3. Mira
MIRA
T he fire burned low, painting the cave walls in strokes of amber and shadow. Gorran’s gaze didn’t waver as he spoke, his voice calm but carrying the weight of something ancient and immovable.
We were having this conversation again—the one where he spoke in certainties that felt like pure insanity to me.
He was stoic and patient, as if I were the irrational one and his words made perfect sense.
Ridiculous. You’ll never convince me.
“By orc law,” he said, “I saved your life. You belong to me now. Until the debt is paid.”
My pulse kicked. “Belong?” The word tasted like rust on my tongue. “You saved me to trap me?”
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t flinch. “I saved you. You’re safe. The rest is noise.”
Noise? As if my terror, my fury, and my entire existence were just a background hum?
“You’re out of your mind.” I shoved off the wall, ignoring the ache in my head, and made for the cave mouth. “I’m not your debt, and I’m not your anything.”
He didn’t move to stop me.
The night air slammed into me, cold and wet, scented with pine and the metallic tang of rain. The forest stretched wide and black and terrifying, the branches heavy with water. My heart pounded as I put one foot in front of the other, slowly, deliberately, daring him to challenge me.
Behind me, the fire cracked. Gorran didn’t follow.
Good.
I’d taken maybe twenty steps before the sound came: a deep, unearthly howl, rolling through the trees like the voice of something that had never known fear. My blood froze.
Something was out there.
I turned, and he was already standing in the cave entrance, broad shoulders filling the space, his presence a dark wall of certainty.
“Inside,” he said. It wasn’t a request but a command.
The shadows shifted beyond the tree line, and I saw it: a beast, low and sleek, pacing the edge of the clearing.
Dire wolf.
Its eyes glowed like coals in the rain-soaked dark.
A shiver went through me. The wolves were the things that stalked our human nightmares in the deep of the night.
And so was he.
I swallowed hard and backed up a step, then another. Gorran didn’t look at me as I slipped past him, back into the heat of the cave. His gaze stayed on the creature, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade.
He didn’t speak again until the night went quiet.
That silence felt worse than the howl.
I dreamt of his hands.
Rough and scarred, they were calloused in places where a blade had lived too long. They were capable of tearing a wolf apart, yet in my dreams, they didn’t hurt. They traced the length of my throat, the curve of my hip, and the hollow of my spine with unbearable patience.
Heat bloomed under my skin like a fever. My breath hitched, and I hated myself for the way my body arched into that imagined touch. For the way I wanted.
Impossible. Why did I dream of such things?
I must be feverish. Delirious.
When I woke, the cave was quiet, save for the slow burn of the fire. Gorran was where he had been, crouched near the flames, the blade balanced across his knees. Watching.
As if he already knew the things I dreamed.