Page 149 of Halfling
Her father’s shirt was damp by the time she was able to swallow back her tears. It was deep into the night, Orek still not there, when Sorcha let her parents coax her upstairs to her room. Her father made more promises for the next morning, a look of concern weighing down his features. Her mother helped her undress and pull on a nightgown, tucking her into bed with Darrah.
Smoothing back her hair, Aoife whispered, “It’ll be all right, sweetheart.”
But Sorcha didn’t believe them.
He’s gone,her heart wailed,he’s left me.
Misery welled like blood from a wound in her heart, drawing more quiet tears until, finally, she fell into a fitful sleep.
Orek did not eat. He did not sleep. He ran. Away from his mate—and it destroyed him inside, leaving nothing in its wake but a resolute rage to protect her.
She’ll suspect something by now. She’ll be wondering where I am.
The thought stabbed at his guts, twisting the knife of guilt and grief already lodged there.
But it couldn’t matter now. Nothing could stop him or slow him. He had to do this—for her. For any life he hoped to have with her.
And so Orek ran through the night and the morning and the afternoon, stopping only to search for the marks Silas left behind. Each he destroyed, scraping them off trees and rocks, leaving false ones in a confusing web.
His work and brutal pace numbed the rending of his heart as surely as the cold settling across the land. And he welcomed it, let it harden him for the days ahead—without her.
Sorcha was up with the dawn, unsurprised but no less heartbroken to find herself again alone. She spent long moments with her face buried in Darrah’s soft belly as the kit cried and chittered for Orek.
“I want him back, too,” she murmured, fresh tears stinging her gritty eyes.
By the time she entered the kitchen, most of her family had already begun their day. Seeing her puffy eyes and miserable expression, Aoife sat her down again at the kitchen table with more warm tea and buttered bread and jam. “Oh, sweetheart,” she soothed, running her hand over Sorcha’s unbrushed hair. “Your father and brothers took the dogs out. They’ll find him.”
She ate by rote, not tasting any of it. Sorcha hated this, hated being weepy and useless, but she didn’t know what else to do with the frantic terror growing bigger, expanding in her chest to squeeze her heart and lungs. It seemed the only way to deal with it was cry, but her shed tears just made room for more sorrow to tug and tear at her.
Sorcha was no better when the front door banged open late in the morning, and Connor came hurrying through the house, Niall trotting at his heels.
“Connor, don’t—”
The brothers entered the kitchen, and Connor’s gaze fell to Sorcha. She stood slowly from her seat, dread sucking her down into its undertow.
“What is it?”
“You need to come see.”
“No,” said Niall, stepping between them. “She shouldn’t see this.”
Feeling bled from her fingers and lips. “Show me.”
Niall shook his head desperately. “Sorcha, you don’t want to see this.”
She looked back at her brother without seeing, then at Connor and his grim face. He looked older, lines carved below his eyes.
“Show me.”
Connor nodded and led her outside, stopping only long enough to grab her coat and mittens. Niall followed them silently, his mouth a single, downturned line.
She followed Connor through the estate, past the meadow and woods where she’d spent her childhood playing. They were nearly to the property line when she spotted a handful of grooms, along with her father and Diarmuid, gathered around a fallen tree.
Sorcha knew she walked forward, but didn’t feel the ground beneath her feet. She didn’t hear when her father hissed and demanded what Connor was thinking, bringing her here. She didn’t know what she looked at when she rounded that tree, not at first.
A hole had been hastily dug along the moldering log, great clumps of frozen earth moved to make way for a huge green body. The only reason it fit beneath the log was that the body had no head.
It barely had a chest anymore, the muscle cut and clawed away as if by some great beast. The green flesh had been mutilated, but no blood stained the ground around them. Whatever had done this hadn’t done it here.
