Page 32 of The VaDorok's Unexpected Mate
“I see,” she murmured, her mind immediately going to things like onions, carrots.
Did such things grow in places where the ground was more frozen than not? She couldn’t imagine any fat beets coming out of the ground. Even the potato-y root grew mostly above ground, which wasn’t giving her much hope for a lot of variety. She wasn’t exactly optimistic about the skinny potato either. She eyed it as she watched it sizzle and cook with the meat. Of the things Kull had fed her over the last few days, she didn’t particularly recall eating anything that resembled it. Even the aroma had a little, slightly floral, sweetness to it that was definitely not like any potato she ever had.
She glanced uncertainly at Kull, but he was entirely focused on the food as he rotated it over the fire, his expression relaxed and pleased as he studied the cooking food as if he actually anticipated enjoying it. While she couldn’t recall eating anything remotely resembling the root in question, the meat she knew from experience was good, so she would have to trust him. That didn’t stop her from peering at him skeptically when he handed her the skewer.
He nodded toward it with an encouraging smile. “Try. You will like it.”
Katie gave it an experimental nibble and smiled when a rich, semi-sweet flavor exploded across her tongue, enhanced by the flavor of the meat juices. She couldn’t even identify the taste as it was so different from anything she had. Slightly honey, slightly nutty with a richness that was entirely unexpected. It was surprisingly quite tasty. She took a bigger bite and made an appreciative sound, drawing a smile from Kull. She blinked, caught in the impact of the smile on nervous system, and nearly choked before she managed to catch herself and remember notto breathe until she was done chewing and swallowing the food. A blush rose to her cheeks as she chewed, mortified over her reaction even if it had gone unnoticed.
“It’s really good,” she finally murmured between bites, and Kull nodded with satisfaction before taking a bite of his own food.
“I wasn’t sure at first if it would be something that your stomach could handle. But seeing how well you have handled the blander foods as I’ve worked other things into your diet, I’m pleased that you enjoy it.”
She took another big bite, and his smile widened, showing more of his prominent fangs as he settled back with his own skewer. It was a strange breakfast, but a companionable one, and she was rather sorry when the last bites of their food were finished, and the skewers wiped clean. Cleaning her hands in the bowl of water he brought her, she glanced up at him curiously.
“Are we going outside now?” she asked.
“In a moment. Let the food settle a bit first,” he murmured as he reclined on the floor beside her.
Katie felt the heat rise into her cheeks again as they sat there, staring into the flames. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye disconcertedly. Should she make some sort of conversation? The Agraak had never been particularly interested in hearing her talk, but then they also never seemed to shut up, either. Unfortunately, while she excelled at speaking her mind, she was terrible at filling silence with small talk. It always felt stilted and awkward to her. But what if he interpreted her silence as maintaining distance between them? Wait... wasn’t that what she wanted? She bit her lip uncertainly but then startled, her eyes swinging to the large male when Kull began to sing sonorously, his deep voice rolling over her in an unfamiliar melody.
The effect it had on her was primal, and she felt her heart speed up as if it quickened something inside of her. She could feel heat come alive and roll beneath her skin before sinking deep, depth within her in waves that only intensified the more they burned. The stirrings of lust and desire—something she believed that she never would feel again after all that happened—rose hungrily from within the hollow pit deep within her belly.
Her lips parted as she drew in a short breath, a tiny gasp of awe, but it was enough to break the spell as Kull jerked and the soft expression that had fallen over his face vanished once more beneath the impenetrable mask of indifference that seldom seemed to crack around her. She trembled in reaction but mentally pushed it down with a sharp shake of her head. It was for the best. She didn’t know what had just happened, but the unfamiliar fire—while receding—still burned and writhed beneath her flesh. What was happening to her?
Kull’s eyes focused on her, their blue color appearing almost crystalline and a shade off from white in the firelight as he watched her. They both seemed to be frozen, staring at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. Katie swallowed and forced her eyes away to seek out her durwa as she smiled nervously. Fuck, she could still feel the heat of his eyes trying to burn a hole through her head.
“I... I didn’t know you could sing,” she murmured even as she inwardly cringed at how cringeworthy that sounded.
His tail curled a bit, and he finally wrenched his gaze away to refocus on the fire. “Music has always been a companion. A language that spoke better than the words I was taught to speak. It has been... a long time... since I felt that desire to sing.”
“I understand,” she replied quietly, and she immediately felt worse for accidentally breaking his flute. Although he had made the choice to not play it, she had removed the choice completely from him of ever picking it up again by accidentally breaking it.“There are certain things that I wonder if I can ever truly get them back again after what has happened.”
Such as being able to trust a male enough to share herself completely with him... or to feel real joy with a male of her choosing? Those words remained silent, locked within her heart, and yet Kull seemed to hear them and understand them all the same.
His eyes shifted back to her sympathetically. “They do come back. It is... different... when you are able to start really feeling again.” The corner of his mouth hitched faintly. “For me, it was finding Ren that made the world make sense again and made me begin to look forward to each day rather than just surviving through it.”
Katie stared at him, a spark of something unknown shooting through her. Was that what she had been feeling lately? Was he doing that for her?
Kull’s expression gentled, his eyes softening as he smiled at her and surprised her by taking her hand in his. Her arm jerked slightly in reaction to the unexpected touch, but the response was smaller, and she quickly relaxed into it as she allowed him to pull her to her feet.
Releasing her hand, he picked up the baskets stacked on one side of the hearth. Set across the top of them was a large blade made of the same metal as his spear. This blade he handed to her as he straightened, his tail brushing the side of her leg in the process. His ears tipped at her and his mouth curled as he nodded toward the door.
“Come. Allow me to show you have to identify and gather the roots,” he murmured.
She held the blade awkwardly in front of her and gave it a jiggle. “Don’t you need this?”
Kull shook his head, the firelight catching the amber stone beads in his mane, and he patted a sheath at his side that shehadn’t seen as the leather was of such a pale color that it nearly blended into his fur.
“I have one of my own,” he assured her. “This is a spare I keep with the harvesting baskets because Ren is careless at times and will forget or misplace his blade. It is better for my peace of mind—and so that he has fewer excuses that he can employ to get out of doing this task—to have a spare ready for him. Now come with me. I have the different root-plots clearly marked out around the den. You will not find it difficult, I think.”
Katie followed him out the door. They didn’t start digging right away since Kull wanted to familiarize her with the locations of the root-plots and what roots could be found where, and he was correct that it wasn’t complicated. She didn’t get it, though. How could such a little chore as gathering roots be worse than trekking across snow hunting?
She discovered it within the first twenty minutes of being crouched, praying the gawl root—the potato-like root she’d eaten earlier, though a dark muddy purple with its bark coating it—from the icy surface of the ground. Her calves, thighs, and lower back were killing her. Worse, despite the vigorous movement of her arms as she hacked the roots loose from the soil, the cold was slowly seeping into her lower extremities, contributing to the vicious ache sweeping over her body.
She thumped her leg with her fist and groaned. Now she got why Ren liked to avoid it. She might have nearly frozen to death while walking everywhere, but at least she was able to move freely. This, however short-lived the chore may be, was practically torture to her unexperienced body.
Biting her lip, she tried to push through it but was distracted by first one icy snowflake and then another, which quickly began to multiply. They were doing their damnedest to obscure the roots and even her basket that she was slowly filling while Kull crouched a short distance away and worked on filling his own.
