Page 59 of Halfling
Sorcha barreled through the trees, boots scraping as she skidded to a stop. She gasped again before falling to her knees beside him.
“He’s here!” she called over her shoulder, inexplicably, but Orek didn’t truly care.
Her hair spilled over her shoulders as she leaned over him, surrounding him in her warmth and scent and softness. As her hands ran over him in worried flutters, he couldn’t help lifting his unbloodied hand to twine his fingers in her curls. They sprang and coiled around his fingers, so, so soft.
His chest rumbled with a happy purr before he knew what he did, and a stupid grin broke across his face.
Fates, if this is a delusion, a dream, let me never wake.
If she noticed his hand in her hair, she didn’t say, too busy groaning and fussing over his wound. “You’re so cold,” she said, lips pulled down unhappily.
He didn’t like that. Didn’t want her unhappy.
His hand moved from her hair to her face, cupping the side of her head to run his thumb at the corner of her mouth.
But she didn’t stop looking over him, tracing the knuckles of his other hand, still clasping the blanket to his side. “You’ve lost so much blood,” she whispered.
She sounded worried, scared even, but Orek was past the point of worrying himself. The wound, the blood, none of it mattered anymore. She washere.Leaned in close to him. So close, he could bury his face in the crook of her shoulder and breathe in her scent where it was strong, just behind her ear.
So he did.
Forehead falling to press into her cheek, he buried his nose in her neck andbreathed.
“You’re here,” he mumbled against her skin.
“I’m here,” she murmured, her hand cupping the back of his head, holding him to her.
For one glorious moment, the whole forest stood still. Orek’s heart didn’t beat, his blood didn’t weep. He felt nothing but the warmth radiating from Sorcha, heard nothing but the rhythm of her pulse, tasted nothing but the heat and salt of her skin just under his lips.
Something inside settled and snapped into place. Something that should have worried him after all the grief he’d given himself the past hours.
But Orek was too far gone.
Sorcha was the river and he was caught in her current. He never wanted to come up for air.
Blinding light spilled across them.
“You didn’t say your friend was anorc.”
The unfamiliarmalevoice scratched against Orek’s senses, and his beast, subdued since sending Sorcha away, roared to life inside him.
Purr deepening to a growl, Orek threw his arm around Sorcha and dragged her over him, across his lap, to his other side, putting his body between her and the voice. Although blinded by the sudden lantern light, Orek bared his fangs at the figure looming over them, snarling.
Sorcha wiggled against his hold, asking the figure, “Does it matter?”
“Would’ve been nice to know,” the male grumbled. “I’m not bringing an orc back to my family.”
“Half-orc,” Sorcha said. “He’s halfling. And he saved me.”
A long silence fell between Sorcha and the man, and although Orek worked to straighten and brace himself against the tree, to look less vulnerable, Sorcha held him down.
“What did that to him?” the male asked slowly.
“Another orc.”
The male hissed a curse through his teeth.
“Please,” she begged, “the other one’s gone, swept downriver. I’ll do anything—just bring him back so I can help him.Please.”
