Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Thea asked another question about the horse tack, and Khorrek shook his head at his own foolishness. Even after their very brief time together, he knew her curiosity was insatiable. Why had he even started to teach her his language?
Because it’s the only thing I can do for her.
The thought made him shift uncomfortably, but the movement only jostled her small body closer against his chest. Her scent, clean and sweet, filled his senses and his Beast let out a soft, rumbling purr.
Quiet.
But his Beast wasn’t interested in his commands. It was happy that she was close, safe in his arms.
She’s not safe, he reminded himself. Nothing about this was safe. Lasseran wanted her, and even if he didn’t know why, he doubted it was anything good. What did the High King have in store for her?
Don’t ask.
He tried himself to focus on the mission, but his Beast refused to be silent. It purred every time she shifted against him, and its contentment was a constant, irritating distraction.
He was a warrior, a weapon. His entire existence was built on a foundation of discipline and control. He didn’t purr. He didn’t get distracted. He didn’t feel… protective.
This is a problem.
A problem he couldn’t solve with a sword.
They stopped at midday in a small copse of trees with a stream cutting through it. He dismounted, then reached up for her. She let him lift her down, but her legs nearly buckled when her feet hit the ground.
“Ow. Ow ow ow. Who knew sitting on a horse for four hours could hurt so much?”
Her face was pale, and he put his hands on her waist to steady her.
“Are you all right?” he asked before he could catch himself.
“I’m fine,” she said, a word he was already beginning to recognize. He was pretty sure it meant she was uncomfortable, but she took a hesitant step away from him and he forced himself to let her go.
Doing his best to ignore his concern, he checked on his horse instead, checking his hooves and running his hands over his legs to check for any signs of strain.
I should do the same for her.
His Beast purred its approval at the thought of running his hands over that pale, soft skin, but he did his best to ignore it. Instead he unpacked some of their rations and, after a moment’s hesitation, added a strip of dried fruit to her portion.
He heard the cry a half second before his Beast roared.
Not a full cry, a muffled sound that even his enhanced senses barely caught, but it was enough.
Thea.
His vision darkened at the edges as the Curse swept over him. His blood sang with violence, ancient and primal, despite his efforts to control it.
I am not an animal.
But he was moving before his mind caught up. Three strides to clear the distance between the horses and the stream. Four more through the willow branches.
Thea on the ground with dirt on her face, and fear in her eyes.
Brennik looming over her, one hand over her mouth and his other hand tugging at her tunic.
His roar split the air, but he heard it as if from a distance as the Beast took control.
Mine to protect. Mine to guard. Mine.
Brennik’s head whipped around, and his eyes widening as he saw him. Good. Let him be afraid. Let him understand what happened to those who touched his female.
Brennik started backing away, his hands raised as he babbled excuses—something about washing, about making sure she was safe.
Lies. All lies.
His hand shot out, his claws digging into the human’s throat, and the satisfaction of that contact sang through his bones. He lifted Brennik off the ground, and the male choked, kicking and clawing ineffectually at Khorrek’s arm.
Make an example of him, his Beast demanded. Let his death serve as a warning to anyone who touched what was his.
No.
His battered control finally reasserted itself. Killing Brennik would create problems. There would be questions from Lasseran, and the High King was already suspicious about his loyalties and had been ever since Queen Jessamin escaped.
With a frustrated snarl, he threw the male away. Brennik hit a tree with a satisfying crack and crumpled to the ground, his chest still rising and falling. He wasn’t conscious but he was alive.
Good enough.
His Beast howled for blood, but he forced himself to breathe through the rage until his vision cleared and the Curse started to retreat.
I am in control. I am not—
He caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye and whirled around to find Thea climbing to her feet, her clear grey eyes wide behind those odd glass things she wore.
This was the moment when she would see him for what he truly was—not the careful facade he usually presented to the world, but the monster lurking beneath. The Beast that lived in every orc’s blood, the Curse that haunted all of them.
She would run, or cower, or both. He’d seen it before—the fear in a human’s eyes when they witnessed an orc in the grip of the Beast Curse. He’d seen the way they would scramble away, desperate to put distance between themselves and the monster.
