Saving Verakko: The Clecanian Series Book 3 Victoria Aveline (best book club books .TXT) 📖

can trust you, right?” she whispered, her eyelids becoming too heavy to fight any longer.

“With your life.”

***

Verakko watched as Lily’s breathing became deep and even. She’d fallen asleep almost immediately. In the green light of the fire, he could make out the dark circles under her eyes. Her clothing was stained and bloody. His blood.

Lifting his shirt, he examined his injury again. Only a purple scab remained. Verakko hadn’t thought much of it. He’d healed from worse. But the knowledge that she’d used her precious water to clean his wound, in an attempt to keep him alive, made his chest ache. He wasn’t used to being cared for in that way.

Verakko shook off the feeling. Reaching for a long branch he’d found, he began carving a spear tip with his knife. His gaze kept returning to Lily.

Her skin was dirty and scratched. Her clothes hung off her in a way that indicated she’d lost weight. Even so, she was beautiful…and terrifying. If she was this enchanting to him now, he could only imagine how much more so she’d be when not surviving on wanget fruit.

Would the weight she put on fill out her delectable hips and ass? Would her pale, chapped lips become pink or red?

He heard a crack and looked down to find a pile of shavings under a broken spear tip.

He let out a long sigh. There was no use in fantasizing about this female. He couldn’t have her. He was meant for another, and Lily wasn’t his mate.

When she’d asked him why he hadn’t doted on her as he would with any other female, he’d lied. In truth, he’d never been so unguarded around a female. Maybe it was the fact she didn’t know their culture, or maybe it was that Lily gave as good as she got, a trait he’d never experienced from the emotionally distant females of Mithrandir.

He refocused his efforts on whittling a spear tip. If husbandry school had done anything, it’d given him the instinct to care for a female. Make sure they were content. Although he’d always considered this urge tiresome and annoying, the instinct to provide for Lily in every way didn’t feel like a chore. It felt like a need. An unyielding need for her happiness to be brought about by his actions alone.

Maybe that was why her continual ability to care for herself left him so cantankerous. She may not need him for much, but he knew if he set a large piece of delectable meat down in front of her, she’d smile at him and thank him. She might even kiss him. As if on cue, his cock pulsed.

He’d seen a couple of the human females kiss each other on the cheek in greeting. Was kissing on the mouth only reserved for romantic partners? Or would he be able to experience the act in a platonic way that wouldn’t dishonor his betrothed?

Verakko clenched his jaw. He’d lied about that too. When Lily had asked whether he was married, he should’ve admitted that in a few weeks he would be, but he hadn’t.

The tip of the spear began taking form as he whittled in irritation. It wasn’t as if he even knew his future wife. He knew of Ziritha, of course, but he’d never so much as spoken to her. From what he gathered, she preferred not to interact with her husbands outside of her ovulation cycles. The rumor was she had a favored male of her own who wasn’t eligible for marriage, but Verakko had no way of knowing whether the rumor was true.

Ziritha was close to his mother, though, and he knew she wanted Ziritha to take her place in Mithrandir one day. Negotiating a contract for her son with a female she thought of as queen material made sense.

There was no need to tell Lily. Why was he even worrying about it? It wasn’t as if she’d care about whether he was unattached. Would she?

The ghost of the scent of her arousal flitted through his memory. She was attracted to him, a dangerous prospect.

Chapter 6

By the time the morning came, Verakko was prepared to stab any animal that moved with his small knife. Losing a night of sleep was one thing. Being left for dead, beaten and bloodied in the jungle, was another. But Verakko had learned something insidious last night.

Lily made noises in her sleep.

Some were breathy sounds of fear that made him want to rush over and pull her close. Others were small gasps and pants that caused her breasts to quiver and his fangs to ache. Worst of all, a few times during the dead of night, she’d moaned, and the faintest trace of arousal had lingered in her scent.

The sounds had been soft and short-lived, but the feminine exhalations and scent had had his shaft hardening and his mind wandering to dark places. He’d tried to focus on their current predicament instead.

They’d need to cover more ground today. Verakko didn’t know exactly how much venom the Strigi male who’d dropped him had been dosed with, but if he’d only received a scratch, he may be close to recovered by now. Would the male return for him? Strigi were notorious for their single-minded pursuit of their goal, and if capturing him for questioning had been the goal, then he had to assume the Strigi would be on the hunt as soon as he was able. It was at least a possibility he had to take seriously. Not just for his sake, but for Lily’s.

Verakko estimated they had another day of hiking out in the open before the threat would force them to travel in the forest, ensuring cover from overhead.

He didn’t know how Lily would react to his suggestion that they move through the forest rather than along the river. So far, he had let her