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“What was that?” I ask, my voice husky and a little breathless.
“That,” she replies, “was me taking what I wanted.”
Her words are maddeningly cryptic. Is she referring to her knife? Or the kiss? I can’t ask without looking weak, without sounding like that kiss meant something. Which it didn’t. Itcan’t.
The orcress composes herself rather quickly, putting both knives into their sheaths. Then she looks at me and says, “Like I said, I won’t tie you. We need to cover a lot of ground in the hours we have left, but you will follow me all the same.”
“And why is that?” I ask challengingly. “You cannot keep me as a prisoner forever. Someday I will escape and take my revenge. It is only a matter of time.”
“Yes,” she agrees, a little too easily. “I can’t hold you forever and keeping you tied is out of the question. That plan was made in haste and was running its course soon enough, anyway. And obviously your life-debt to me means nothing, or that would already hold youto my side.”
That stings my honor a bit. It is not that my life-debt means nothing, though truly, I was only dying because she stabbed me; it is that the life of my sister means more to me than my own. Her vengeance must take precedence.
She continues, “No, you will stay with me because if you do not, I will hunt down one innocent human each day that you are not by my side and kill them.”
“What?” My blood runs cold, any lingering ardor instantly gone.
“You heard me,” she says, meeting my incredulous gaze with stone-cold eyes. “I will find a human, the more innocent and defenseless the better, and give them a terrible death. And it will be onyourhead, becauseyouleft.”
Could she really do that? I try to think of what I know of the orcress and come up with surprisingly little. I have not been trying to get to know her in these days of captivity; I have been trying to escape. But she keeps speaking of honor and there is no honor in the killing of innocents.
“You’re bluffing,” I declare, watching her face closely.
“Am I?” Not even a twitch.
“Yes. Your honor would not allow you to commit such a heinous crime.”
She looks like she considers that argument and then shrugs. “So you say. But I am also a deserter with nothing left to lose, and an orc besides. Aren’t we all just barbarians?”
Again, I can read nothing on her face. I don't think that orcs are barbarians, though that was how I was raised to think. I came to respect them in battle as we waged war against them. You can tell a lot about an enemy by the way they fight and the orcs never killed or destroyed more than they had to. Their tactics were always clean and straightforward. But then I remember the battle of Fort Attis and the first time I saw the orcress, a vicious smile on her face whileshe killed a man. Maybe I know nothing about her. Definitely not enough to feel confident in calling her bluff.
“Fine,” I say, my shoulders slumping a little. “I will go with you and I won’t try to run.”
“Excellent,” she says, though her face stays serious. “Now that we have that settled, how about we figure out where we are going next?”
Chapter 8
Dura
Iam bluffing. Of course I am. That would be easy for Marvik to discern if he knew anything about me. Orcs do not kill innocents; there is no glory in taking down weaker prey. But though we have been together for two months, one of those with him awake and aware, he has done his best to keep his distance. He doesn’t know me and, frustratingly, I do not know him.
Nothing is how I wanted it to be. When my parents met, my mother had the Recognition almost immediately and my father’s Mating Instinct awoke. They instantly became a team with ties thicker than blood. It was them against the world. When my mother’s people rejected her for mating with an orc, her parents not believing she could have anAsh’kawho was not an elf, my father was there to hold her as she wept. And when my father Claimed her and lost his position and prestige as cousin to the king, at the order of his tyrant ruler, my mother stayed with him the entire time, the prize that more than made up for his loss.
Their story is not mine. I have anAsh’kawho disdains me, who willfully ignores the fact that I gave up everything for him. And the worst thing of all is even as much as I resent him now, no matter what I said before in my anger, I stillwanthim. My body still tunes to his, the Recognition pushing me to be constantly aware of him, and my Mating Instinct growls and rages, wanting to be close to him.
But I am not ruled by any instinct. I am a shieldmaiden of Orik. I led armies and crushed enemies. And if I am at war with myAsh’ka, I will win and he will never know how his continued rejection pains me.
Still, I cannot help but think I have made a mistake, amisjudgment, as I see his body language change after my threat. The gulf between us is even larger now, with no hope of shrinking. But I have to keep him with me. If he leaves to seek his revenge, either Rognar will die or . . . Marvik will. Both outcomes are unacceptable, and threatening to harm innocents is the only way I can think of to tie him to me without bonds.
Marvik considers my question, then grudgingly asks, “Where is this cave? In relation to Fort Attis?”
“South,” I reply, crouching down and taking out one of my knives. I draw a rudimentary map in the dirt, a box for Fort Attis, the hills I passed to get here and the cave itself. He crouches down as well and holds his hand out for my knife. I merely frown at him.
After a moment, when it becomes clear I have no intention of giving him a knife again, he shrugs his shoulders and uses his finger to draw in the dirt.
“The edge of the forest is about a full day’s march north of the fort.” He makes a squiggle on the ground, about a hand-span above the box I drew. He makes another box. “This is Kingsbury, one of the larger towns in the South. We should head there to get supplies.”
I shake my head. “We cannot be seen. If there are orcs there and they recognize me . . .”
