My Useless Tamer Skill Tamed the Emperor novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: No Collar

She waited until the change was finished, and he had his breath, and then she opened her hand.

The small silver key lay in her palm with its bird-shaped bow.

Valdemar stared at it.

"You took it from the captain," he said.

"From his belt, in front of eleven soldiers and a Regent. I'm quite proud of it."

"You should be." His voice had gone rough. "Hinata, do you know what this is?"

"It's the key to your collar."

"It is eight months."

She stood up from the cot and came to him, where he knelt on the boards in the lantern light.

"Tell me what happens when I open it."

"The runes sleep when the clasp is open. The priests will learn nothing." He lifted his chin, offering his throat, and his hands curled on his thighs. "Do it."

"Hold still."

She slid the key into the tiny lock under his jaw.

It turned with a click.

The silver band came apart in her fingers, and the weight of it fell away.

Valdemar made a sound she had never heard from a person.

He put his hand to his bare throat, and his eyes closed, and for a moment he only breathed.

The skin there was pale, with a raw red stripe where the band had sat.

"Oh," he said very quietly. "Oh. I had forgotten the air."

Hinata set the collar down on the table and got back on her knees in front of him.

"Your skin is raw there."

"It does not ache anymore." His eyes opened, and they were shining. "Thank you."

It was the first thing he said.

Not her name, not a command, not a joke.

Thank you.

She put her hands on either side of his face, and he turned his cheek into her palm.

She felt a funny twist in her chest she couldn't name.

"I wanted to be careful with you," she said. "I took the key from a man who'd have beaten me for it, and I wanted..."

"I know."

"I wanted you to have one night."

"One night," he repeated, and his mouth curved. "The first of a hundred."

He caught her hand and kissed the paw prints.

Then he looked up at her through his lashes.

"Hinata. There is something I want from you."

"Anything."

"Give me a strip of leather."

She blinked.

"Something plain," he said. His ears had gone a little pink. "Not silver. Not runes. Something you buckle yourself."

She understood him slowly, and her pulse tripped.

"You want me to put something on your neck."

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