A smile danced along his lips as he looked down at me and his voice felt so rough as he spoke the next words to me. “I was the first to find you just outside the cleave, was I not?” “And that is an advantage?” “That was an honor.” He stepped closer to me, and his knee pressed between mine. “I may not be the Achlys that gets to claim you, but I was the first to look upon you. The first to dream of your star-marked face and imagine what it would look like beneath me.”
