Page 42 of Halfling
Today, her companion was the only thing that managed to keep her from breaking apart entirely.
A sharp inhale drew her gaze to where Orek stood by his abandoned pack. He looked about, heavy brows drawn low in concern, and when he saw her looking, he groaned in regret. “I lost Darrah.”
She jumped to help him search the rocks and roots. They took opposite paths around the grove, cooing and calling for the kit.
Sorcha was thankful for the respite. She worried for the kit, but she needed the moment to collect herself, and she suspected Orek felt the same. Worry gnawed at her, but her nerves settled, and as she closed her circuit of the trees, the sick feeling bled from her stomach.
She ignored the beaten and bloodied slaver, though did note his chest still rose and fell. She passed him by without sparing him more thought; she’d spared his life by calling to Orek, knew it deep inside herself. A man who’d sell someone else into slavery didn’t deserve any more of her compassion. If he lived, fine. If the animals got him before he came to…so be it.
She was less appalled than she perhaps should’ve been at the cold thought.
Orek huffed in relief, and Sorcha looked in time to see him bend to scoop up the kit from a jagged corona of rocks. The kit chittered happily as Orek picked leaves and cobwebs from his fur.
She couldn’t help the smile as she heard him murmur to the kit, apologizing for scaring him, too.
“Did you have an adventure?” she asked Darrah, scratching him under the chin.
Orek lifted him onto his shoulder, and the kit clambered up with happy chirps.
Her companion hefted up his pack, but rather than slinging it across his back, he looked at her with shy consideration.
“I’ve never…taken care of another,” he admitted.
Sorcha nodded, understanding he meant more than Darrah.
“Would you teach me to fight?”
The question landed with all the grace of a leaded weight between them. Orek’s thick brows lifted nearly to his hairline.
It seemed they just kept surprising each other.
“I know some things, but how you fight…” She shrugged. “Seems more effective.”
While he blinked at her in shock, she fetched her own abandoned pack. Rearranging the few things that’d been jostled, she hoisted it onto her back before looking to her companion again.
He swallowed and, cheeks ruddy with a blush, nodded.
Smiling, Sorcha clapped her hands. “Right. River to clean up. Then I think we earned making camp early.”
10
Orek fought the furious blush conquering his face as he held himself still and his tunic up. Sorcha was taking her time inspecting the remaining scab on his side from the boar goring.
Fates, had that only been a handful of days past? It felt like a lifetime ago he’d slapped back the tent flap and had this human woman explode across his life.
He’d always been a fast healer, and the wound looked well on its way now, but Sorcha insisted on applying a bit more salve before they started her lessons.“To make sure you don’t reopen anything,”she’d said.“I wouldn’t want to hurt you while we’re sparring.”
He’d huffed at that, enjoying her cheeky grin. It told him her fear had abated and that perhaps she’d been telling the truth after the fight—that while he’d frightened her at first, she wasn’t truly scared of him. He never wanted that.
She’s nothing to fear from me. I’ll never hurt her. Never.
He was more shaken up by the fighting two days ago than Sorcha. Those slavers had been sloppy fighters, overconfident in their numbers. Even lost in his berserker rage, he hadn’t found them much of a challenge. He’d fended off as many orc-kin attackers and lived. He wasn’t surprised a boar managed to do more damage than any of them had.
No, it was the sheer intensity of his beast’s rage that shook him. Even fighting for his life against orcish opponents, he’d never lost himself to the berserker rage. His possessiveness over this human woman had awoken the beast sleeping inside him, and now that it was awake, its entire focus washer.
That first night after the attack, he lay awake listening to her shudder and moan in distress in her sleep. The sounds had wrenched at him, pulling at things inside him he hadn’t known existed. Soft, desperate things that wanted tosootheandprotectandcare for.
Things he’d no idea how to do. Things that felt so different from his raging beast that snapped at the danger to her. They were so different, that scorching rage and soft longing, yet came from the same place inside him, the center of his chest, where his heart beat.
