Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
B ikkar slept for the rest of the morning. It made me guess that perhaps prior to the fight with my party this morning, Bikkar had had at least one long night. I slept for some of the morning as well but let myself free of Bikkar’s hold after a few hours to make tea. It wasn’t difficult once my magic had returned to me after some rest. A quick slip of the wrist, a bit of fire, and poof . Freedom.
I didn’t run. Instead, after grabbing one of Bikkar’s shirts, as he’d torn my clothes, I tended the fire. There was one slight issue to that, though: Our wood supply was running low. It appeared as though despite chopping a lot of it prior to my last escape attempt, Bikkar hadn’t had time to bring it inside. But given his pants would in no way fit me and his shirt was basically a dress on my small frame, I wasn’t going outside.
Perhaps I should have—for him, to show some Yule kindness and hospitality back—but I’d decided that him waking up to me missing again wasn’t worth it.
Kendra . I wondered who that was to him. A sister, maybe. A friend. A… lover? Bikkar didn’t wear rings, although I wasn’t sure orcs had the same wedding ring traditions we did. But would he have claimed me in such an animalistic manner if he’d been married?
No. Bikkar had shown enough honor that I decided that was not the case. Whoever Kendra was to him, a wife was not it.
Bikkar stirred behind me. I turned to glance over my shoulder and found him already sitting up, his back against the wooden wall behind the bed and staring at me.
“You slipped your bindings.” There was no anger in his tone, just an observation.
“My wrists were starting to hurt.” I could slip past a lot of things when my magic was involved. It’d been a long time since I’d depleted my reserves as I had this morning. “Are you mad?”
Bikkar lifted his chin toward the front door to his cabin. “You didn’t run?”
I followed his line of sight. “It’s still snowing heavily. You were right about it being foolish hoping to get to Caiburn alive. Also, it didn’t feel right to go against your hospitality now.”
Bikkar held my gaze in silence. What was there to say after this morning’s events?
“We’re running low on wood,” I said to fill the emptiness—and to hopefully brush over my vague admittance to enjoying our snowy encounter. “I was afraid to get more while you were still sleeping. But I did make tea.” I pointed out the kettle on the fire.
Bikkar was a terrifying orc. He always had been. But for all the fear and—to be completely honest—thrill that rage and aggression had stoked in me, it was this quiet and reserved Bikkar who scared me the most. Sleep had turned him into a completely different person. Gone were the anger and hatred from earlier. The primal need and actions.
Bikkar smiled . It was small and very fleeting—and gone the moment he’d realized it existed—but it did happen. “Thank you.” He studied me and, for a moment, amusement lit his eyes. I realized that was probably from me wearing his shirt as a dress.
My cheeks heated with the slightest bit of embarrassment. I wasn’t sure why. It was his fault my clothes were now shreds of fabric. “Sure thing.”
Bikkar moved to get up. The bed creaked with his hulking form. He made his way to the fire and grabbed a mug on the way. Only when he was seated and distracted by pouring himself tea did I dare ask the question that’d been on my mind for hours.
I pulled my knees close to my chest and focused on the flames instead of Bikkar. “Who’s Kendra?”
Bikkar stopped pouring tea. “Excuse me?”
Shit . Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. A rivalry and one sinful encounter did not give me the right to pry into his personal life. Doubly so when I’d been part of the cause of much strife in said personal life. “In your sleep. You were saying her name. You looked upset and…” It worried me. But I couldn’t tell him that. Gods, by the anger now swimming in his eyes maybe I shouldn’t have asked at all.
The length of time it took Bikkar to answer me—long enough to finish pouring his tea and set the kettle back on the fire—unnerved me. But despite the anger in his eyes, no outward aggression came.
“My sister,” Bikkar finally answered. I met his gaze. The hatred in his eyes felt like it was burning me all the way through. “She passed.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice was as small as I felt bringing up something so heavy. “I didn’t mean to?—”
“Talk about her,” Bikkar asked with a suddenly biting tone, “or kill her?”
My eyes widened. “I did what ?” My party had done some horrific things against orcs—because for long time, there’d been no peace treaty and all they’d done was raid and burn and pillage. It’d all been justified until today.
Or so I’d thought.
Bikkar gestured to me with the mug in his hand, as if he desperately needed something— anything —physically between us in this conversation. “During one of the final attacks before the Crown’s decree. Her home was set ablaze and she died within, alone, while I was fighting you and your friends.”
Relief—fleeting though it was, and absolutely misplaced—flushed through me that it was not me who’d killed her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” Bikkar asked as he sat beside me. The action was so casual, but I recognized the tightness in his arms, the stiffness of his body. He may have woken up more relaxed than before, but my presence here and the memories I brought up clearly didn’t sit well with him. And why would they? Our encounter, no matter how fucking hot and satisfying, hadn’t erased the past.
