Page 23 of Orc's Desire

“But… that means…”

“Means what? What does it mean? Who is Janara?”

“Shhh,” Dilacs hisses, putting his hand over my mouth and looking quickly around. “Not so loud. Ears are everywhere.”

The cold chills dive bomb to new levels of unbelievably artic cold. So cold I expect to see my breath on the air and frost forming on my limbs.

I nod, behind Dilacs’s hand. He takes it away and damn my heart for wishing he was still touching me.

“Who?” I whisper.

“The Queen’s General,” Khiara says, soft and a reverence in his tone. “He was supposed to have been sacrificed. Right after the Queen was announced as too ill for the public.”

“Apparently a ruse,” Dilacs says.

“Hope,” Khiara says and his eyes meet mine and the fire burning in them is undeniable. His tusks quiver, his lips twist, then a smile spreads over his face. “Hope.”

He repeats the word, shaking his head.

“That’s not all,” Dilacs says.

“More?” Khiara asks.

I look away from Khiara, uncomfortable holding his gaze for fear he’ll think I’m leading him on. Still I feel his gaze on me. Damn it why is this so hard?

“You have a meeting,” Dilacs says.

Khiara gasps then he leaps from his seat. The chair falls to the ground with a loud clatter matched only by Khiara’s whoop of joy. He dances around the room, pumping his fist in the air. I have to wonder how much he’s had to drink. He stops, turns back around, and the smile on his face is the biggest and brightest I’ve ever seen.

“When?” Khiara asks.

“Tonight,” Dilacs says.

“Only me?” Khiara asks.

“Yes,” Dilacs says, looking over to me. “I didn’t want to leave Gweneth alone.”

The airy joy in the room chills almost immediately.

“Right,” Khiara growls, his bright eyes turning to a glare that is fixed hard on his brother.

Dilacs meets the glare and shrugs.

“If you prefer, I can go,” he offers.

“No,” Khiara says. “I will go.”

The suspicion is clear in his eyes but I can also see he’s torn. This is obviously an important development. I don’t think I understand the importance of it since I don’t really know who this General is, but it also brings hope to my own mission. The one I haven’t shared with these two. I need to find a way to get this information to Rosalind.

We were supposed to pass information back via Mazabuta but the Maulavi locked me into this room and that hasn’t been possible. Somehow I’ll have to find a way. The resistance among the Urr’ki is real and is being led by a General.

Maybe, just maybe, we can pull this off. Not maybe. We must. I can’t let the Zmaj destroy these people. There is good among them. I came to stop a war and damn it I’m going to find a way to save them all.

11

GWENETH

We pass the rest of the day waiting for night. ‘Night’ is strange under the mountain. The Zmaj compound becomes almost completely dark. They use floor mounted torches and extinguish almost all of them.

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