Chapter 11 Betty
BETTY
Darkness.
Not the darkness of night. This is a complete, primal, suffocating darkness. A darkness so total it feels like being buried alive in cold, black earth.
The only other reality is the sound.
The blizzard screams. It is a high, keening wail of a thousand tortured ghosts, a sound of pure, mindless rage. The sound of the world being torn apart, just outside our tiny pocket of stillness.
I am pressed against a wall of stone, and it is so cold it burns. The frigid cold seeps through my cloak, through my tunic, a hundred icy needles pricking my skin.
My breath is a series of short, sharp pants, each one a white puff of air I cannot see.
"Threk?"
My voice is a small, stupid, terrified sound, instantly swallowed by the roar of the wind.
He is here. Of course he is. He is the other wall.
He is the door.
His massive, ten-foot body is wedged into the opening of this cleft in the rock. He is a living, breathing plug of muscle and hide, and his back is to me. The wind howls and slams against his body, but he is a mountain. He endures.
I am huddled in the tiny, black space behind him.
"I... I can't see anything," I whisper, my voice trembling. "I can't even see my own hands."
It's a lie. My hands are fisted in my lap, my thick mittens useless against the tremor that has seized my entire body. I am vibrating so hard my teeth ache.
A low grunt rumbles from the shadow in front of me. It's a sound I feel more than hear, a vibration that travels through the rock, into my back.
I am here.
"It's cold," I say, stating the obvious, the words tumbling out of me. I need to talk. I need to fill the blackness with something other than the screaming wind and the chattering of my own teeth. "It's so... so cold. I've never... never felt a storm like this."
The paralysis from the Dark Elf encounter is gone, replaced by a new, sharp terror. We are going to die here. We are going to freeze in this black hole, and they will find our bodies in the spring, frozen together.
My guilt is a physical, nauseating thing. I did this. I brought him out here. I brought him on this hopeless quest. I am killing him.
My hand comes up, my mittened fingers fumbling for my hair. I can't find a strand. I just fumble, a panicked, useless gesture in the dark.
Stop it.
He grunts again, a low, impatient sound. It’s not the exact words, but I somehow understand.
A violent, bone-rattling shiver seizes me, stealing my breath. I am so cold. The rock at my back is leaching all the life from me.
And then the wall in front of me moves.
I flinch, a small, choked-off scream in my throat.
Threk shifts. He doesn't turn. He just... leans.
His massive back presses into me.
It’s not a blow. It's not an accident. It is a deliberate, calculated pressure.
My back is suddenly free of the burning-cold rock. I am sandwiched. Trapped. Pressed between the unfeeling stone and a living furnace.
Oh.
Oh, gods.
He is hot. The cold was so absolute I didn't even realize it. His body, even through his thick, leathery hide, is a furnace. He is a tall, tall hearth. The heat soaks into my shoulder, my side, my hip. It’s a shocking, invasive, life-giving warmth.
The shivering doesn't stop, but the pain of it eases.
"You're... you're so warm," I whisper, my voice awed.
He just rumbles, a low, deep, possessive sound. It vibrates straight through my chest, a physical, intimate touch. He's not just blocking the wind. He is sharing his life.
And I am no longer terrified of his size. I am grateful for it.
The terror, the sharp, icy panic, begins to recede. It leaves a strange, aching trust in its wake.
The hours pass. There is no sun, no moon, no way to know. There is only the endless, screaming dark.
And my voice.
"Maeve... she said to find a Wildspont," I ramble, my voice growing hoarse. I talk to keep the madness at bay. I talk because his rumbles are the only answer I have left. "A place of magic. A cure. I don't... I don't even know if it's real. It's probably just a story. A way to get us to leave."
Threk is silent, a wall of heat.
"But we have to try. The elves... they're hunting us both. They want to get you back. They aim to... to dissect you."
A growl ensues from him.
The vibration is different. It's not a soft rumble. It's the avalanche I heard in the hovel. The sound of hate. It's low, and it terrifies me, but it's not at me. It's for me.
"It's all right," I whisper, trying to soothe him, to soothe myself. "They're gone. The storm... the storm hid us. You... you hid us. You were... so fast. And so quiet."
My mittened hand, the one pressed between my body and his, moves. I'm not even thinking. I'm just... touching.
His hide is rough, like a thick, scarred slab of leather. It's not skin. It's armor.
My fingers trace the new wound on his side, a long, deep, puckered gash from the raider's blade. He hisses when I touch it, a sharp inhale of pain.
"I'm sorry," I say, my hand pulling back.
But he leans again. Harder. Pinning my hand against his wound.
A grunt. More.
My breath catches. Is he... is he asking me?
Slowly, my fingers move again. I trace the raised, ropy ridges of old scars. So many. His entire back is a map of pain. A geography of a life I cannot imagine. This is what the elves did.
I find the other one, the wound on his shoulder from the other raider.
"You saved us," I whisper, my throat thick. "You saved me. In the hovel, you... I've never... you were terrifying. You were... a monster. But you were my monster."
The words hang in the dark. My monster.
He rumbles, a deep, soft, possessive sound. Yes.
I talk for hours. I tell him about Christmas.
I tell him about the wooden star, how it's a promise.
A promise of light. He grunts when I use the word "Christmas," as if he remembers it.
I tell him about my mother's lullaby. I even hum it, my voice a thin, reedy, shaking sound in the overwhelming dark.
And he listens.
He answers with grunts and rumbles. He growls when he hears the fear in my voice. He rumbles when he hears the hope.
I am not alone in this cave.
The human part of me, the part that needs connection, is no longer afraid of the monster. It is bonding with him.
My voice grows thick with sleep. My eyelids are heavy. The screaming of the wind is a lullaby. Threk's body is a fortress. His heat is a blanket. The deep, slow bellows of his breathing is the only rhythm in the world.
I am safer here, pressed against a ten-foot killing machine, than I have ever been in my life.
I drift. I fall asleep in the dark, my hand still pressed against his scarred, warm back.