Page 41 of Halfling
He picked something off the ground and offered her the dagger she’d dropped. Sorcha took it to replace in its sheath, though her hands almost shook too badly to do it.
The tears still came, and Orek’s gaze seemed to track every one, but the sobs abated.
“I wouldn’t cry over slavers,” she assured him, voice shakier than she’d hoped.
“I frightened you,” he said.
Sorcha wrapped her arms around her middle but didn’t see a reason to lie. “Yes.”
Orek’s throat bobbed, and his face crumpled into a pained grimace. “I couldn’t let them take you.”
“No.”
“I just…they would have hurt you.”
“Yes.”
“My mother,” he choked on the word, “was like you. Taken by filth like them. Kept captive by my father. She…” He shook his head violently, lips peeled back to reveal his gritted teeth. “They—everyonehurt her.And I couldn’t…”
Sorcha’s heart lurched in her chest. He wouldn’t meet her gaze, eyes cast away as if he didn’t deserve to look at her. She saw him then, the scared, angry little boy he must have been, one terrified for his mother and of being hurt himself. All that rage and sorrow…
She’d seen it inside him whenever she looked upon him, but never had it been so stark, cleaving lines of shame across his broad face.
How does he bear it?
Sorcha slumped to her knees with him. A surprised choke vibrated from his throat.
In the quiet of the forest, shesaw him.Saw the little knicks and scars that patterned his skin. Saw the single gold loop pierced through his pointed right ear. Saw the lack of tusks but still distinctly inhuman shape of his mouth. Saw the freckles and finely wrought cheekbones.
He was a blend of his kinds, not totally orc and not totally human. Both and neither all at once.
Life hadn’t been kind to this male. She saw it in his shyness and his scars. Her heart ached to think…no onehad been kind to this male.
The one who’d saved her. Again.
Gratitude filled her chest, uncomfortable and large. Sorcha rarely needed help and never asked for it. In a handful of days, this halfling had helped her more than she could ever repay.
“Thank you,” she said. It was all there was she could say.
His gaze cut to hers, his surprise evident, and it broke her heart. She steadied her hand through force of will when she reached out to grasp his arm and squeeze.
“Truly. Only a day into this and we’re attacked. I’d understand if you wanted to turn back.”
He frowned at her as though she’d started speaking another language. “I frightened you. I’d understand if you didn’t want me to take you.”
“Youprotected me,” she said. “When I’d said bodyguard, I hadn’t thought…” She’d figured that meant his big size scaring away wolves and the like, not fighting off attackers.
“This is—” She wiped at the remaining dampness on her face. Her mouth went dry, the words not wanting to leave her lips, but she forced them out. “The one who came at me, he had a hood. The ones who took me put me in a hood for days. I…I didn’t want to be in another one.”
His lips thinned into an unhappy slash, and she could feel his rage growing again.
“You frightened me a little,” she hurried to finish, “but mostly because I’ve never seen anyone fight like that.”
Orek only continued to gaze at her, as if searching for the truth. After a moment, he looked down at where she’d clasped his arm. She didn’t pull away, and he took her hand in his and stood, helping her too to stand.
He turned away from her, seeming to accept her answer, and Sorcha was grateful. She felt sick again speaking of that hood.
She thought she’d cried all her tears at being taken. She thought her resolve to return home was enough to keep down the worst of her fears.
