Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
FENRIK
I t wasn’t even noon, and I had two fat haris. I was humming and heading back to our cabin when two orkin stepped out from the forest and onto the path before me. I recognized them as two members of our guard: Nils and Gris.
“Hello, Fenrik,” Gris rasped in his low voice. “We’ve been looking for you for quite some time.”
“Well, you can’t have been looking very hard. I have been in the same place for almost a manathur,” I sneered.
“Well, we’ve found you now, and you are returning with us. The jarl would like to speak with you.” Nils grabbed my wrist while Gris pulled out a length of knotted rope.
“You mean to bring me back like a prisoner?” I knew the jarl wasn’t happy that I didn’t want to take his daughter as a mate, but I didn’t think he was upset enough to take me captive.
“If that’s what it takes.” Gris tossed the haris aside as he bound my hands together. “Maybe we’ll put in a good word for you if you don’t fight us all the way back.” He prodded me in the back with the butt of his spear to get me walking.
They marched me back to the tribe at a blistering pace, but I didn’t fight or complain. My mind was working the entire time. I had to figure out how to get to Tracy. I’d told her I was going hunting, but she would start to panic when I didn’t return. I only hoped she would listen to my warning and stay in the cabin. The thought of her wandering alone through the forest made me feel physically ill. If I ran for it now, I would be outnumbered. I hated to admit it, but together, Nils and Gris could take me down and tie me up completely, leaving me no choice but to return to the village—and they’d tell the jarl I’d fought them. It was in my best interest, and Tracy’s, to go willingly.
The sun was low in the sky when we finally approached the village. I hadn’t figured out what I would do about Tracy. Nils and Gris took me straight to the longhouse. The entire tribe was there for the last meal, and a silence fell over the room as Nils and Gris took me up to the head table. Jarl Gorm was seated, surrounded by the other elders, with Kelda to his left, and much to my surprise, she was holding hands with Sven, one of our older cooks. They appeared to be utterly smitten with each other.
As Gorm watched me approach, he placed his elbows on the table and pressed his fingers together, assessing me. “Well, they finally found you. It has been so long I thought you’d perished out in the forest.”
My brain was working overtime, trying to figure out what Gorm was thinking. Would he punish me for fleeing and embarrassing his daughter? What is the worst he could do? Exile? That would be fine. I could go to Tracy, and we could even build a new home if we couldn’t use the outpost anymore. That was probably the best-case scenario. Worst case? He could order me killed. Gorm was a fierce leader, but I doubted death was on the table. I shifted my weight from one foot to another as Gorm’s eyes continued to bore into me.
Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. “Well, what are your plans for me? It doesn’t seem as if taking Kelda as a mate is an option anymore.”
Gorm’s eyes flicked to his daughter. She wasn’t even paying attention to our conversation.
“Luckily for you, once you fled, ” he spit out the word with venom, “Sven approached me. Apparently, he had always been interested in Kelda but thought I wouldn’t consider him worthy as a mere kitchen worker. While Sven might not have been who I would have chosen, he and Kelda are very happy.”
Hope bubbled up in my chest. “So it seems my decision not to take Kelda as my mate was for the best?”
Gorm scowled. “The fact that my daughter is now happily mated does not dissolve the need for some punishment for your failing to follow a direct order. You cannot be trusted as a hunter anymore. You will be stripped of your hunter status. You can either work in the kitchens or work in the fields. Your choice.”
I tried to keep my face as neutral as possible, not wanting to give away my surprise at my punishment.
“I’ll work the fields,” I tried to say with a tone of disgust.
I was secretly elated. The tribe viewed farming and the kitchen as “soft” work, but it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. Not being able to leave the village would mean more time with Tracy—if I was somehow able to get the tribe to welcome her in. I would be home for her every night and could even have midday meals with her. Now I just had to get her here.
“Very well, you can start in the morning,” Gorm said. “You look in dire need of a bath.”
He sniffed the air as if he could smell me from across the table.
Fuck. I needed to get Tracy. “Um, may I be allowed to return to the outpost to collect some things?”
“What could you possibly have of value at the outpost?” he asked, glaring at me.
Throwing caution to the wind, I said, “Well, it isn’t so much as some things as it is some one .”
Silence hung thick in the air as Gorm studied me. “What do you mean someone?”
I quickly explained how Tracy arrived at the cabin and that she had been staying there since, having no place else to go. I referred to her as an alien—which she was—but I didn’t want Gorm to get any ideas about how much she meant to me. He’d could easily come up with some sick way to use it against me.
When I finished the story, Gorm’s disbelief was written all over his face, and his raised eyebrows were a clear sign. “You expect me to believe you have been living with a lifeform from another planet since you ran?”
“Well, they didn’t have anywhere else to go and had no idea how to care for themselves, so… yeah…” I finished lamely.
“I don’t believe this nonsense. Gris! Nils! Get some food and then head to the outpost. Retrieve whatever or”—he gave me a withering stare—“whoever is there and return to the village.”
