Page 24 of The VaDorok's Unexpected Mate
She stepped back and eyed him uncertainly. He gave her a cocky smile and yanked on the cord with so much strength that there was a sharp crack of something giving within the basket seconds before the cord went slack and flew from the basket at a rapid rate with the force pulling on it. Ren shouted in surprise and stumbled backwards as every bit of tension evaporated.His arms wheeled, the cord whipping up for a moment before shooting downwards as he collided with the table in from the hearth and fell backwards. Katie’s eyes shot to it, a cry of alarm escaping her. She made to grab him to keep him from falling onto the table, but she was nowhere near quick enough. He hit the table hard. The wood buckled and everything on its surface exploded upwards... including Kull’s carved flute.
It seemed to float in the air in slow motion. She tried to grab for it, but her fingers merely skimmed the polished wood in the midst of its flight before it slammed against the stone. The crack of the flute breaking was deafening, but the sound was nearly matched as it then proceeded to fall to the ground. She stared in horror at it as Ren scrambled off the table and gaped down at it.
“Oh no,” he moaned.
“Katie? Are you well?” Kull called, his footsteps pounding toward them at a rapid jog. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“N...no,” she shouted back in reply as she stared aghast down at the broken flute.
Ren flung the cord guiltily away so that it landed at her feet and crept back from her, his ears flattening as his tail tucked close to his body. Katie looked over at him questioningly, but then the curtain was flung back and Kull rushed in, dragging her attention away from the younger male. He grabbed her arms, dragging her toward him as he frantically looked her over, his gaze cutting worriedly toward Ren.
“What happened?” he demanded. “I thought I heard something break and...” and his words dropped off when his gaze fastened on the broken flute on the floor. A garbled sound of anguish left him, and he pushed by her to drop to the ground, his claws frantically scraping up the pieces of the instrument. He shuddered, and she understood the barely contained anger and grief for what it was... loss. “What happened?” he repeated, a furious note in his voice.
“Kull, I...” Ren began.
Katie pushed forward. “It was my fault,” she said quickly, her eyes lowering.
She felt Ren’s gaze swing toward her in surprise, but she pointedly ignored it. Although it had clearly been an accident, ultimately, it had been her responsibility. Ren never would have had the cord if it weren’t for her yielding it to him. In any case, he appeared torn up enough by what had happened. She didn’t want to see a rift develop between the brothers due to a moment of carelessness.
“I had managed to get ahold of the cord, but I pulled too hard on it. I wasn’t expecting to fall back like I had,” she explained, glancing guiltily at the table.
Kull’s gaze shifted to the table, shock and grief dulling his eyes. He stared at it for a moment and then nodded as he collected up the pieces and stood. “I need some time,” he rasped, not even looking at her as he resolutely turned away and left the room.
Katie stared after him, caught between her desire to give him space and the desire to chase after him and make sure that he was okay. She bit her lip worriedly as Ren came up to her side, his head bowed so that the firelight danced over the ivory spikes of his developing horns.
“You did not have to take the blame for me,” he rasped.
She drew a deep breath and slowly expelled it. “You are right. I didn’t have to do it, but there was no sense in making the situation worse since you hadn’t been sent to look for the cord. There is no reason to punish you further than you are already punishing yourself for your recklessness,” she said quietly.
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
She nodded in acknowledgement but didn’t say anything further on the matter. Instead, she uprighted the basket and began to clean up the things that had spilled out onto the floorwhen it had suddenly tipped over. There, deep within the basket, she found what appeared to be the start of a carving that had been abandoned and forgotten. A small segment had broken off—the part that the cord had obviously been caught on. She brushed her fingers remorsefully over it and packed it back into the basket with everything else. She didn’t even hear Ren leave.
Once the mess was cleaned up and the long leather cord coiled up and set on top of what was left of the table, Katie sat on the edge of the bed and waited for Kull to return. Time trickled slowly and eventually her eyes grew heavy and she began to smother yawns with her hand. When it appeared that he wasn’t going to return anytime soon, she gathered a small pile of furs and pillows from the bed and deposited them on the floor. As angry as he was, she was betting that he would want his space, and after everything that happened, it wouldn’t be fair if he was the one who ended up taking the floor to avoid sleeping beside her.
Arranging everything as comfortably as possible, she curled up on the floor, her eyes drifting closed. She dozed fitfully, coming awake when Kull’s footsteps padded across the room. She heard him stop in the middle of the room and felt his eyes on her. He didn’t make a move for a long moment, but then, eventually, he made his way to bed and climbed into it. She lay in the dark listening to him breathe and the soft shift of furs when he adjusted his position. She squeezed her eyes shut, determined to go back to sleep when Kull suddenly sighed heavily and rose from the bed. He paced towards her, and her heart sped up, uncertain of what he intended to do. But then a small pile of furs fell to the floor beside her, and he dropped a pillow before lowering himself to the ground and squeezing onto the rug with her.
The rug was spacious for one person, but with two people lying on it—and one a very large VaDorok—there was little roomto lie in any way that didn’t have them plastered together. Kull’s arms and tail curled around her, and he made a content sound deep in his throat, a purr rattling from him.
“Aren’t you mad?” she whispered.
“No,” he rumbled tiredly. “But regardless of your good intentions, it seems that I cannot sleep without you.”
She closed her eyes and smiled despite herself. She couldn’t sleep well without him either.
Chapter 19
Kull’s tail twitched restlessly. He had given himself plenty of time to think after disposing of the flute, burying the broken remains over Siouli’s grave. Time in which he considered the scene he had walked in on and the fact that there was no way her small body would have done all that damage to the table the flute had been sitting on. Which meant that she had lied to spare Ren’s feelings.
She had a good heart. That alone had evaporated what was left of his anger, and so he had picked back up her coat that he had been working on and had worked on it into the late hours, adding embellishments once the pieces were neatly fit together. When he was satisfied with the finished piece, he had set it aside only to return to the room and find his ulukska on the floor, granting him the nest in case he was dealing with a turmoil of emotions. That just affirmed his opinion of her. But even as he tried to lay there, the ulukskinon hissed through him, and the nest felt overly large and empty for his comfort. He could not sleep, not until he squeezed himself next to Katie on the fur rug, and wrapped himself around her so that her sweetness could comfort him enough to be carried into the oblivion of slumber.
He hadn’t meant to admit anything to her... but then, why not?
Chapter 20
“Fuck! It’s colder than a witch’s tit in a brass brazier out here,” Katie complained as she huddled deeper into her fur cloak.
Kull’s words about being easily frozen were now coming home to haunt her. They had been out for hours so that she could learn how to check and set traps as they moved around the woods. She trudged after him, hunkering miserably into her furs as she traipsed through the snow, one hour bleeding into another. All the while, Kull filled the minutes in between trap locations, pointing out various things to watch for when traveling across the frozen landscape. She appreciated the effort, even if it was getting harder and harder for her to focus on what he was saying the longer that they were out there. She slapped her hands on her thighs as she attempted to warm them. Parts of her were either tingling sharply or starting to feel like blocks of ice.