I held his gaze. “Yes. All this violence and death, it’s…” There weren’t words. “We were doing what we were hired to do. Which, no, isn’t an excuse, but until the Crown’s decree, things were just different .”
“Your kind committed violence against mine based on the actions of a few,” Bikkar argued.
I let go of my knees and gestured widely to nothing in particular. “Orcs did the same. They’ve attacked us for centuries. Our people are scared.”
“So are mine.” Bikkar sipped at his tea as if needing a moment to collect himself. “The Crown’s decree was supposed to put a stop to the fighting. To put a system in place to deal with violent agents on both sides. I put myself at risk to work with the Crown on behalf of all orcs and humans against a common enemy. And you tear down everything in a single morning before sunrise.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I could argue a lot of things—that it wasn’t me who’d accepted the job, that we’d only done it for money, that we were mercenaries who helped people as often as we hurt them—but none of that would excuse anything.
I shook my head and focused my attention on the fire. With my magic reserves rested, I could feel the power in the flames. They responded, to some small extent, to my breath, rising and falling in time.
“That wasn’t the goal, for what it’s worth,” I said as my focus waned. “People in Caiburn were terrified, and we should have investigated the job a bit more before accepting it. But we didn’t know it was your tribe.”
“Would it have changed things if you’d known?” Bikkar asked.
“Yes.” Which was the truth. Considering how badly the last fight between our people had gone, with Bikkar sporting a few scars from it and one of my acquaintances dying, we wouldn’t have risked it.
But the fact of the matter was we shouldn’t have attacked at all. Bikkar knew that. So did I.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally. “For what it’s worth. I know that’s very little. But I am sorry. For this morning, for your sister. For all the violence.”
Bikkar sighed heavily, resigned. It caught me off guard. I was way more used to hearing roars and grunts from this orc. “I as well. I know you’ve lost people to this. I’m sorry they left you to die in return.”
My jaw locked tight and I refit my stare on the fire rather than face that truth. “Thanks.”
The sounds of wolves howling rang out. For the briefest of moments, I wondered if my party had made it back to town and safety before the snow had started. And then I wondered if I cared.
Of course I cared. I was angry and hurt, but I hadn’t stopped caring.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Bikkar said, although his attention was on the window through which we’d heard the wolf howls. The unsettled crease in his brows stoked worry in me. “None looked dangerously injured.”
I reached down and ran my fingers over Bikkar’s shirt. “Except me. Thank you again for the healing salve.”
He pressed his lips together into a firm line and turned away from the window. “Contrary to popular belief, I do not enjoy violence and killing.”
I nodded. I was starting to see that, yes. And that there was so much more to Bikkar than I could have ever guessed.
“Is it fully healed?” Bikkar asked.
“I think so.” I pulled up the dress to check. The skin was still a little angry and an ache resounded deep within. But it was hard to tell if that was from the wound or Bikkar’s tackle earlier. “For the most part.”
Once again, his gaze was transfixed on my skin and suddenly, I felt warm and awkward as he studied me. Like he could see right through me. He had earlier. Bikkar knew how much adrenaline had thrown us together into a beautiful hate-fuck.
Bikkar’s fists clenched as he rested them on his thighs. It drew my attention and slammed me back into the memories of earlier. His hands on my throat. The feeling of his strong body overpowering mine as his hard length had dived into my core. My punishment .
This whiplash of emotions, of attraction and hate and guilt, made my head swim.
“I should get more firewood,” Bikkar said, breaking the moment. I was thankful for it. Thinking straight was becoming an issue around him.
To be honest, it always had been. Just for different reasons now.
He stood and set his mug of tea aside. I moved to go with him, but he held out a hand. “Stay here and keep warm. I won’t be long. These woods aren’t safe.”
I nodded to the window. “Do you see something out there?”
Bikkar shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so. I won’t be long, though.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Bikkar nodded. “It’s Yule, and you are my guest. Stay here safe and warm. You’ve already given me more today than you should’ve.”
One could argue that was either not true or entirely the other way around, but I recognized the resolve in his voice. It didn’t matter. So I nodded again and focused on the fire and the energy within it that called to my magic.
Bikkar shrugged on a new shirt and went out the front door. A few minutes passed in which all I could hear was the fire crackling low before me. It was only when Bikkar still hadn’t returned more minutes later that I realized the issue.
Silence.
The wolves weren’t howling anymore.
A pained roar broke through the calm, and then wolf cries of pain.
Bikkar .
Panic flooded my system as I stood, stopping only to grab Bikkar’s knife from his bed. When I tore open the front door, it was to find Bikkar surrounded by three black wolves with glowing, red eyes… and blood viciously pouring from an open bite wound on Bikkar’s arm.
The wolves had come for us after all.
Hell-wolves.