Page 43 of War Mage

“What is it?” Urim asks. “Why are you feeling so rueful?”

I smile a little at his question, though I don’t answer it. “It is still so strange to me that you can feel my emotions. I sometimes forget to push them down to where you can’t feel them.”

“I do not mind feeling your emotions, Adara,” Urim tells me. “They make me understand you more. When we first met, I did not understand you at all. You were a being of rage, lashing out in illogical ways. I could see what pressure points to push on to bend you to my will, but I didn't truly understand. Or empathize. Having this bond has made me consider you in ways that I never had before and it has only made my respect for you grow.”

“You respect me?” I ask confused. Why is he being so kind all of a sudden?

“I do,” he admits. “You have been a good partner on this mission so far; brave and cunning. Perhaps overly emotional at times, but though you feel deeply, you have not let those feelings control you. I am glad to call you my comrade for this mission.”

“Huh,” I say. “I don’t know what to do with you when you’re not being an ass. This isn’t your normal behavior at all.”

“I am behaving as normal,” he returns evenly. “I always behave in the most rational manner that fits the situation at hand. Right now, that means supporting my partner.”

“And in the past, it meant being a prick?” I ask, a false innocence in my voice.

“I was doing my job when you were my prisoner, Adara,” he returns, his voice grim. “But . . . in light of our current relationship, I do have some . . . regrets about how I treated you. I wish I had futuresight so that I could have seen that my harsher treatment of you was not necessary.”

I snort. “That is a piss-poor apology, but I suppose it’s the only one that I will get from a golem like you. But I wasn’t talking about when I was your prisoner. I can understand your behavior there, as I’d attempted to kill your queen. I’m talking about the night in the captain’s cabin.”

Urim goes still underneath me, his muscles tensing. “What about that night?”

I shrug, pushing myself up on his chest so that I can see into his eyes. “You were cold and unfeeling after I gave you everything you wanted. Obeyed you and accepted your punishment. I didn’t do anything to earn your coldness afterward. At the very least you could have praised me for following your directives so well.”

“I . . .” Urim begins, sounding at a loss. Then he sighs. “I am sorry for that. That night was . . . confusing for me. I am attracted to you, but such a relationship seemed . . . unwise. Even if it is casual and not romantic. You are my mate, tied to me with a bond. It makes such actions feel . . . weightier than they perhaps should be. I needed to leave and center myself after our intimacies, to remind myself of what was important. I did not mean to insult you.”

He’s being as blunt as normal, but I actually appreciate it in this context. It makes me understand him a little more, in a way that I can’t normally because he keeps his side of our bond so staid and his face so stoic.

“So . . . you’re saying,” I begin, treading carefully, but wanting to make sure that I’m understanding him correctly, “that because we are mate bonded, even though it was purely for the sake of the mission, you are having feelings for me? At least, more than would be wise between two people in a mating of convenience?”

Urim grimaces slightly, a strange expression to see on his normally unflappable face. “That assessment would be . . . accurate.”

I’m stunned. I never would have expected Urim to be having feelings for me. Strong enough that he needed to put distance between us that night. To “center” himself, as he put it. Since his side of the bond almost never shows his true feelings, it just felt to me like he had used me to make a point. That he was always in control and unaffected by me. But according to his own admission, actually the opposite is true.

He continues, “Not that you aren’t an attractive female, but I feel I should explain that orcs have something that we call the Mating Instinct. It pushes us to Claim and breed with compatible partners. It is involuntary and uncontrollable. Given that I already gave you a mating bite, even if just to ensure the success of the mission, it is not surprising that it is pushing me to deepen our relationship, even if logic dictates differently.”

“But I’m human,” I say carefully. “I don’t have an instinct like that.”

“I already know that you don’t return these complicated feelings,” Urim responds. “And that is a good thing. It is wisdom for us to maintain an emotional distance while we remain mated and work toward our shared goal. Emotional entanglements during a mission of this level of peril will only lower our chance of success.”

There’s the emotionless golem again. But I suppose he’s right. I don’t return his feelings. I merely like his body and the releases that he can grant me. But if he has an internal instinct that is pushing him to make us into something more just because we’ve mated, then it is smart to refrain from games of pleasure again. Not that it would be safe to have sex while we’re stuck chained together in a wagon anyway.

“Alright,” I reply. “I agree with you and accept that you didn’t mean to insult me. I’ll downgrade you from a prick to a mere nuisance.”

“Thank you . . . I think,” responds Urim, making me smile. Then I yawn again and lower my head to his shoulder. It may be unwise to be so close together and sharing warmth, now that Urim has admitted that he’s developing some inconvenient feelings for me, but I won’t be able to sleep if I’m shivering by myself under a thin blanket and the wagon’s not big enough to give us much space apart anyway. I’ll just have to risk that laying on his shoulder will stimulate his Mating Instinct further. I trust him not to act on those feelings, anyway.

“Well, now that we resolved that, where was I?” I ask sleepily. “Oh yes, I was the oldest, the trainer. The youngest was Osanne. She was from Aquilar originally . . .”

???

I talk until we’re both lulled into slumber. I sleep comfortably next to Urim, even though the sun is bright. I wake a few times, but then burrow my face into Urim’s shoulder to block the light and then fall back asleep.

We both wake when the sun sets, the camp coming alive with movement as they get ready to move out again. Urim and I get up and move back to the bench silently, feeling tense as the wagon lurches forward again. Every length that we travel we get closer to our target and possible escape, but we both also know that the closer we get to sunrise, the closer we get to the magistrate’s next feeding and Urim’s next torture.

I fiddle with my wires as we travel, learning to pick the lock in the dark without sight. There’s a good chance that when I get to Grazrath it will be night, so I need to be able to take off the ankle shackle without the light of day to aid me. It’s harder without being able to see what I’m doing but, after a few hours, I get the feel of the lock, the subtle tension as pins move. With a soft click, the cuff falls off.

I grin triumphantly at Urim, though I can’t really make out his features in the dark and only see the silhouette of his head nod in approval.

“You are getting better,” he states and I warm under the praise. Being as blunt as he is, I know that he wouldn’t say such things unless he meant them, which gives his words more weight. But he immediately follows that up with, “Now do it again.”

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