Page 91 of Wed to the Orc Captive

“I should find your blanket,” he said, blinking at the water, and it twisted a laugh out of me, the sound broken, but unafraid. I didn’t argue as he fished it back from the depths, as he wrapped it awkwardly around my body again. “Are you ready to get out?”

Maybe I’d never be ready. “Yes,” I said.

My arms found his shoulders again, and he cradled me in the water. Everything felt colder and heavier as he stepped us up into the air.

“I’ll put you on your feet, so you can dress.” And it felt silly to watch him turn his back before I dropped the blanket, to be shielding my modesty when he’d just had me glued to his body with his hands on my skin. But I waited to shuck the blanket for my dress, and then I offered him the same privacy.

He’d lain naked beside me in the jail cell. He’d been so unconcerned. Before…

“I don’t see you as a monster,” I said, the words bouncing off the walls of the little chamber.

The rustling paused. “Come again?” His voice was controlled.

“I don’t…see you like that. Anymore,” I whispered. “In case you were wondering.”

The pause lasted, a moment too long. “...good to know,” he said. And fabric slid again, cloth over skin, and his warmth was at my side. “Let’s get you to bed.”

I could get down by my own strength. I could lower myself onto my knees, fall forwards and wait till the tears of agony were finished, use my arms to drag me into place. But it was an awful lot of time and pain. Even though I was doing better, even though I technically could, I let his arms support me, and I let him lower me down into place.

“What will happen tomorrow?” I whispered. “With the hunt?”

“Nothing,” he said. “We’ll stay here for a few days, and then we’ll head out.”

“Did you want me to sing?” Something clenched in my chest, and I didn’t let myself think into it.

“It would be good, to try. Since Tyralk has taken on this burden.”

I breathed in the dark.

“You’ll be safe. I’ll be right there beside you. And the others. Tyralk, even Larrakh.”

I didn’t want to tell him I was afraid. I didn’t want to tell him I was afraid of the monsters, but even more afraid that I’d fail. “So we’ll hunt, and then we meet them? The others?”

“Yes. At the Kael. It’s similar to this, but different. Less shelter, more power.”

“And there’ll be a trial.”

“Two trials, yes.”

“What happens then?”

“Then you’re safe, no matter what.” He avoided something, but what right did I have to pry, when he wanted to avoid it?

“Will you hold me?” I whispered.

There was a silence, and I thought I’d gone too far, that this was the moment when I was too much. But then his arm rested on my waist, wrapped around my stomach. “Tell me if something hurts,” he said, and I felt him settle against me, his warmth against my back, the heat of his breath on my ear. He pulled the blanket— the one dry one— over us both.

I had never been good at sleeping. My ears had always been too sharp, the drum of my heart too fast. I was never good at telling my mind I was safe to rest. But here, with the rhythm of his breathing, the thud of his heart calming mine, it was like the same, druggish warmth of the pool was pulling me down, like dreams, not feverish, but that different, hazy quality, were already beckoning me, images of leaves and roots, patterns of stitching, bright colors on clean cloth, only good, only good. And maybe I was also dreaming of his voice that rumbled over me. “Barbarian,” he said, “you make yourself very hard to let go.”

A HUNT AND A CHALLENGE

Isank ankle-deep in the dead leaves. Vrathgar watched me like I was going to fall apart, and he wasn’t wrong. “Are you ready?”

The forest canopy spread over us, choking out the light and leaving the earth barren, sloughed in thick drifts of decaying brown.

“I can do it,” I said. I didn’t say I was ready, I’d never be ready for this, but we were three days’ journey from the sanctuary in the stones. I could finally stand without pain. The others murmured and shifted. Vrathgar watched.

When I started singing, he was the only one who drew his sword.