Page 16 of Valka

Valka pulled her free of his shoulder, surprisingly gently, and placed her on her feet. “Loud one walk now.” He pointed at the rough hewn steps carved into the side of the cliff.

She glared at him, but strained to raise her leg high enough to plant her foot three feet higher up on the next step. When she reached out to catch herself with one arm, having lost her balance, Valka grabbed her from behind.

“Arm hurt?” he asked.

“It was the only way to be freed from the ship before it sank. A young boy broke the lock so that I might live. My arm was injured,” she said defiantly.

Valka wrapped his huge hand around her wrist and pulled her toward him, looking down over her shoulder to get a better look. He grabbed her wrist and stretched it so he could better see the injury.

“Owww!” she cried, pulling her arm free of him and glaring up at him as he looked down on her from behind.

“Broken. Bleed,” he said.

“I am aware!” she half-shouted.

Valka surprised her with a grin. He quickly lifted her, settling her in the crook of his left arm, and still holding his battle-axe in his right hand. He climbed the steps with ease, and on every step he set foot on, he banged his axe against the step, creating the metallic clang they’d all heard when he’d come down to claim her.

Delia watched the axe clanging against the stone of the steps, then she looked Valka in the eye. It was apparent he’d made the irritating noise on purpose to let the others know he was on his way down.

Valka avoided her gaze, but a hint of a smirk quirked his lips. Perhaps the loud one was sharper than any had imagined. A few steps later he finally met her stare with one of his own, daring her to say anything about his show of intimidation as he descended the cliff’s side to claim her.

But she said nothing. She was too busy trying to figure out what exactly Valka’s game was. Obviously he was more than a brutal warrior with very little care for anything other than himself. But that was the only thing he wanted everyone to think he was.

Chapter 7

Valka reached the ledge outside his cave and set Delia on her feet. He half-lifted his hand and gestured toward the shadowed cave entrance she could see in the distance. “Go!” he snapped, when she made no effort to move forward.

She looked toward the entrance again, then at Valka. “Is there anyone else in there?”

Valka shook his head and reached out, pushing her in the direction of his cave.

Stumbling forward, Delia shot him a defiant look while struggling to keep her mouth shut. The best thing she could do was to take her own advice. She already had one male angry with her, she did not need to make this one angry, too. Straightening her spine, holding her head high, she regally moved toward the cave.

Valka followed, admiring her courage. She looked the part of a brave female, and even acted the part. Whether it was all for show or not didn’t matter. She was convincing enough to make others believe it. Even he wasn’t sure if she was that courageous, or just playing the part.

She walked steadily until she’d entered the cave, then her steps slowed as she looked around herself. The cave walls were high, the cave itself spacious. In the center of the cave, near the entrance was a grouping of three short logs, placed together to make an awkward circle of sorts. In the middle of the circle were ashes and bits of wood charred black from fire. Some distance back from the fire circle was a stacked pile of furs set back against a cave wall. A selection of weapons was arranged leaning against the same wall, ready to be grabbed at a moment’s notice. Across the opposite side of the cave were openings carvedinto the wall, slightly rounded rather than rectangular, they resembled storage hutches of a sort. They were filled with things Delia couldn’t quite identify from where she stood. Several of the hutches seemed to hold furs, and others held what looked like canvas bags, or cloths, wrapped around something else stored inside them.

As she stood there taking it all in, Valka pushed past her and gestured to the fire pit. “Sit,” he ordered.

She watched him as he strode toward the spaces cut into the wall and dug around in first one, then another. He came back to her and stopped halfway across the cave from her. He raised his eyebrow, looked at her, looked at the fire pit, making a point of the fact he ordered her to sit and she did not.

“I don’t want to sit,” she said conversationally.

His brows gathered over his eyes as his full lips flattened as he forced them together around his tusks. Suddenly he opened his mouth and raised his voice. “Sit!” he bellowed.

Delia’s body jumped in response to his shouted order, but then she hurried to sit. She didn’t know which log he wanted her to sit on, so she chose the smoothest. The one that he obviously used the most.

“Arm,” Valka insisted, dropping all the items he held on the ground at her feet as he loomed over her, leaning close to her face.

Delia cradled it closer to her chest. “No, it hurts.”

“Arm!” Valka insisted.

Still Delia resisted.

Valka reached out and grabbed her arm, and starting at the shoulder gently encircled her arm with his fingers, moving slowly toward her wrist as he carefully felt for any breaks or swells. Just above her wrist he hesitated and slowly moved back up a couple of inches before continuing his examination closer to her hand. She whimpered, though to her credit, she tried to keepit as quiet as possible as he repeated the examination several times before nodding to himself. He leaned so close to her arm she thought that he might lick her before she realized he was checking the gash the metal plate had sliced into her when it had broken the lock holding the chains on her.

He plopped down in front of her on the ground and completely ignored her as he held her hand just below her wrist in one hand, and felt his way up and down her arm again with the other, then seeming to have made up his mind, he nodded firmly to himself only once before he tightened his grip on her hand and her arm just above her wrist and yanked while slightly twisting.

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