet, despite our lack of experience, we were doing it right. Fledgling, yes, I'll admit it. We both were. But there was something deeply universal about two people exploring together, moving to an unsung melody that both seemed to hear without ever having truly experienced it before—adding notes here and there to forge a unique, however unlikely, composition when said two people were literally from different worlds.
I went in for another light touch. Shuddering out in an impromptu exhale, I grew bold when I felt Krule's breath near mine. Sliding my hand up and over his leather top, I felt his hearts beating just as hard as mine. Curling the fingers of my other hand around his neck even further, I stood on tip-toe and kissed him once more, this time parting my mouth and running my tongue across his dark lips.
The immediate growl emanating deep in his chest triggered an even deeper response in me. I gripped his neck with both hands and plastered my front to his. My tongue went deeper as I explored further and caressed his. His mouth was large and his tongue long and there was so much to explore as I kept moving and rolling mine to the wave of building power and desire…
Yes.
I may have said that aloud as I pulled back for a moment.
Sans any warning, Krule reached underneath my wings and lifted me. Without voicing it, I craved it—I did not want him to kneel to accommodate me. Eye to eye for a moment, Krule closed the distance. His growl was perpetual and powerful as my incredibly sensitive chest moved on his, feeling things that were entirely new and unbelievably sensational as his mouth attacked mine.
Yes. Attack.
Protected from his teeth, I felt his hands and claws grip my body in a frenzy of emotion as he tried to taste me. His tongue moved powerfully and demandingly—something of which I didn't think he could help. He couldn't do gentle at the moment. And through this all, I was incredibly aware of my legs and how they were spread on either side of his torso with a side slit in my dress to accommodate the position.
Distant explosions rocked the night. I paid little heed.
My power was burning bright and Krule was eating it like it was pastry. Rolling his tongue and dancing with mine, we moved together in a frenzy of unexpected wildness, gripping each other and needing more…yet perhaps feeling too much, too fast, too…
In a move as old as time, I ground my center on his rock-hard abdomen and my head drifted backward in a wantonly sigh of abandon as his mouth moved to latch onto my neck.
