Page 83 of Wed to the Orc Captive

At that the younger warrior’s demeanor broke, anger showing through. “What, did you think I was calling this hunt for glory, and not just to save your ass?”

He shook his head. “You were supposed to wait until Khal⁠—"

“This decision was made without you.” Tyralk stepped back, away. “You can be angry. You’re welcome to that.” He glared. “But the rest of the hunt will be waiting at the gates. They already agreed.”

“Who even did you get to agree to this?”

“Hagnar, Dris, Nara, Rorsch, Krashak, Brezha and Larrakh.”

Vrathgar said it like a curse. “Larrakh⁠—"

“You swore to me, when we formed this brotherhood. You gave me your oath.” They stood, face to face, and it felt wrong that the younger one was taller. “So keep your oath, keep it angry, keep it cursing me for an idiot, keep it wishing I’d let you die or let you kill in that ring, but keep it.”

Vrathgar didn’t answer him.

He turned, started walking away. “And bring your wife.”

In our house, Vrathgar packed his gear, unpacked it, packed it again. “This isn’t fair to you,” he growled. “Every time you’re on your feet you get worse again.”

I was on my side on the straw mattress. He’d said he’d pack the blanket last. “It would not be fair to me to have you die, either.”

“I was not going to die.” He started tying pieces to the pack straps again.

“If you kill one of them, that harms you.”

A knot came undone, and he tore the cord off, started over. “Harm against me is not my concern right now.”

“I know. It’s mine.” I was being too bold. I wished I could be stronger. “...and your brothers’, too.”

He yanked the tack into place. “It’s a fairytale that no one has to suffer, that people hold hands and evils go away. If people are allowed to wrong you with impunity, if no one makes them pay for it, they keep going. No amount of me playing nice stops that.”

“You think they’re going to kidnap me again?” He was so focused on the pack strings. “But they can’t. You’re sending me away.”

“I have one thing I’m good at, Annora!” His voice rose. I flinched. He froze again. “Sorry,” he said. He sunk back onto the floor. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.” An echo. Meaningless.

He turned away, went back to tugging on the straps, checking each one for give. When he spoke, it was steady. “I have spent my life unable to protect the people I love, Annora,” he said. “No amount of climbing walls and stalking their hunts was ever going to keep you safe. No amount of giving my blood and sweat was going to make them see me as someone they’d accept. I can’t protect. The best I can do is avenge.”

Maybe this had driven me mad. Maybe these weeks leaning on his arms had pushed me past saving. “Do you?” I whispered.

He slapped the bag closed. “Do I what?”

“Am I someone…that you love?”

He stopped moving, stopped everything. Our gazes locked.

A heavy hand rapped at the door.

“That’s Hagmar,” he said. I didn’t answer. He went to open the door.

We left his house in the chill before dawn. The world was shadows to me, and I held onto his arm, pain already tightening at the base of my spine. The road out of the enclave twisted into the rock.

I'd gotten better at walking in the last week, but I hadn’t done this much of it. I was still clenching too much of myself, waiting to accidentally use whatever muscles connected to the pieces of me that were broken. Vrathgar stayed beside me, hovering, his head still swivelling like he expected an attack that wouldn’t come. When Khal’s smaller cousin appeared from the trees, he bared his teeth.

Just as the sky shed pink, our party walked through what looked like a wall of solid stone.

We were out of the mountain.