Chapter 68 #2
“Ach, you big brute?” Fengr asked again, still coldly smiling at Skirvir, stroking a little harder. While that bulge just kept growing, lengthening and thickening to astonishing proportions beneath Fengr’s deft ministrations. “More for me?”
“A-ach,” Skirvir replied, his eyes fluttering, his face flushing. “M-more for you, dancer.”
Sybil was watching this display with incredulous revulsion, but Raye didn’t miss her eyes darting down to Skirvir’s trousers, holding rather too long on the sight.
While Fengr gave Skirvir’s gigantic bulge one more squeeze, followed by an approving pat, as though it had properly obeyed his instructions, and done exactly as he’d wished.
“I ken we are done here,” he told Skirvir, with satisfaction.
“Ought to go see if the others have need of us.”
Skirvir numbly nodded, allowing Fengr to steer him around and back down the tunnel, his stride far more bowlegged than usual.
And though Raye’s mouth was quirking, everything else had already begun to filter back in again, and she shot a searching look back toward the hole up above.
Toward where Kalfr and Gaelfr still hadn’t reappeared.
The other orcs were all still waiting too, with Soren and William both now digging behind them, and goddess, what was taking so long?
What were they still doing up there? It was still so dangerous, it was a fire, and the rest of the men were surely still waiting and watching outside.
And what if Kalfr and Gaelfr were still caught somehow?
What if they’d breathed too much smoke, and fallen in the flames?
What if Raye had still lost them? What if she’d still failed?
And also — Raye’s heart sank heavier — they’d parted on such awful terms, hadn’t they?
Kalfr and Gaelfr had both lied to her — Kalfr about the dangers of his clan, Gaelfr about being her mate.
And she’d told them both she couldn’t trust them, and in the same breath she’d promised she wouldn’t do anything drastic…
and then she’d gone racing across the realm, she’d saved the life of their worst enemy, and she’d burnt down her cottage, with a half-dozen men inside it.
And though she hadn’t allowed herself to think of it — hadn’t even allowed herself to touch at it, since she’d left — her shaky hand slipped downwards, toward her waist. Because she hadn’t been just risking herself in all that, had she? No. She’d also been risking — their son.
“Rurik,” she whispered, as she glanced at him over her shoulder. “Can you tell if I’m still — if my son is still —”
Rurik glanced toward her, and reached a hand down to spread against her abdomen. “Ach, all is well,” he said, though his head tilted, his brow furrowing. “But…”
But? Raye’s heartbeat stuttered, her eyes searching his face — but then came a sudden swell of voices and movement from up the tunnel. And when Raye wrenched to look, it was —
Kalfr, and Gaelfr. Leaping down into the tunnel one after the other, with their weapons in hand. They were both covered in sweat and soot, their clothes and hair singed, and that was fresh red blood, dripping off their weapons, spattered across their sweaty bodies.
But they were here. Safe. Alive. And even as Kalfr snapped a breathless series of orders toward the waiting orcs, his eyes caught on Raye, flashing hot and dangerous on her face — and then he kicked off and sprinted straight toward her, with Gaelfr close behind him.
And in a sudden, smoky breath, Kalfr was here. Here. Dragging Raye tight into his arms, crushing her against his hot, sweaty chest.
“Ach, saeta,” he croaked, squeezing her tighter, swaying her back and forth, his face buried in her hair — and now Gaelfr crashed into them too, wrapping his arms around them both, squeezing them tight.
Flooding Raye with so much sudden, dizzying relief that it swelled up in her chest, escaped her throat in a helpless, high-pitched sob.
“You’re here,” she gasped, into Kalfr’s shoulder, between harsh, heaving breaths. “You came.”
Kalfr nodded against her, hauling in deep breaths of her hair. “We are only sorry it was not sooner, saeta,” he said, hoarse. “You ought not to have needed to bear this alone.”
Raye attempted a shrug against them, even as hot tears squeezed from her eyes, tracked down her cheeks. “I — had help,” she managed. “Our band — Skirvir and Fengr — and Eyolf and Iyolf must have found you —”
It was barely coherent, but Kalfr again nodded against her. “Thank the goddess for Egil,” he rasped, “for he scented Eyolf and Iyolf long before they reached us, and we knew aught must be amiss, and turned back at once. But it was yet not enough time to —”
His voice broke, his head shaking against Raye’s hair, and she could feel Gaelfr stroking him, drawing them both closer.
