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“Iknow,” he repeats, emphasis on the second word. “I did not think you had.”
Well. Good, I suppose. But what now? If I don’t have to worry about his safety or Rognar’s, I should release him. Especially considering the fact that his parents are gone. He probably has duties and responsibilities that he needs to address in the aftermath of their executions. Maybe even emotional distress to work through; though it sounds like his parents were villains, he may still have complicated feelings about their demise. Going home would help with that. My Mating Instinct howls, hating that idea. It wants him to stay with us, always. But, ignoring my primal instincts, I know it is not worth having a mate that doesn’t want me back.
I open my mouth to say so, when he bolts the door behind him and walks to the bed, glancing at the pitcher and basin on the bedside table.
“Well, I suppose we should get ready to sleep. I’m exhausted.”
What? Is he so tired that he doesn’t realize what this means? He’s free. Or maybe he is still thinking that I mean to kill innocent people if he leaves me.
“I was bluffing,” I blurt out. He turns and looks at me, a questionin his eyes. I charge on, “When I said that I would kill people if you left. I was bluffing. I didn’t want you to leave and seek your revenge, so I lied. I wouldn’t have hurt anyone, even if you left.” I would have just hunted him down again, but I don’t say that bit.
“Good to know,” he responds, then turns and pours some water into the basin. Taking the cloth folded next to it, he starts washing his face.
Infuriating, insufferable human. Will he not get what I am telling him without me saying it outright?
“I release you,” I grind out. It’s harder to say than I thought. My Mating Instinct growls and snarls, extremely unhappy. “You can go. Go find your sister and be with her again, or go reclaim your family’s lands or whatever you want to do.”
“I know,” he says again. If he keeps sayingI know, in that calm, knowing tone of voice, I might attack him.
“If you know,” I counter, “why are you still here?”
He turns around, fresh-faced, and says, “When my sister was married to King Yorian, he hurt her.”
Everything in me goes still.What?
He continues, “I couldn’t prove it, but I knew. I knew my sister, I knew all the signs. You see, she is my adoptive sister and my parents used to be cruel to her as well, which is why I am not surprised they tried to be cruel to her as an adult. So I know how my sister acts when she is hurt and trying to hide it, how she hides her fear behind an icy demeanor. I knew that the king I served was beating the sister I loved and I could do nothing.”
I don’t know why he is telling this story, but I am enthralled. This is my first authentic look at myAsh’ka, without vengeance and enmity between us. “Why?” I ask, “Why could you do nothing? Why didn’t you kill him?” Was he scared of being executed after the act? But that doesn’t hold up to what I know about Marvik. Isaw him face his death before and he was at peace with it.
He sits on the bed, looking up at me and replies, “When a soldier is chosen to join the Blue Guard, the king’s guard, he must make an oath. An oath to protect Yorian from all danger, to never let him come to harm, even by inaction. I thought, at the time, that the wording was strange, but formal oaths can be stilted in their diction. It wasn’t until after I had made the oath that I realized he had tricked me into a Midnight Oath, a promise that is enforced with a curse. Eventhinkingabout breaking the oath, thinking of hurting my king, caused me pain, like a hand squeezing around my heart. I would not have been able to kill him before the curse took hold and killed me instead. Then everyone would know what I had attempted, and the one left to shoulder my blame would have been Adalind.”
A memory comes to the surface. “So when we were fighting at the fort and you said that you couldn’t let me kill the king . . .”
He nods. “I literally couldn’t. If I could have surrendered and saved my men and handed you the king, I would have, with no hesitation.”
“And the reason you knew Yorian was dead was . . .”
“. . . because I could think of killing him and no pain came to me. I was free from the curse.”
Fuck me. I had known that Yorian was a worm, a coward, and a poor commander. I had experienced all that during the war. But to go this far, to trust his personal knights so little, shows how corrupt he truly was.
Marvik keeps talking. “I had to live for years, protecting my sister’s abuser, watching as she became a shadow of her true self. I love my sister. It was the worst kind of torment to experience that. So when you told me that your king had killed her, for the sins of the king that tortured her, I lost all reason. I couldn’t save her from Yorian, but I could make your king pay. My vengeance wasworth my honor.”
I am reeling from his revelations, and I feel, for the first time, that I really understand the human. If someone hurt my parents or my cousin and all I could do was stand by and watch, I would go insane. And if they were killed . . . there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to avenge them.
Still, I don’t know why he’s telling me all this until he says, “But I don’t have to worry about that now. Your king . . . he is a good orc?”
“The best,” I reply.
“Will he take care of Adalind? Be faithful to her? Treat her as an equal?”
“My king has long wanted a mate to be his equal,” I tell him. “I have no doubt that he will treat his queen well, as an honorable orc ought to. His own mother was killed by his abusive father and Rognar always swore to be the opposite of his hated progenitor.”
“Then my vengeance is no more and I am free to follow my honor. Honor dictates that I owe you a life debt and I aim to stay by your side until it is repaid.”
My blood freezes at his words. I don’t want anAsh’kathat is with me only out of duty. It is almost more painful than having anAsh’kathat is my enemy.
“Like I said, I release you,” I say emphatically. “Your life debt is void. I was the reason you were dying in the first place and you saved me from the werewolf, besides. You do not need to stay with me.” I will just go through life loveless and alone, a hermit somewhere remote where I can live with my disappointments and my sins.
