Page 10 of Bite Sized Bride

KAEL

H er touch is fire. Her touch is ice.

When her small, trembling fingers make contact with my arm, the curse inside me screams. It is a violation.

A weakness. The red storm surges, demanding I throw her off, that I show her the folly of touching a monster.

My muscles lock, every fiber of my being straining to obey the ancient, violent instinct.

But the ghost inside me—the warrior, the orc, the thing with my name—reaches for her touch like a dying man reaches for water.

The pain from the Nyoka’s bite is a dull, hot fire, but the pain of her gentle fingers on my hide is a new and sharper agony. It is the pain of a wound I didn’t know I had. It is the pain of being seen, not as a weapon, but as something worth tending. It is unbearable. It is everything.

I stand as still as the mountain, my claws digging into the soft earth, anchoring myself against the war raging within. I allow her to press the cold, wet cloth to the wound. The shock of it makes me hiss, a sound like steam escaping a forge, but I do not pull away. I endure. For her.

She is so close. I can smell the rain in her dark hair, the faint, clean scent of her skin beneath the grime and the fear. It is a scent that quiets the red storm, that soothes the raw, ragged edges of my broken soul. She is my peace. My safe place.

When she is done, she steps back, her dark eyes still wide, but the terror in them has been banked, replaced by a cautious, fragile trust. She has tended to the beast, and the beast has not devoured her.

She washes the blood and grime from her own face and arms in the stream. Then she looks at me, at the gore that stains my hide, and gestures for me to do the same. The command is clear. Clean.

I obey. I kneel at the water’s edge, a clumsy, monstrous thing, and mimic her actions. The cold water is a relief, washing away the physical evidence of my violence. But it cannot wash away the memory. It cannot wash away the curse.

When I am done, I am still a monster. But perhaps, I am her monster. The thought is a strange comfort.

We find a new place to shelter as night falls, a deeper cave hidden behind a curtain of thick, hanging moss.

It is dry and defensible. I stand guard at the entrance while she builds a fire, her small, clever hands moving with a familiar grace.

The fire blooms, a warm, orange heart in the encroaching darkness.

The hunger returns, a dull ache in my belly. But it is my hunger this time, not the curse’s. And it is my responsibility to fill it. To provide. For her.

I leave her by the fire, a silent promise to return, and melt into the forest. The hunt is different now.

It is not a blind, rage-fueled pursuit. It is a task.

A duty. I move with a new purpose, my senses attuned not just to prey, but to the right prey.

I pass over a scrawny, half-starved dae.

It is not enough. I ignore the chattering of Capuchos in the trees. They are too small.

And I finally find it. A plump, healthy suru, its brown fur thick and clean. The kill is swift, a single, powerful blow that is both efficient and, in its own way, merciful. I do not revel in it. I do not roar in triumph. I simply take my prize.

But I do not bring it to her. Not yet.

I carry the carcass to the stream where she washed me. I lay it on a flat, clean stone. I look at my hands. My massive, claw-tipped hands. They were made for crushing helmets and breaking shields. They were not made for this.

I remember watching her. The way she used the small, sharp tool. The precise, deliberate cuts. The peeling away of the skin.

I try to mimic her. My claws are clumsy, too large for the delicate work. I tear the hide more than I cut it. The process is a messy, frustrating butchery. A low growl of annoyance rumbles in my chest. I am a warrior. I am a hunter. Why is this simple task so difficult?

Because it is not a warrior’s task. It is a provider’s. It is the task of one who builds a home, who tends a hearth. It is the task of a mate.

The word surfaces from the deep, dark well of my lost memories. Mate.

The word is a brand, searing itself onto the cavernous space inside me. It is a truth so profound, so absolute, that it shakes me to my very core. She is not property. She is not a tool. She is not just my peace .

She is my mate.

The word gives me a new patience. A new focus. I work slowly, my clumsy claws eventually finding a rhythm. I clean the carcass as best I can, washing it in the cold, clear water of the stream until the last of the blood runs clear.

When I return to the cave, she is asleep by the fire, her face soft and unguarded in the flickering light. I move with an uncharacteristic stealth, not wanting to wake her. I place the cleaned suru near the fire, a silent offering.

I watch her sleep for a long time, the ache in my chest a constant, throbbing presence. She is so small, so fragile. The world I have dragged her into is a nightmare of violence and fear. And I am the greatest nightmare of all.

The need to be clean, truly clean, is a sudden, overwhelming urge. The grime of the forest, the lingering scent of blood, it all feels like a desecration in her presence.

I run away for a while, venting and return to the stream. The moon has risen, a sliver of silver in the dark sky, its light filtering through the canopy to dapple the surface of the water. The night is quiet, the forest holding its breath.

I am about to step into the water when I hear a soft splash from downstream.

I freeze. My every instinct screams threat . I melt into the shadows of a massive fern, my body a silent, waiting predator. I peer through the leaves.

It is her.

She is standing in a small, moonlit pool where the stream widens. She has shed her ruined tunic, leaving it on the bank. She is naked.

My breath catches in my throat. The sight of her is a physical blow.

Her skin is pale as moonlight, almost luminous in the darkness.

She is so thin, her ribs a delicate shadow beneath her skin, her shoulders sharp and bony.

She is a creature of sharp angles and soft curves, of profound fragility and an unbreakable strength that I cannot comprehend.

She moves with a slow, weary grace, washing the grime from her skin, her long, dark hair floating around her like a silken cloud.

She is beautiful. Not in the way of the cold, cruel beauty of the dark elves.

Her beauty is a quiet, resilient thing. It is the beauty of a single, stubborn flower blooming on a battlefield.

The possessiveness that rises in me is a tidal wave, so powerful it almost brings me to my knees.

It is a nagging feeling that has little to do with the master’s commands, nothing at all to do with the Urog’s curse.

It is the ancient, primal instinct of an orc who has found his one, true mate.

It is a sacred, violent thing. It is the urge to slaughter armies for her.

To burn worlds for her. To wrap her in my arms and never, ever let her go.

I watch as she finishes, as she wrings the water from her hair and slips back into her tattered clothes. She does not know I am here. This moment was hers alone.

After she is gone, her scent lingering in the air like a ghost of summer, I finally step into the pool. The cold water is a shock, but it is welcome. As I wash, I catch a glimpse of my own reflection in the moonlit water.

The sight is a fresh agony.

The reflection is not of Kael, the warrior. It is of the Urog, the monster. A grotesque parody of an orc, with its scarred, mismatched hide, its broken tusk, its fused collar of shame. A thing of nightmare. A tool of destruction.

I look from my monstrous reflection to the empty space on the bank where she stood.

How can a thing like me ever be worthy of a creature like her? How can hands that were made to kill ever be gentle enough to hold something so precious?

The chasm between us is as wide and as deep as the Thirteen Hells. She may not fear me now, but she will. When she truly sees what I am, what I have done, the trust in her eyes will turn to revulsion.

She is my mate. I feel it in the marrow of my bones, in the tattered remnants of my soul.

And I am the monster that will inevitably destroy her.