Chapter 10
Wodred
Present Day
To have Melelea sitting in front of me on my warbeast is the most delicious of tortures.
Her scent curls up to me from under the orikiri leaf tea that she imbibes to mask her emotions and pheromones.
Normally, she is too far away for me to scent her emotions, but now I can smell her determination, the touch of sadness she feels for leaving her family, and something else.
Something very like embarrassment, but that cannot be right.
What would she have to feel embarrassed about?
Underneath it all though, is the scent that is driving me mad, the scent that is hers and hers alone.
She smells like lemon and ginger, bright and spicy and delicious.
I can only imagine that she tastes as good as she smells, and wonder how her pleasure might enhance her mouthwatering scent.
But those are dangerous thoughts. Foolish thoughts.
Melelea has never been mine and her pleasure is none of my business.
Still, it is hard not to think of such things with her sitting so close to me, trust apparent in her posture.
I would never break that trust. Not in a million years.
Not even if the Father God himself commanded it of me.
Melelea’s trust is so hard-won and has been bruised so deeply in the past. I will never be the one to wound her again.
The thought of Melelea’s past hurt is painful enough to me that it dismisses any amorous inclinations her scent might have conjured in me.
It is a reminder that I left her with a monster of an orc for over twenty years, left her to be hurt and humiliated because I was too stupid to see the signs of what was going on.
I avoided the court at Ilustan to keep from seeing her and Guruk happy together, never imagining that it was the opposite occurring.
I knew about the mistresses, of course, but thought they had an understanding in their relationship.
I never knew until that day that Guruk declared her dead in front of all that I found out what had actually been happening.
What I could have stopped. I have never been able to look at myself the same since that time.
Melelea miraculously surviving through her own cleverness and the gods’ own grace doesn’t expunge me of my sins.
I do not deserve her regard now or ever.
But I will protect her with my life so the rest of hers may be peaceful and joyous.
I realize I am ruminating too long in my thoughts when Melelea gently touches my hand on the reins and looks up. “Wodred? Is everything all right?”
That touch causes shivers to go up my spine, which I mask by shaking my head.
“Pardon, my lady,” I rumble out. “I was merely thinking about our mission. It will be dangerous the further north we get.” There have been no more reports of demon attacks, but I know it is just a matter of time.
Melelea accepts my prevarication without question. “I seem to remember that you are from the north, Wodred. Are you not?”
Her memory of my origins warms me. “That is correct, my lady.”
Melelea laughs lightly, the husky sound sending skitters of joy over my skin. I would do anything to have her make that sound often. “Wodred, you needn’t stand on protocol when it is just the two of us. We are old friends, are we not?”
I hesitate at her words. Keeping the veneer of royal protocol between us is a verbal reminder to myself to keep myself in check. That we have a separation between us that cannot be bridged.
But my silence seems to make Melelea sad. “ . . . unless, you do not feel that way. I suppose we only ever spoke a few times in passing. But I always felt that you were someone I could trust . . . still, I can see how you would not feel that same closeness with me.”
I could stab myself with a blade and not feel more pain than I do at this moment.
Her sad, unsure words spear me through, as sharp as any sword.
“It is not that, my lady,” I begin. “My hesitation is not because I do not consider us friends. It is merely that I never want you to feel that you are receiving less respect than you are due. You deserve all the esteem in the world.”
And for too long it was denied you. My unspoken words are felt between us.
Melelea is quiet for a moment, then sighs.
“I have received much esteem as Adalind’s lady-in-waiting and even more now that I am recognized as Queen Mother.
But I find that what I lack most is friends.
For many years, with Guruk, I was not allowed the freedom to have such a confidant and living among the humans of Adrik I was more of an object of curiosity than someone whom anyone would wish to befriend.
Though some did venture to be kind to me, like Adalind and Dame Zera.
So, Wodred, I ask that, at least when we are alone together, that we be friends. I have so few that I can name.”
When she puts it like that, it is impossible to refuse. Indeed, I have no desire to refuse her anything that would make her happy. Her happiness is the most important thing to me, a fact that she can never know.
I nod slowly. “I would be honored to call you friend . . . Melelea.”
Saying her name aloud without a title feels like an intimate, forbidden thing. But it feels right, like her name always belongs on my lips, the music of it vibrating against my tongue.
“Good,” Melelea says, sounding pleased. “Now, tell me, will we be reaching your clan lands today? Perhaps seeing your family? I seem to recall that you have sisters.”
The change in topic makes it easier to speak. “Not today. They are very far north. Perhaps by the end of the week, if the weather holds fair.”
“So long?” Melelea says, sounding surprised. “I know that the journey from High Citadel to Ilustan took a long time, but we were in wagons then. I thought on warbeasts at full speed we would reach Adrik soon.”
“Orik is large, my . . . Melelea,” I correct myself before I can say her title. “Even on warbeast it will take a week to reach the Adrikian border.”
“I, more than most, know how large Orik is,” Melelea comments wryly. “Not many have crossed its breadth on foot, you know.”
Chills run down my spine at her words. How could I have been so careless?
Everyone now knows the tale of how Melelea fled from Guruk the night after he gave her a Mating Bite.
Of his fury and cruelty. How she evaded the hunters and eventually tricked them with a false corpse to think she’d committed suicide.
This is what I believe happened for many years.
I executed the Guruk’s hunters myself after Rognar became king in impotent retribution.
Salthu’s face passes briefly before me in my mind’s eye, but I banish it.
Old sins, old regrets, have no place in the present.
