Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
I step forward and shove three of the lighter bags aside, clearing out a spot. When I gesture at it, she immediately sinks to the floor and curls up there. “Thank you, Ranan.”
The way she says my name makes my cocks twitch again. I grunt, determined more than ever to find a human settlement and get rid of her. She’s distracting me, and the last thing I need is a distraction with pretty tits and all kinds of willing words born out of desperation. A hamarii is no place for a human, not even the wife of a sea-ogre. She’s not staying.
She wraps her arms around herself and shivers amidst the bags, and I realize she’s still cold. I have no bedding with me, not even fish leather that I can use as a makeshift blanket. Everything’s in my grotto a few days away.
By Rhagos’s eye, I’m going to have to provide the warmth for her.
Clenching my jaw, I lie down on the floor of the tent next to her and pull her against me. She makes a pleased sound and immediately turns into my embrace, putting her arms around my neck.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to pleasure you, Ranan?” she breathes, her voice soft and liquid against my neck.
“Sleep,” I growl at her.
“Right. Sorry.”
She doesn’t sound sorry, though. She sounds a little amused. It irks me for no reason at all, and I put my arms around her and close my eyes, determined to sleep despite the hard, unyielding scratching surface of Akara’s back. If the human can sleep here, so can I. Tomorrow I’ll find a beach and dump her so she can be on her way and I can be free of her. I’ll even give her a necklace so she won’t be totally destitute.
Vali tucks herself against me, her breath fanning against my neck. I start to drift, my nose full of her pleasant scent and tickled by her tangled hair, when she speaks up again. “Ranan? I don’t want to bother you, but I have to find a great fish to give Vor as thanks for bringing me to you.”
I pat her arm, letting that be my answer. I don’t tell her that she won’t need a fish, because she’s not staying.
Chapter
Six
VALI
Sleeping on the “floor” of the tent isn’t the most comfortable, but I’ve had worse. I wake up surprisingly refreshed to find myself alone in the sea-ogre’s quarters. He didn’t awaken me when he left, but that’s fine. He strikes me as a bit of a loner, and it’s going to take him some time to get used to having a wife around. I wonder if we’re going to live on the back of this turtle or if there’s a more suitable place. I can’t exactly ask. My new husband is already prickly with me.
At least, I think he’s my husband. I’m not certain what the marriage laws are with his people, but I know in certain lands, all it takes is a declaration towards a woman and then you’re bound to one another. We could be wedded at this point. I prefer to think of it like that. It gives my new situation a little bit more permanence, and my life has had very little of permanence thus far.
Yawning, I try to tidy the bags on the floor. I’m not sure what the reason is behind attaching a dried fish to each one, but I’m sure there’s a reason. Perhaps an offering to Vor if the bags should fall overboard? I should ask so I can do the same. I still need to give my offering to the great god of the seas, but I think he’ll understand that I’m not exactly equipped to fish at the moment. The bags in the tent are heavy, most of them laden with what sound like metallic objects. There’s a crate, too, but I don’t open it or any more of the bags. Ranan gave me a sour look yesterday when he saw me opening one, and I’m determined to get on his good side today.
I need him to like me because sleeping in his arms was far more comfortable than shivering out in the open. Plus, I’m absolutely famished with hunger, and he’s no doubt got food around here somewhere. If I make him annoyed at me, he’ll swim off again and then I won’t see him for hours, and I can’t catch my own food.
At least, not yet. If we’re to live on the back of a turtle, though, I suspect I’m going to have to learn.
Once the bags are straightened into (mostly) neat piles by the sounds they make when the objects inside clink together, it leaves a lot more room on the floor of the tent. Room enough for both of us to spread out comfortably, and I wonder if there’s bedding somewhere, or if it’s just not something he uses. I suppose I can ask when we get a bit more comfortable with each other.