The Vandar wine had even more of a kick than the food, making my fingers tingle after only a few swallows. But it was a welcome feeling. Besides, what else did I have to do? I’d never gotten drunk before, always avoiding the fermented algae on my home world because I’d seen what it had done to my father. But this wine tasted nothing like algae, and it made me feel light and giggly, not angry and combative like my father.
When I could no longer feel my fingers or my lips, I walked gingerly back to the pallets that served as a bed, flopping down and stretching my hands over my head. Aside from making me lightheaded, the wine stirred a sinful heat between my legs. I was so distracted by the strange sensation, I almost didn’t hear the door slide open.
But I did hear Raas Vassim stomp into the room. I sat bolt upright, gaping at the Vandar with fresh streaks of blood on his chest.
Chapter Fourteen
Juliette
“What happened?” The buzz in my head disappeared as my eyes focused on his tangled hair and the wet blade of his axe, drops of something I assumed was blood splattering the floor where he stood.
“We raided an imperial ship,” he said, as he took off his armor and hung it on the stand near the door.
I shook my head in an attempt to shake off the last of the wine-induced cobwebs. “Just now?” I glanced at the wall of glass. “Is that why we stopped?”
He peered at me, his gaze moving across my body without hesitation. “Have you been sleeping all this time?”
“No,” I said quickly. He didn’t need to know that I’d only woken up briefly to eat. Then I got defensive. What else was I supposed to do all alone in his quarters? “Not that there’s anything else for me to do since you left me in here by myself.”
“Would you rather I stay in bed with you?”
I clamped my mouth shut. So much for complaining. I was reminded of the Kimitherian saying, beware of your wishes.
The Raas proceeded to undress as he watched me, but he hesitated before he dropped his kilt. I averted my eyes, even though part of me—the part of me that the Vandar wine had made bold and mouthy—wanted to watch. But instead of losing the kilt, he strode toward the bathing area with it still hanging low on his hips.
As he passed me, my gaze was drawn to the wide expanse of his back, and I sucked in a sharp breath. “Your back!”
He stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. “What about my back?”
I stood and hurried to him, my eyes still locked on the open gash across his shoulder. “You can’t feel it? You have a huge cut!”
He twisted his head as if he might actually be able to look at his own shoulder blade fully. “I remember getting hit in my back, but I didn’t know the wound was bad.”
Even though I hadn’t grown up around weapons, I’d grown up with a sister who got into a lot of fights, mostly defending me from the petty comments boys would make about me having more curves than the rest of the girls. I’d become adept at patching up the cuts and bruises that Sienna would bring home, so although this cut was more significant than anything I treated, I wasn’t afraid to tend to it.
“You may be a big, tough warlord, but you can’t ignore this.” I took his hand and pulled him into the bathing area. “Do you have any first aid supplies in here?”
“First aid?”
“Come on, you must treat wounds. I’m guessing you guys get a lot of them.”
He furrowed his brow. “We have a healer, but he’s rarely used for scrapes, which I’m sure this is.”
For the first time, I noticed scars on his back and a few thin ones on his arms. “I wouldn’t call this a scrape. At least let me clean it for you.”
He twitched his shoulder and flinched slightly.
“Aha!” I wagged a finger at him. “I knew it hurt.”
“The adrenaline from the fight is wearing off, that is all.”
I tugged him to the long counter and flicked on one of the polished-ebony knobs over the sunken basin. Water poured out, and I used my hand as a scoop to dribble it over his cut. When I was content that it was clean, I glanced around the pristine room. No stacks of towels. No robes. Nothing.
“I should dry this, but I guess Vandar raiders don’t believe in towels?”
He nodded to the far wall that held a square post covered with metal button embedded in the shiny stone. “We dry ourselves with pressurized air.”
Every time I thought the Vandar were barbarians, they impressed me with their technology. “I don’t think pressurized air would be good for your cut.”
“What would be good for my wound is a bath.”
Before I could argue with him that I doubted the perfumed water would be a good idea for an open cut, he turned away from me and dropped his kilt. My mouth went dry as my gaze followed the blood-stained kilt to the floor. I didn’t have much time to admire his ass before he walked over to the segmented pools and turned again, lowering himself into the murky green water. Once he was submerged, I couldn’t see him, but I’d gotten enough of a look for my mouth to go dry. Not only was his cock long and thick, but it also carried the same swirling black lines as his chest.
Gaping at him like a widemouthed Jer-Jer fish gasping for air wasn’t doing anything to make me look less clueless, but I couldn’t help it.