But Melelea was more clever than anyone had given her credit for. She had survived and made her way to Adrik to find asylum, where she was taken in by Queen Adalind first as a governess and then as a lady-in-waiting. All this she did on foot.
“Forgive me,” I rumble out. “I did not mean to make light of your knowledge nor your experience.”
“Forgiven,” Melelea replies lightly. “But tell me of your sisters. Did they join the Horde like they wanted or did they join the Healer’s Cohort like you hoped?”
I smile a little thinking of my sisters.
“Sawa became a healer. Her gift blossomed with use and she studied in Arisil with the elven healers. She mated with an elf and returned to our clan lands. She has four orclings and another on the way. Hali, on the other hand, joined the Northern Horde and is a captain of her own cohort. She mated with an orcress when Rognar became king and does not wish for children. She is a good auntie to Sawa’s brood, though. ”
“And you?” Melelea asks, her voice light and amused. “Are you a good uncle?”
I shrug, even though she can’t see me sitting in front like she is. “I am a good uncle when I am home. But I spend many of my days in court at Ilustan, supporting the king. I am not often home in the ka Xonok lands.”
“That is so curious,” the trolless remarks. “You used to never be in Ilustan. It drove Guruk to distraction that you always avoided his invitations. What has changed?”
This is dangerous territory once again. I cannot tell her the reasons for my absence, and now my presence, are both her.
So instead, I reply with a half-truth, grateful that she does not have an orc nose that could smell such things.
“The king changed. I never liked Guruk. I found him weak and cowardly, desperately clinging to the throne by any means necessary. I knew that he only wished to have me at his side to use as a weapon against challengers. A tool to increase his power. He had convinced himself that we were friends, but I never saw him as such. Rognar is his opposite in every way. Strong in his compassion, wise in his judgement. He wields force only in defense of his people and their peace. I would follow him into any battle, on any quest. If he needs me at court, there I will stay.”
“Even if you miss your homelands?” Melelea asks softly.
“I do not miss them as much these days,” I say, then silently curse. Fuck, that was careless. If she asks why it is easier, I don’t know how to answer her without revealing my heart. Seeing her every day at Ilustan makes me feel more at home than I have ever been.
Luckily, she doesn’t pick up on my slip of the tongue.
Instead, she laughs again, but this time with a bitter tinge.
“Guruk would have been shocked to hear your opinion of him, but I remember when you told me of it in Goetia. Though, perhaps in not so blatant of terms. It was why I wanted Rognar to train with you when he reached his training years. I used every bit of influence I had to get Guruk to send him to you. I did not want Rognar to grow into his father.”
I never knew that it was Melelea who wanted Rognar to train with me. The knowledge strikes me like a blow, knowing that she trusted me, even then, with her precious son. That she wanted to protect Rognar from becoming his father, that bastard.
“How can you speak of that orc so plainly?” I rasp out.
“Who?” Melelea asks. “Guruk?”
“He was a monster,” I reply. “He . . . hurt you. And Rognar. How can you say his name so freely?”
Melelea tilts her head in thought. Her long purple hair brushes against my arm as she does so, giving me another whiff of her tantalizing scent.
“It was not always so easy to speak of him,” she admits.
“And truthfully, I do not think of him unless I must. But refusing to speak his name or acknowledge what he’d done merely gave him power over my present that I would not grant him.
He was a monster in his actions, yes, but under that he was, as you said, a weak orc.
An orc terrified of disappointing the spectre of his father.
Not so frightening when you think of him that way, is he? ”
“No,” I agree. “Not so frightening.”
I take a breath, then chance admitting something I have never said aloud before. “I didn’t know what he was doing, Melelea. Not while it was happening. I would have killed him if I’d known.”
“Would you have?” Melelea asks, looking surprised. “Challenged your king for a female that you barely knew?”
“Yes,” I rasp out. “It is my great shame that I did not before you had to escape.”
Melelea absorbs my confession. Does she realize what my words truly mean? The feelings that I have tried so long to hide from her?
If she does, she doesn’t acknowledge them. “Then you are better than all the orcs who were at Ilustan at the time,” she says softly. “No one else seemed to care. Their positions were more important than the pain of one trolless.”
“They were cowards,” I spit out, even as I feel the pain of shame once again. “And they will never bother you again.”
Because most of them are dead, I silently finish.
After Rognar won the King’s Challenge against Guruk, I helped him weed out those still loyal to his father and the ways of his grandfather.
The entire cabinet of ministers and courtiers were executed for turning a blind eye to Guruk’s tyranny in order to profit from it.
Though I am not one to revel in blood, I was glad to use my ax to punish those complicit in Melelea and Rognar’s ill treatment.
“I am glad,” Melelea says, oblivious to my murderous thoughts. “Orik finally seems like it is healing from Guruk and his father. Much of that healing is due to you, I think, Wodred. You guided my son well.”
“I did what any orc of honor would do,” I hedge.
“And yet, under Guruk’s reign, not many did,” she points out. “Take the credit you are due, my friend. I do not speak words just to hear my own voice. I mean what I say.”
“Then, because they come from you, Melelea,” I say, “I will accept them.”
“Good,” Melelea replies, the smile apparent in her voice. “For there are more where they came from.”
I accept her teasing with good humor, my heart warming in my chest. “Then I look forward to hearing them,” I say solemnly, but she takes my words as jest. Her merry laughter peals out, musical and bright.
The sound brings a smile to my lips, pulling at my tusks.
I have heard her real laugh twice today.
That makes it a good day, even though I know we ride toward danger.
But I try not to think of that as we ride along the countryside, conversing.
Tomorrow is early enough for worries.