He stood perfectly still, waiting for her retreat, preparing himself for the inevitable moment when she—
She took a step towards him.
What?
Another step. Then another.
She was coming towards him, moving closer instead of away. Her face was pale and her hands shaking, but she approached him with determination in every line of her small body.
She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know what I am, what I nearly did—
She walked right up to him, and tilted her head back to meet his eyes—those solid dark eyes that marked the Beast’s presence and that should have terrified her.
Instead she threw herself against his chest.
She weighed nothing, but the gesture—her arms wrapping around his waist as far as they could reach, her face pressed against his tunic, her whole body trembling—struck him with more force than any blow he’d ever taken.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled against the leather. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The same words she had used before—she was thanking him.
Thanking him for violence, for the very thing that should have made her flee. He stood frozen, still trying to process her actions. This wasn’t how humans reacted. This wasn’t—
She pressed closer, her small body shaking even harder now.
She’s in shock. It’s a trauma response. It doesn’t mean—
But his hand was already stroking her back with a gentleness that he’d never been taught, that came from some place deep inside him that he hadn’t known existed.
She was so small and fragile, but she’d turned to him for protection instead of running away in fear. Something in his chest shifted, opening up in a way that felt dangerous and inevitable all at once.
Mine.
The thought felt different this time. It was more than his Beast’s possessive snarl. It was something quieter, deeper, and infinitely more terrifying.
Her fingers tightened on his tunic as she said something else in that liquid language of hers, still pressed against his chest like he was shelter instead of storm.
This changes nothing, he told himself firmly. I have a duty. A mission. Delivering her to Lasseran is all that matters.
But when he looked down at the wild auburn hair pressed against his tunic, at the small form seeking comfort from the very thing that should have frightened her most, he knew he was lying.
Something had changed.
He just didn’t know what to do about it.
They rode hard that afternoon. He set a pace that would have his fellow orcs grumbling and humans collapsing, pushing the horses to their limits and beyond.
The remaining two males—Brennik had stayed behind, nursing his injuries and his bruised pride—struggled to keep up, their mounts lathered and heaving by each evening’s camp.
Thea never complained.
She sat in front of him on his great stallion, his oversized tunic riding up her thighs, and her hands gripping the saddle with white-knuckled determination.
He could feel her exhaustion in the way she leaned back against his chest as the day wore on.
Could see it in the dark circles forming under her eyes, visible even through those strange glass things she wore.
But she never asked for a break. Instead, she asked questions.
“Khorrek.” His name sounded different in her mouth, the harsh consonants softened into something almost musical.
He grunted acknowledgment and she pointed at a bird wheeling overhead with that questioning sound.
“Velrach.”
“Velrach,” she repeated, mangling it slightly before she tried again. “Velrach.”
Better.
She pointed at a cloud formation, a new type of grass, a rock outcropping, anything that caught her attention, and each time she absorbed the word he gave her, storing it away in that frighteningly quick mind.
By the second day of hard riding, she was constructing simple sentences.
“Khorrek… thrak… vorak?”
Khorrek’s horse goes?
It wasn’t quite right—the verb form was wrong—but close enough that he understood.
“Kel’Vara dresh,” he corrected. To Kel’Vara.
“Kel’Vara.” She rolled the words around her mouth like she was tasting them. “What is Kel’Vara?”
Two days. She’d been learning for two days and she was already forming questions.
“Bahkar.” City.
“Bahkar,” she echoed. “Lasseran in Kel’Vara?”
“Lasseran ek’shol Kel’Vara,” he corrected. Lasseran rules Kel’Vara.
He could practically see her mind working, cataloging words and building connections.
“What is Lasseran?”
The question was deliberately casual in a way that told him she’d been working up to it.
Careful, he reminded himself. She learns too quickly and understands too much.
“Kalar Vosh,” he said. High King.
“Kalar Vosh.” She was quiet for a moment. “Why does the Kalar Vosh want me?”
“Tharak koreth nash.” I don’t know.