Page 45
I crouch there in silence, turning the strips every so often with the tip of my claw. Fat hisses against hot stone, sending tiny bursts of smoke into the air, and across the fire. Furs rustle. My human shifts before letting out a quiet groan.
“Smells... better than I expected,” he mumbles, his voice still thick from sleep. I glance up to find him watching me with his lips turned down slightly. The cover I wrapped him in nearly drowns his small frame. “Can I ask you another question?”
I tilt my head in response, waiting patiently.
“Your name. Orion. Where did it come from?”
My hands grow still as the question settles over my den. No human has ever asked me such things. “My mother.”
His eyes grow round, seemingly out of shock. “You have a mother?”
An irritated chuff leaves my throat. Of course I have a mother, as all living creatures do. I did not just… begin out of thin air.
The human seems to understand my way of thinking. “Okay, that was rude. Uh… I meant, like, you said you hadn't met another of your kind.”
“I have not.” That answer only seems to confuse him more, if the way his mouth twists is any indication. “My mother was as you are.”
He blinks several times. “Human?”
“Yes.”
The blood running through his veins quickens. “Impossible.”
“It is not.”
“You're telling me,” he says with a nervous laugh, “that your mom was human?”
“Yes.”
“And your father?”
Ignoring the twinge in my scar, I press a hand against my chest. “As I am.”
His gaze travels over my horns and claws slowly. “That doesn't make any sense.”
I hum and flip a strip of meat to the other side. Whether or not it makes sense is irrelevant. My very existence proves that such things are possible.
My human opens his mouth, then shuts it again, like a fish floundering for air. “So you're a halfbreed?”
“I do not know what this means.”
“You're...” He pauses, rubbing at his forehead. “Part human, part whatever your father was.”
“I am Orion.”
A choking noise escapes his throat. “I swear, talking to you is like trying to solve a puzzle with most of the pieces missing.”
I do not know what a puzzle is, either, but I return my attention to the meat I am warming, lest it burn.
The human grows quiet again.
“So, your mother,” he asks after a long pause. “Where is she?”
Memories stir behind my eyes that have long since been buried—a warm hand in mine, starlight. Her laugh echoing through the mountain before it was abruptly snuffed out. My fist tightens unconsciously. “She is gone.”
“And your father?”
“Vanished.” I touch the scar on my brow with the flicker of a memory. “I… do not remember. Only that they were here… and then they were not.”
