Chapter 12
Ralvar's stride was steady, a ground-eating lope that covered distance without apparent effort.
Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her thighs gripping his waist, and with each step she felt the shift and bunch of muscle beneath his skin.
The power there was staggering. He could have crushed her without thinking.
Could have snapped her spine with one careless flex.
Instead, his hands cupped the backs of her thighs with impossible gentleness, adjusting her position whenever she started to slip.
The forest flowed past them in a blur of green and shadow. Ancient trees towered overhead, their canopy so thick that the daylight filtering through turned everything emerald and gold.
"How are you not tired?" she asked against his shoulder. They'd been moving for hours. The sun had shifted from morning to afternoon, and still he ran.
"I am tired." His voice was even, barely winded. "But not of carrying you."
"That's not an answer."
She felt more than heard his low laugh, a rumble that vibrated through his chest and into hers. "Mountain Clan warriors train from childhood for long campaigns. Days without rest, if needed. Carrying weight across difficult terrain."
"I'm not exactly a light pack."
He slowed slightly, turning his head to catch her eye. "You are precious cargo," he said. "The weight is irrelevant. Only the value matters."
The feeling came again, twisting in her chest, the one she kept getting around him. Like old wounds being reopened and cleaned and finally allowed to heal.
She pressed her face against his neck and breathed him in.
"Tell me about Northwatch," she said. Partly because she wanted to know. Mostly because the silence gave her too much room to think about what waited ahead.
"Northwatch is an outpost." His rhythm didn't falter as he spoke. "It sits at the head of Blackridge Pass—different from Stonehall, where your wagon traveled. Blackridge cuts deeper into the mountains, into territory humans rarely see."
"And you are its captain?"
“I command the patrol, yes. Northwatch is my permanent station. My home. The warrior garrison rotates, but the settlement itself is permanent. Support staff, families, craftsmen. About twenty warriors currently, plus perhaps thirty others who live there year-round.”
Twenty warriors. All orcs. All as massive and terrifying as Ralvar.
"Will they—" She stopped, swallowed. "What will they think of me?"
"They will think their captain has lost his mind." His voice was dry, but when she leaned over to look at his face, there was amusement in his expression. "A human woman. Carried in from the border. It will be the most interesting thing that has happened in months."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's not meant to be." He ducked beneath a low-hanging branch, adjusting his grip on her thighs. "I will not lie to you, Delia. There will be stares. Questions. Some may be hostile. We are not so different from humans in that. Prejudice exists among my people as well."
Her stomach clenched. She'd expected this, but hearing it confirmed was different.
"However." His voice shifted, taking on an edge that sent a shiver down her spine. "You are under my claim."
"Your claim?"
His shoulders tensed slightly beneath her arms. "A poor choice of words," he said. "I do not claim you as property. You are not owned. But in the terms my people understand, you are... mine to protect. Mine to speak for, until you can speak for yourself. It is a position of honor, not subjugation."
"What does it mean, exactly? Practically?"
"It means no one may approach you without my permission. No one may challenge your presence without going through me first. If you need something, you ask me, and I provide it. If someone harms you—" His voice dropped to a growl. "—they die."
The matter-of-fact way he said it didn't frighten her. It should have. She was trusting her life to a creature who could casually discuss killing without raising his heartbeat. But instead, she tightened her arms around him and pressed closer.
"And the sanctuary?" she asked. "How does that work?"
"There is a ritual. Simple, but formal. You state your name, your origin, your reason for seeking protection. An elder hears your claim and accepts it into clan record. From that moment, human law has no authority over you. You belong to the mountain."
"Belong to the mountain," she repeated. "Not to you?"
His stride faltered for just a moment. Just a heartbeat. Then he was moving again, steady as ever.
"The mountain," he said quietly, "would not object to sharing."
They stopped as the light began to fail.
Ralvar had found a hollow beneath an outcropping of rock, smaller than the watchtower, but dry and sheltered from the wind that had picked up as afternoon turned to evening. He set her down carefully, propping her injured ankle on his folded cloak before disappearing into the trees.
Alone in the growing dark, she expected fear. Expected the terror that had gripped her that first night, hiding in a hole with the storm howling overhead. It didn't come.
Instead, she found herself listening for his footsteps, waiting for his return the way a child waits for a parent to come back from checking for monsters under the bed.
He wasn't the monster, she realized. He never had been. The monsters were the ones who'd sold her. The ones who'd lied about where she was going. The ones who'd looked at her body and seen burden instead of person.
Ralvar saw something else entirely.
He returned with his hands full of strange plants. Green stalks and leaves she didn't recognize.
"For your ankle," he said, kneeling beside her. "The swelling has worsened with travel. This will help."
He crushed the leaves between his palms, releasing a sharp, medicinal smell that made her eyes water. He packed the pulp around her ankle with careful fingers, then bound it in place with strips torn from the hem of her ruined dress.
"You know healing," she said.
"Every warrior does. In the field, you cannot always wait for a bone-setter." His hands lingered on her leg, warm through the makeshift bandage. "The Mountain Clan has healers who could do better. When we reach Northwatch—"
He stopped.
Every line of his body had gone rigid. His head turned, tilting slightly, and she saw his nostrils flare.
"Ralvar?"
"Be still." The words were barely audible. "Do not move."
He rose in one fluid motion and crossed to the edge of their shelter, pressing himself against the rock. Delia's heart hammered in her chest, but she did as he said, stayed frozen, barely breathing.
Voices.
Distant, but growing closer. Human voices, rough with frustration and fatigue.
"—can't have gone far."
"We've been at this for days. The magistrate’s going to have our heads if we don't—"
"Then we don't go back without her. Simple as that."
Delia's blood turned to ice.
They were maybe a hundred yards away, from the sound of it. Maybe less. In the fading light, with the terrain working against them, they probably couldn't see the hollow, but if they came much closer—
Ralvar's hand found the hilt of his sword. The blade was already half-drawn before Delia made a desperate sound in her throat.
He stopped.
Turned to look at her over his shoulder. In the dim light, his eyes seemed to glow, burning like embers in the shadows.
She shook her head, very slightly. Please. Don't.
His jaw clenched. She could see the war playing out across his features, the predator in him straining against the leash, every instinct screaming at him to eliminate the threat.
But he let the blade slide back into its sheath.
Instead, he crossed back to her in three silent strides, lifted her as easily as before, and moved.
Not running this time. Something quieter.
He slipped through the growing darkness like smoke, each step landing exactly where it needed to, every movement calculated to avoid the crackling leaves and dry twigs that might give them away.
Delia clung to him, not breathing, as the voices faded behind them.
They traveled in silence for what felt like an eternity. The forest darkened around them, night falling fast in the deep woods, until she could barely see anything beyond the bulk of his shoulders and the faint gleam of his tusks.
Finally—finally—he slowed.
"They're behind us." His voice was a low rumble against her ear. "A mile, maybe more. They won't travel well in full dark. We're safe for now."
She let out the breath she'd been holding in a shuddering rush.
"We'll make camp ahead," Ralvar said softly. "Rest a few hours. By dawn, we'll be in sight of Northwatch."
"And the guards?"
"They won't follow us there. They'll see the watchtowers and know what waits inside. Humans are prejudiced, but not suicidal."
He carried her on through the dark.