2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Hendr
“F ades, Hendr, if you’re going to mope about at least be fucking productive about it and skin this buck.”
I was exhausted, frustrated, and had no energy to do much more than glower at Caivid as he sat on the edge of the campfire and cut down an elk leg to cook. The sun had long set and the chill at my back was far more inviting than the fire before me. The oddity of sitting before flames was still unnerving even though we’d been in the Rove Woods for over a moon.
“I’ll skin it!” Ogvick moved in a little closer and Caivid shot him a hard look.
“You aren’t getting any of it.” Caivid shoved the smaller male away with his elbow. He was much larger and nearly pushed Ogvick all the way off the log.
“Why not? We’ve got so much!” Ogvick said as he picked himself up and went to sit on the opposite side of the fire.
“Because you’ve already gotten two whole hides to yourself in the last half-moon. Your bed must be as plush as a sow’s ass now.” Caivid adjusted the elk leg so he could use his claws to carefully remove the hide. The meat beneath was perfect. Bright red muscles and very little pink fat. Not even a spec of black blight in sight. My mouth watered.
And then Nalina’s broken face flashed in my eyes and my chagrin wrung the hunger right out of me.
“It’s not for me !” Ogvick insisted. “It’s for . . .”
Caivid and I both stared at him, waiting for a response. The bright green male’s ears went dark, and he averted his gaze. My nose curled up in disgust at the sight of one of my brethren blushing .
“It’s just getting cold. That’s all.”
“Boarshit,” I said under my breath as I moved away from the flame again. Winter was coming on fast, but it was nothing like the bone-deep chill of the world outside these woods. A world where war was rampant, and the threat of death chilled your bones far worse than frost ever could.
Caivid snorted. “Sure, Ogvick, whatever you say.”
Ogvick went quiet. Slouching down like he was, he looked even slighter. He was one of the smallest members of our warrior band—and the youngest. But what he lacked in muscle, he made up for in speed. “I might turn in early.”
“It’s not fully dark yet,” Caivid said, his brow furrowed. “You haven’t even eaten.”
“I’m just . . . tired.”
I scoffed. “Walking through the woods is too hard on you now? You’ve gone soft that quick? Or is it the weight of the stupidity of our mission that has you exhausted?” That I could understand.
“Don’t let Chief Brovdir hear you say that.” Caivid gave me a hard look. The male had always been on good terms with Brovdir and treated him more like a friend than like what he really was—the warlord’s brother and our new chief.
“He ain’t gonna do shit. He’s too far up Chief Sythcol’s ass to bother.” Irritation made my forehead pound and my ears burn. “He has to know that Sythcol’s orders for us are stupid. Walk aimlessly through the woods all day? Pah! A complete waste of time. These woods are so safe I didn’t even see a blighted rabbit while I was out there.”
I also had not seen hide nor hair of the woman I so desperately wanted. I could smell her though, sweet like summer wildflowers and crisp like cool rain. I’d found the exact spot along the wall that surrounded her village where her scent was the strongest. A place where she’d lingered many times. Daily even. The urge to climb over and get her was like the buzzing of hornets under my skin.
“Hendr.” Caivid’s voice was low, and his bright green eyes narrowed. “You better not be thinking what I think you are. We can’t go near the humans until the next trade.”
“Fuck off,” I said under my breath. “I know the orders.”
“You know them, but are you going to follow them?”
I snorted.
“Hendr, do you want to be banished from these woods, or worse? Why did you fight so hard to stay here if you’re just going to ruin it for yourself?” Caivid’s voice was a low rumble on the wind.
I kept silent because I didn’t know. I’d never been good at obeying anyone, even my own logic. And the pull to be near that woman was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Even stronger than the pull into battle.
Her hurt expression flashed in my mind again. Brown eyes swimming with tears, red lips trembling, cheeks flushed a deep pink that went all the way down her neck, brows set in such a hard scowl. I swear I could feel flames licking my skin.
She hated me. Most of the humans of Oakwall Village did. And I had no fucking idea what to do about it.
“Here.”
I looked up to find Caivid had pulled the elk leg he’d been roasting out of the fire and was holding it out to me. I blinked down at the offering in surprise.
“You look like you need it.”
Anger licked up my spine. “I look like a weakling to you? I could pound you into the ground before you could squeal.”
“Just take it, Hendr,” Caivid said with a roll of his eyes.
“Fine.” I snatched it from him. “But only because I’m hungry.” I’d spent far too much time pining over a woman who despised me and too little time hunting.
I took a bite and the flavor burst in my mouth like the new dawn in spring. The taste was more incredible than anything I could describe. Better than any food I’d ever eaten in all forty-three miserable years of my life. It was clean, pure, and almost sweet .
“Thank you,” I said gruffly, though I wasn’t certain if I was saying it more to Caivid or to the Fades for granting me the luck to be chosen to stay here. Most of my brethren had gone with the warlord, out into a world where we were constantly being hunted by humans of the Waking Order. Where all the animals were blighted and tasted of rot. Where the plants withered and the sun scorched everything it touched.