I opened my mouth to protest. Tracy would be terrified of orkin strangers walking into our cabin.
“Jarl—” I began, but he cut me off.
“There is no way I am letting you leave again, Fenrik. I am not sure I even believe your story. It sounds like a fabrication to get away from the village again. Now go shower and get out of my sight.” He waved me off with a disgusted noise.
I headed out of the longhouse, shoulders slumped in defeat. I was barely aware of my surroundings as I headed to the sauna. It was late, so I was the only one there. Distracted as I was by what would happen to Tracy, I couldn’t deny it felt good to be properly clean for the first time in a long time. I showered and headed to my cabin. It was unusual for single males to have their own cabin, but I was older and had shown no sign of finding a mate, so the tribe let me build a small cabin for myself rather than living as a grown orc with my parents. I pushed open the door to find it completely untouched. Even my half-eaten meal was left from the night I fled.
I cleaned up the bare minimum and then headed to bed. My chest clenched, thinking about what Gris and Nils would do when they found Tracy. They wouldn’t hurt her, Gorm would be furious, but they wouldn’t coax her out like the delicate thing she was. She would be terrified.
I contemplated sneaking out to find her, but saw Gorm had placed two guards outside my door. Stupid bastard. I climbed back into bed and I lay there for a long time unable to get comfortable, and when I eventually fell asleep, I drifted in and out of nightmares of Tracy screaming and her blue eyes wide with terror. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get to her.
TRACY
Fenrik had left early the next morning, we were low on meat. I decided to bathe and wash the bedding. We both needed it—and it would keep my mind off of Fenrik out in the woods alone. I trudged outside, washing supplies thrown in a basket. It wasn’t so much that it was heavy, as it was awkward to carry down to the stream.
By the time I finished washing and hanging up the bedding, it was nearly midday, and he hadn’t come back, but that wasn’t abnormal. I ate some of our remaining dried meat and tidied while waiting for him to return.
I started to worry as the sun began to sink. I rushed and pulled the sun-warmed bedding off the line before the sun set completely. Not sure what else to do with myself, I made the bed. Then, with the last rays of the sun, I built a fire in the bedroom fireplace. I didn’t have the energy to build one in the living room—it wasn’t like anyone was sitting there, anyway. The sun had completely set, and it was a moonless night. I stood at the bedroom window for a long time wishing Fenrik would appear, before I gave up and sat at the edge of our bed.
I tried not to dwell on what might have happened. Fenrik would never leave me. He must have gotten hurt. The idea was almost more than I could handle, and I felt my chest grow tight at the thought of him alone and injured out in the forest’s darkness.
No, he had to be fine. He was probably just caught up in hunting. He was very capable, even at night. Orcs had much better vision than humans. I’d learned when we’d gone on walks that he tried to point out flora and fauna to me, and I was insistent he was imagining things.
Fenrik was fine, just struggling to find food. I told myself this repeatedly as I curled into a ball on the bed. He’d be here when I woke up. He’d snuggle up to me and spoon me until I awoke. Fenrik was fine. He had to be fine.
I was jolted awake by a large bang in the living room. Something—or someone—had hit the cabin enough to cause it to shake. I sat up in the bed, torn between hiding in the bedroom and running to see what had caused the commotion. I wasn’t going to be one of those dumb white girls in horror movies that ran toward danger. The bedroom window was big enough for me to fit out of, and I was considering if I was strong enough to push it open when the bedroom door was flung open with such force that it bounced off the wall. On the other side of the door stood two hulking orcs, neither of which were Fenrik. I tried to scream, but it was lodged in my throat as the two orcs looked at me intently.
“That’s it,” the shorter one said, cocking his head to the side and squinting as if his vision wasn’t the best.
“Já, yellow hair,” the taller, scarier-looking one rasped.
He had a scar that bisected his face, running from his jaw to his temple, and he looked at me with such ferocity that I felt myself start to tremble. Whoever they were, they were here for me. I stepped toward the window, but the taller one was fast. He wrapped his arms around my waist before I had made it two steps. I struggled, kicked, and clawed, but I might as well have been fighting a boulder because of his strength. He was even taller than Fenrik and just as muscular. Finally finding my voice, I started screaming my head off while trying to free myself from this massive, grouchy orc’s grip.
The shorter one covered his pointed ears. “Can you get it to stop making so much noise?”
“I don’t know why it is screaming,” the grouchy one rasped.
They were referring to me as “it” as if I wasn’t sentient, and with every kick and scream, Mr. Grouchy’s hold on me got even tighter until it felt like he was crushing me. My panic went from high to off-the-charts as I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe. I struggled and struggled until I felt my vision start to tunnel. My breath was coming in short, shallow bursts, and I knew what was coming as I continued to claw against my captor, but it was too late. I was going under. My vision winked out. My last thought was I can’t be abducted again.