Page 23 of The VaDorok's Unexpected Mate
Her lips pursed as she considered his words, and she nodded. “That sounds reasonable to me. So where do we start?”
“Here,” he rumbled, stretching the leather on the table between them.
They bent over the leather, their knees touching as she scooted closer to see, her gaze focusing on him attentively as he cut away the excess leather with the double blade cutters and proceeded to show her how to make the simple panels that would be sewn together for clothes. As she had mentioned, she possessed no skill or talent for it, and she struggled with pushing the needle through the leather as they slowly began to work on stitching the pieces. The durwa remained in her lap purring the entire time, not even once going for the leather again, reaffirming in his mind that its actions were a direct punishment toward him for abusing its human. He glanced over at her frombeneath his lashes, watching the way her brow furrowed with concentration as she stubbornly worked the needle through the thick leather.
The corners of his mouth crept up in admiration. She certainly was a stubborn and intriguing little human.
Chapter 18
Katie frowned as she dug through one of the large baskets in the bedroom. Kull had asked her to find the length of braided leather cord that he said he’d stored in there. She didn’t even recall ever seeing any such thing, but she was here taking his word for it and hunting for something that clearly didn’t want to be found.
“I don’t see why we need it,” she mumbled as she set the basket aside and moved onto the next one, a basket that came close to being as tall as she was.
What did he say he wanted it for? Something about tying her to him when he took her out hunting. It sounded silly because she was a grown adult, not a toddler who would make a break for it at the first opportunity for escape, but she was too excited about going to put up much of a protest. Now if only the cord weren’t playing “find me.”
She was practically climbing inside the giant basket in an attempt to get to the bottom when the fur curtain over the doorway shifted and Kull leaned against the frame, his eyes bright with amusement as he studied her.
“Any luck?” he rumbled.
Katie blew the lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes out of her face and shook her head. “Not yet. Are you sure that we will need it?”
Kull nodded, his expression sobering. “If it starts heavily snowing while we are out there, it will be easy to become disorientated. I will feel better if I can make sure that you are safe while we are hunting.”
In other words, she was going to be leashed like an errant toddler.
Sighing, she adjusted her angle. He had a point. Her sense of direction wasn’t great even in the best of times. If she became blinded by a sudden snowstorm and got separated from them, then she would be up shit creek without a paddle.
“Alright, I’m going to keep looking.” She bit her lip as she glanced around the room. “Are you sure it’s in here?”
“Yes. I made it for...” he broke off and swallowed thickly. “It does not matter. I stored it in here afterwards because I had no further use for it. It was just by chance that I recalled that it was here.”
“Okay. I’ll find it then,” she said as she shifted her weight to tip herself lower into the basket.
Kull hesitated, and a strange look crossed his face as he watched her. She imagined that he wanted to pluck her up from the basket and set her out of the way so that he could help her look without the risk of falling into the basket. She indulged in the fantasy briefly, but then he retreated, and the moment was gone.
“Let me know when you do,” he replied. “I am going to finish sewing the coat that I have been making for you while you look.”
She grinned at him as she leaned over the basket, rocking it slightly with her weight. “You’ve been making me a coat?”
His ears tipped back, and his tail twitched disconcertedly, which made laughter bubble up inside of her before she got ahold of it and choked it back down. It was really sweet that he had put thought into doing something like that for her long before they started talking about going hunting together.
“You need something more substantial and that covers you better than the fur cloaks that you wear,” he replied gruffly. “It is a matter of practicality... nothing more.”
She nodded in reply and watched as his tail twitched one last time before he let the fur curtain fall between them once more and he headed back to the common room. She stared atthe fur for a moment, half-amused as she considered his words, but then divided back into the basket. She wrinkled her nose at the stale, musty smell of old fur, leather and cloth that had been accumulating dust bunnies for at least a decade as far as she knew. It was only when she shifted a large blanket out of the way that her fingers skimmed the rough braid and knotting of a cord hidden beneath it all.
“Jackpot,” she mumbled as she grabbed hold of the end and began to pull.
It gave slowly as the cord gradually came loose from wherever it was caught in the basket. What the hell? She tugged a bit harder and leaned her weight into it and was rewarded with a longer length of it. Bracing her leg against the basket, she pulled harder, and she strained. Whatever it was caught on, it was caught good. She considered just upending the basket just to make her life easier.
“What are you doing?” Ren interrupted. “You look like you are wrestling with an alpak,” he observed with a grin.
Katie swiped her hair out of her face with her elbow and grimaced at him. “It is not as easy as it looks. It’s caught on something.”
He shook his head as he sauntered into the room. “You are just weak. Let me try.”
“I don’t know, Ren...” she began, but he took hold of the end of the cord and nudged her out of the way.
“With as much as there is in the basket, you will be at it all day if you do not pull harder,” he instructed. “Now watch.”
