Page 43 of Own to Obey

The high chief looked utterly furious. His face had deepened to a dark red and his eyes bulged as he glared at Kardos. “This is mytemple!”

Kardos took a breath. That had not been appropriate behavior in front of the high chief. He sheathed his sword and stood facing him, waiting for his decision.

The high chief turned his gaze on the other shinnos, and Kardos heard them sheathing the weapons also.

“The Omega will be brought here in three hours to determine her dynamic,” the high chief said, his face serious as he looked over the shinnos. “If she is deemed an Omega, the selection process for her pairing will begin immediately… if I decide not to take her for myself.”

Kardos forced himself to remain still as an uncomfortable feeling twisted in his stomach.

“Additionally, if all is well with the Omega, Kardos’ request for a choosing will be granted, and he will hold favor of being selected high chief.”

Satisfaction spread through Kardos rapidly. He would be high chief!

“But I warn you all,” the high chief said, his voice lowering to a growl, “any violence, bouts, or underhandedness between any of you, and I will disband your tribes. Do you understand?”

Kardos made a noise in the back of his throat and nodded in agreement. It was rare for a tribe to be disbanded, but it was the only threat that would prevent the other shinnos from attacking him in the three hours it took to collect Shaya and bring her here.

The other shinnos murmured their assent.

“You are dismissed.”

Kardos turned and stalked out of the temple, heading through the waiting crowd to his carriage sled. Within three hours he would have the seat he had been striving for since he was a boy, the seat he knew without a doubt was his. There was no way that anyone could get in the way of that now—the high chief had spoken. The seat was his. All that was left, was to bring him the Omega.

Kardos had forced himself not to think of her name, her gorgeous face or her soft voice while he was in the temple, but now that he was on his way back to his Island, he couldn’t help but picture his beautiful Shaya. The uncomfortable feeling within him expanded until he was growling low and steady in agitation. He could not keep her for himself, he always knew that. He took her as a gift for the Southern Lands, for his high chief, for Az Eshra. But when he was with her, there was no doubt in his mind that she was his. He could feel it. And he didn’t know how he was going to give her up. He thought that when he entered the temple, he would get answers about what to do, but with thosejakhrashinnos in attendance it was no wonder Az Eshra did not speak to him.

One thing he knew that could not be argued, he was the only Alpha worthy of the high chief seat, not only because it was his birthright, but he had indeed done more for the Southern Lands than anyone else. Now was his final chance to prove he was worthy, that he wasn’t selfish like the other shinnos, and to do that, he had to give her up.

CHAPTER TEN

SHAYA

Shaya had never felt so alone.

When she woke, she was in an enormous bed that made her feel so small. Kardos was not there with his arms around her, squeezing her tight to him, tucking her into his body so she could feel the strength of his purr. He wasn't kissing her or slipping his hands between her legs, his nose running along her neck, his mouth seeking her nipple and growling with pleasure when it reached its destination. She was shocked at how much she missed him, how much her body missed him. But even when she washed and dressed, she realized it wasn’t just about him. There was no Treska helping her to dress or giving her advice, and the vastness of the room she was in strangely made her feel even more alone than when she was in the cabin. A servant brought her breakfast, and encouraged her to explore the house in broken Common Tongue. At first she declined, and paced the room as she used to the cabin, but this was different. It was bigger and there were huge windows to look out of. After becoming bored with the room, she had the urge to see what was beyond it.

Kardos’ house was enormous and strangely structured. Almost all the rooms were shaped in a circle and most were very simply decorated. The great thing about it was that it had lots of windows. Outside it still snowed and she found herself stopping by each window she passed to watch as it swirled from the bright sky. From all angles it looked as though there was nothing surrounding Kardos' house. On one side, there were clusters of trees, silvery and thin with petals that look like sparkling crystals, but the rest of the landscape seemed to be plain.

She wished she could tell Kyus about this. It was likely that she would wrinkle her nose and declare Shaya insane for wanting to be anywhere near such cold, but the beauty was beyond anything Shaya could have imagined. And she had imagined it. When Kyus told her stories, she would build the picture in her mind, imagining what it was like. Nothing she could have ever imagined could come close to the vast beauty of white that lay before her.

As she passed one of the windows, she saw a woman trudging towards the house. Stopping to peer out, she stared for a long moment hoping it was Treska. The woman was wisely wrapped in multiple furs with long boots and a hat pulled down firmly over her head. As she neared, it became clear that the woman was taller than Treska, but Shaya still remained by the window until the woman walked out of her view.

As she stared back out into the landscape, wondering where the woman’s carriage or sled was, a servant approached her looking nervous. Strangely, the shinno did not have as many servants as Shaya thought he would. Even though she had been a live-in servant for her sister and her sister’s betrothed, they had had other servants come to the house to do specific chores. And when Shaya had visited Eiros Castle, where King Malloron lived, the number of servants shocked her. They were everywhere. For some reason she assumed that shinno Kardos would live like the king, but it seemed like he only had three or four servants in this huge house.

“Excuse me, Miss Katashaya. You have a visitor.”

“Me?” Shaya said in surprise. “Someone is here to see me?”

The servant nodded and beckoned.

Shaya bit her lip as she hesitated. Kardos hadn’t given her any instruction about being in this house, but she assumed he would have given his servants instructions about visitors. After a moment’s deliberation, she followed the servant.

But when she reached the door, horror gripped her.

The angry woman who had barged into her cabin was taking her hat off and shaking snow off her boots in the hallway.

Caution caused Shaya to freeze where she was. She considered running back the way she came but the woman looked up and saw her.

“There you are,” she said in the Common Tongue, smiling.

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