Page 67 of Halfling
“I just worry over him,” was what she finally replied.
“Oh, sure,” Cara agreed, “my man takes a stab like that to his side, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. But him,” she nodded in the direction of the barn, “he’s a strong one. Never seen anything like it.”
“It’s amazing. He wants to help Anghus realign the wagon axle tomorrow.”
Cara rolled her eyes. “Give men long enough and they’ll find a way to make a mess and then spend the afternoon fixing it.” She winked, handing Sorcha a wet rag to wash her neck and face.
Sorcha groaned at the divine feeling of cool water on her itchy, hot skin.
When she looked up from scrubbing her face, it was to find Cara considering her.
“I was just thinking—now that Orek is awake and on the mend, if you’d like to sleep in the house, I could make you something near the downstairs hearth. It’d be more comfortable than some haybales.”
The offer hung between them, blowing in the light breeze that swept through the clearing from the east.
Sorcha chewed her cheek. “Thank you, but…I’d rather stay with Orek. I’d worry too much.”
Cara nodded agreeably. “Understandable. I know how hard it is to sleep apart after a while. Even if he snores and hogs the good quilt.” She said this last bit with an affectionate scowl at her husband, none the wiser as he laid out cold cuts from the ice-house, and so missed Sorcha’s eyes go wide.
Cara moved away before Sorcha could get a correction or retort out of her mouth. Her friend had made several comments like that, implying that Orek was hers, and Sorcha just…hadn’t corrected her.
She should. Cara and Anghus wouldn’t care either way, but it felt important to Sorcha—she hadn’t claimed him in any way other than as a travel companion. A friend.
The excuse, confined though it was to her thoughts, felt flimsy even to her.
Sorcha frowned at the ground as she continued to wipe herself down.
They weren’t far enough away from that awful night, and Orek not yet recovered enough from that horrid wound, for her to have forgotten the sheer terror she’d felt for him. The depth and volume of her worry had surpassed anything she’d ever felt for anyone before. Sure, she’d been scared when her siblings did something stupid and dangerous, and she’d worried more times than she could count over her father’s safety while he was away with Lord Darrow.
But nothing matched the absolute distraught that’d consumed her to know, toseeOrek’s pain. Her strong companion, so capable and competent…it’d shaken her to see him laid low.
Her relief when he woke had been just as sharply palpable, so much so she couldn’t help but stop to think on it whenever her mind got a moment.
Her gaze strayed to him again, still relaxed against the barn as he worked potatoes between his thumb and knife.
She didn’t miss how the midday sun made dramatic shadows along the strong column of his throat, nor how it winked in the single gold loop in his pointed ear. She didn’t miss the hard cut of his chest, exposed by his loose shirt, bisected by the heavy line of his pectorals. She didn’t miss the soft, patient cast of his eyes and slight upturn of his mouth as Darrah rooted and sifted through his hair.
And she didn’t miss how her heartpitter-patteredto see him, nor how she tingled and warmed just watching him, from her fingertips to her chest to between her legs.
She and Orek weren’t stuck together now in a cramped shelter. They weren’t alone together out in the wilderness. Yet this…attractionhad only grown stronger.
If anything, his wounding, hissacrifice,only pulled her further into his current.
Fates, I really do like him.
Sorcha scrubbed her face hard, now itchy in a different way, one a wet cloth couldn’t solve. At least not without some privacy and imagination.
She knew how she’d like to solve it—she’d been sleeping beside Orek in the hay for days now and how close they were to the euphemism was impossible to miss.
The problem was…she’d no idea how he felt. With her past trysts and partners, it’d been easy to know their interest with just a glance. Some had approached her first. Not only was Orek half-orc, with their different culture and ways, he was…well, Orek. How much of whatever he might’ve felt was truly for her and not just because she was female?
Sorcha wasn’t ignorant, she could tell from what little he said, and what he didn’t, that he’d spent little time in the company of others, particularly females. Howlittle, she couldn’t say, but enough that she doubted he was a male who’d ask for what he wanted, whatever that was.
Oh, she’d noticed him watching her, had observed a blush blooming on his green cheeks, turning them a fascinating, ruddy brown. How much of that was attraction over shyness, she just didn’t know.
She wanted to know. There were many ways they together could make the trek north even morepleasurable—but then what?
What happened when they returned to Granach and Sorcha’s family? What would Orek do?
