Page 72 of Wed to the Orc Captive

“You help Grezha. Mornings.” She ignored the tears on my face.

“It’s not much.”

“Tomorrow, too?”

I had to. I could not imagine staying in that house tomorrow, after his offer. “Yes.”

“The sorceress, then Grezha.”

“...yes.”

She nodded. “It’s good.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how to talk.”

“You learn.”

My breathing had steadied. My heart wasn’t racing anymore.

The water sloshed. She strode towards the bank. “I see you.” Was it my imagination that she hesitated? “Hazanich Varat.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

She did not meet my eyes, but my vision was still so bad compared to theirs. If her sistren were watching, and I would put her in trouble by speaking… “It says good luck.”

When I got back to the cabin in the tree, Vrathgar made no move to discuss anything, to speak at all. So neither did I.

BELONGING

The robins were singing when I slipped out of the cottage.

I avoided Rowena’s questions. I couldn’t endure talking right now. Not with the tension of last night still in my shoulders, the ache in the center of my chest. She went quiet, and took my hand to push her magic into my skin.

It was still unpleasant, the invasion of power, but it was becoming familiar to me: the cacophony in my head, the strangling slipperiness on my tongue. Walking finally toward Grezha’s, I wished more people were awake, so maybe the assault on my senses could drown out the screaming in my mind.

This wasn’t fair to Vrathgar.

Of course it wasn’t fair to me either, but of the two of us, I was the one who’d come into this with a choice. And he was still mopping up the results of that.

I’d chosen to marry him, I’d chosen him, and I had used the specter of some coming trial as an excuse to stay close when I wanted him and he didn’t want me.

I let my footfalls be the rhythm driving that into my bones. He doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t. And yet I kept hanging around his house like a ghost, creating this false feeling of debt in him, this idea that now he needed to offer me shelter. As if my success here could ever heal his image. As if my presence could soothe over the massive wound that was his connection to this place.

I hadn’t meant to be a problem, or a fraud. But that didn’t change what I was doing.

And now he was talking about making oaths to me, things that would block him from finding someone he’d actually love, and I would be hanging around and hanging around until he had to make love to me again, which didn’t mean anything to him, when I should be melting into the darkness like I should as one of his kidnappers and letting him accept the love of someone better suited to a man like him.

I crossed over the stream, moving rock to rock.

Not Rissa. I was not a soft-hearted and forgiving person; I could not bring myself to wish for him to be with Rissa. But maybe one of the other ones. He was handsome and kind and caring and someone would notice. He had options besides me.

I was getting closer to Grezha’s cottage, the path narrowing. I would need to explain everything. She’d been so kind. I should tell her goodbye, before I told him.

I stopped on the path.

What was I going to tell him?

I breathed deep, the seconds with this serpent’s-tongue power dripping away.