I was incredibly fortunate to have won my place among those lucky few chosen to stay at Rove Wood Clan. To protect it and ready it for other orcs to settle here.
Orcs who would soon come and be competition for my woman! What if one of them turned her head before I could? My stomach twisted with dismay. “If the humans think banning us from going near the wall is enough to keep me away, they have another thing coming.”
Caivid gave me a sour look. “Not going near the wall to their village has been law for centuries .”
“So what?” I said, mouth full of food. I wasn’t going to waste any of the precious time I had before the other orcs arrived.
“So, you’ll break the peace with them. Do you want war here too? After we just escaped it?” Caivid asked.
My gusto evaporated, and I took a huge bite of the meat. There was nothing snide to say about the peace that made the Rove Woods so pure. Even the wind in the autumn trees felt calm here. It soothed my soul.
“It is disappointing, though,” Ogvick murmured from the other side of the fire. His slender face was outlined sharply by the flickering flames and his eyes were downcast. “We’ve escaped from the war. I had hoped we would escape from the hate as well.”
I swallowed hard. I’d seen the way the humans looked at us at the trade. I’d heard their whispered scorn. I’d watched Nalina’s face pale as she looked at me.
Her kind—humankind—had always hated orcs. Even when all we wanted was to stay alive. It was not our fault that the Fades had not created females for our race. It was not our hand that made human women capable of carrying orc sons.
All we wanted was to preserve our species, just as they wanted to preserve theirs. Was there harm in that? If I could, I would beat sense into their skulls and bellow in their faces until they listened to reason.
But that would do nothing but make them hate us more.
I wiped a hand over my face as if it might scrub out my anger, and in the inky blackness behind my eyes, Nalina’s face burst forth. Her brows pinched, her eyes flooded, and her lip trembling as I spoke too harshly.
Fuck, I was as miserable a menace as they claimed me to be. I did not want to be her enemy. I wanted the opposite. How could I put aside my harsh nature long enough to win her?
“Hendr,” Ogvick said, drawing me out of my thoughts. “You all right?”
“Fuck off,” I muttered, glancing up to see that Caivid was lost in thoughts of his own. I was glad to see that my momentary lapse into sorrow hadn’t been noted by the whole miserable camp.
“You know,” Ogvick said quietly, with his slender, young face tipped up to the stars above us. “Humans aren’t that different from us. They feel pain and anger and sorrow just the same. Relating to them is similar to trading with them.”
“What are you blathering about?” I sat up a little straighter to hear him better.
Ogvick shrugged his shoulders. “If you want one, all you have to do is find what she needs, just like you would for trading. You find what she needs, offer it up freely, and in exchange, she might give you more in return than just trade goods.”
I scowled. “What, like her womb? This is nothing new to me, Ogvick. Human women have played conquest in exchange for boons since our kind breathed their first.”
Ogvick had the gall to look exasperated and I would have slugged the look right off his face had he not continued. “No, Hendr, I mean, her heart. ”
My chest tightened. Her heart?
“You’re delusional,” I said under my breath. “No woman would want to mate with the likes of us. We’d be lucky to get a conquest to carry our son.”
“There are more than twenty mated to the orcs of Rove Wood Clan,” he countered.
“Yes, and not a one of those magic-wielding fucks is an ugly, battle-scarred beast ,” I snapped.
Ogvick scowled and sprang to his feet. “You know what, Hendr, fine. If you want to count yourself out before you’ve even tried, then go right ahead, but I won’t. I’m going to learn everything I can and give everything I have until my woman has melted so much for me, she’d never dream of leaving.”
My brows shot up as Ogvick stormed away from the campfire and back to his leather tent.
He really thought he could win a woman by getting to know her? Would that work?
I had little time to ponder it because as my eyes followed Ogvick, they landed on Caivid, who was talking to Chief Brovdir on the opposite side of the fire. I hadn’t even noticed that Brovdir had arrived. These woods were making me soft.
I looked away before they could notice me staring. I wasn’t eager to talk to either of them.
“You walked her back to Oakwall, and that’s all?”
I jerked to attention at Brovdir’s words just as Caivid nodded. “Yes, that’s all. Nothing else to note from today’s patrol.”
I sprang to my feet and loped over, vicious jealousy churning me up inside. “What the fuck? You saw a human today? Why are you on my ass when you already broke the orders not to see the humans?”
Chief Brovdir narrowed his eyes at me and my jaw set tight.
“I did nothing wrong.” Caivid’s voice was hard. “She asked for my help. Not the other way around.”
Brovdir didn’t argue the point.
My eyes widened with realization. Fuck, why hadn’t I thought of that?
I couldn’t approach her, but she could come to me .
I turned on my heel and headed off into the woods.
I knew just where to find her.