Page 150 of Halfling
Sorcha didn’t realize her legs gave out until Connor caught her, bearing her weight. She thought he was saying something, her name maybe, and thought her father and all the others may be saying things, too. They all looked on her with dread, with pity.
The only sound Sorcha heard was her own scream, echoing through the trees.
It went on and on, a horrible sound the likes of which she’d never made before. It rent through her lungs, tearing at her throat.
Her body quaked, her brother’s arms the only thing keeping her upright.
It can’t—
It’s not—
“It’s not him,” she croaked. “It’s not him.”
Connor squeezed her. “Sorcha…”
She tossed her head in vehement denial. “No, no, look at it! That’s a full orc, look at how tall. Orek’s not that tall. And he’s not as green. He, he’s—”
Not here.
A dead, decapitated orc was on the estate but Sorcha knew with everything inside her that Orek wasn’t.
He’s gone.
“But if it’s not him…” said Niall.
“We were followed,” she groaned.
Fates, was it possible—could it be the tracker from before? Or another one, sent by the clan chief who’d bought her?
Ciaran’s face fell, and he looked back at the corpse with fresh horror. “Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing at his mouth. “Take her home. I have to tell Darrow what’s happened.”
“What about Orek?” said Connor.
“He’s gone back,” Sorcha said through numb lips.
It was the only thing that made any sense.
Why else would the head be gone, cleanly severed at the skull? And the slashes, his stained shirt. He’d fought with this orc yesterday and won. He’d done all this, prepared to leave, cleaned up, and came back to the house for his pack. For one last night with her.
He’d been saying goodbye.
Sorcha’s stomach rolled and she pushed away from Connor, staggering for the house. Her brothers were there to take her arms, and she let them hurry her away.
“He’s gone back,” she said again, to no one. To herself.
As he worked further south, Orek began forcing himself to eat and catch snatches of sleep. It slowed his progress, but he wouldn’t make Silas’s mistake. He had to be rested, ready when he came upon the hunting party.
So he shoved food into his mouth without tasting it. He slept through the darkest parts of the night, wrapped in furs that still faintly smelled of his mate. And he dreamed of her.
Sorcha lay awake for a string of hazy days and nights. She didn’t know how many of them passed, only that she spent them alone, in a bed that shouldn’t have been cold with a heart that shouldn’t have been broken.
But it was.
Her tears came to an end eventually, Darrah licking them from her face, and with them went any will to leave her bed.
Instead, she saturated herself in her misery and bitterness.
Her family came, one by one, to try drawing her out. The younger ones were too distraught to open her door, instead calling to her from the other side, but Connor at least wasn’t afraid of her. He finally eased into her room, built a fire for her, and sat to tell her about the progress he’d made on the bed. He’d started making a new bedframe soon after she asked him, but he told her how Orek had been helping him in secret, wanting to learn to work wood and make her something himself.