“No need to scent thus, ástin mín,” he murmured back, though his voice was shaky, too.
“You did all you could. You could not have known that our enemies could yet outrun us, thus.”
Raye’s breath hitched, and she drew back a little, enough to find Kalfr’s face.
Up close, he looked worse than she’d ever seen him, his skin sweaty and smeared with ash and soot, his hair and eyebrows singed, his face haggard and exhausted.
But maybe he’d never looked so beautiful, either, his gaze so intense and urgent on hers, as if he was drinking up the sight of her, as if he couldn’t believe she was real.
“Um, so about Sybil following us so quickly, like that,” Raye said, and though she grimaced, she needed to say this, needed to be brave.
“She says she — has a bond with you, Kalfr. And that’s why she could tell you were moving this way, and knew you were nearby.
It sounds like her men did still follow Svein’s scent, thinking it was yours, but it was the bond pushing her to it.
Pushing her to all of this, apparently.”
She choked a sound much like a laugh, though her eyes kept searching Kalfr’s sweaty, haggard face. Had he lied to them about this? Had he really had a bond with Sybil, all this time? And if so, how many other things had he lied about, could she still trust him…
But Kalfr’s gaze back toward Raye was blank, and increasingly confused. And when he glanced sideways — toward Sybil, damn it, who was still standing there trapped against the wall, watching this, listening to every word — there was barely a flicker of recognition in his eyes.
“No, that cannot be true,” he said, glancing back toward Raye, shaking his head. “I can scarce feel her, let alone feel a draw toward her. She is only spewing falsehoods, seeking to drive us apart, yet again.”
His voice sounded certain, and exasperated, too, and he again drew Raye close, inhaling deep against her hair.
And though perhaps she should have questioned him, she still found herself sagging against him, dragging in deep breaths of him, too.
No matter what he’d done, what they’d both done, he wouldn’t lie to her about something like this. He wouldn’t.
But something new was scraping through Raye’s ears, from Sybil’s direction, and Gaelfr shifted, turning to look toward it. And when Raye looked too, Sybil was furiously sputtering toward them, her eyes blazing with rage, and with something not unlike hurt.
“You sick fucking liar,” she hissed at Kalfr. “Don’t you dare fucking pretend with me, pretend like you don’t even know me! I can feel you, you bastard! I’ve felt you since the first time you fucked me, and made me believe you cared about me!”
Her voice scraped through the air, so vicious and pained that the doubt again whispered through Raye’s thoughts. What other explanation could there be? How else could Sybil have tracked Kalfr so closely, all this time?
But Kalfr still looked genuinely mystified, shaking his head toward her, while Sybil sputtered again, looking nearly about to weep. “I can feel you,” she rasped again. “You’re lying.”
But from behind Kalfr, someone let out an aggravated groan.
Rurik, who now had both hands spread against Kalfr’s back.
“It is clear you Bautul do need more scholars and healers in your midst,” he said irritably.
“I ken they are both speaking truth. Kalfr scarce feels her, since he is Bautul, and you are all drowning in your bonds to each other at every moment — thus, a woman he bedded for a week last year means naught to him, amidst all this. Whilst she…”
His narrow eyes flicked to Sybil, his brow arching up. “I ken she has mayhap never felt a bond at all,” he continued, “not even to another human. So this brief bond with Kalfr has taken root and consumed her, in a way it most oft does not.”
Oh. That… would make sense. And Kalfr tilted his head, considering it, while Sybil sputtered and stared, the anger and pain again flaring across her eyes. “I just want it to go away,” she gasped. “I want to get rid of it, forever!”
Rurik shrugged, and shifted around behind Gaelfr, putting his hands to his back, too. “Then build a bond with someone else,” he replied. “Another orc or two would cover this the fastest, but bonds build between humans, also. They may not speak as strongly as with orcs, but they are no less there.”
Sybil gaped back at him, apparently struck momentarily speechless, and Kalfr drew Raye close again, pressing a kiss against her hair.
“If this is truth, I am — sorry,” he whispered.
“I am sorry for so much of this, saeta. For not coming to you sooner. For not making sure Svein was with you, before we left. For the way we fought with you. For all the ways we have wronged you, and broken your trust.”