Page 13 of Bite Sized Bride

MIKANA

I wake to warmth and the steady, rhythmic thunder of a giant’s heart.

For a blissful, disoriented moment, I am simply comfortable. Safe. Then memory crashes down on me, a tidal wave of heat and shame and a terrifying, unfamiliar tenderness. My eyes fly open.

The cave is dim, the fire burned down to a bed of glowing orange embers.

I am cocooned in Kael’s arms, my head pillowed on the solid muscle of his shoulder, my body tucked against his side as if I belong there.

His arm, thick as a tree trunk, is draped over my waist, a possessive, heavy weight.

The scent of him—of warm stone, of damp earth, of a clean, masculine musk—is all around me.

What have I done?

I am a fool. A desperate, terrified fool who mistook a moment of shared warmth for… what? I don’t even have a name for it. I slept with a monster. I let a creature of nightmare touch me, and I… I let him. I welcomed it.

Shame, hot and acidic, burns in my throat. I have to get away. I have to put space between us, rebuild the walls he so effortlessly shattered.

I try to slip from his grasp, my movements as stealthy as a mouse. It’s useless. The moment I shift, his arm tightens, not painfully, but with an unyielding strength that makes my breath catch. His eyes open.

The amber is so clear this morning, the red storm completely gone.

They are the color of ancient sap, of wild honey in the sun.

And they are fixed on me with an intensity that feels like a physical touch.

There is no lust in his gaze, no lingering heat from the night before.

There is only a quiet, unnerving focus. He is watching me, cataloging me, the same way I once cataloged his master’s dead things.

The dynamic has shifted, a tectonic plate grinding into a new, terrifying position. I am no longer just his charge, the small creature he protects. I am something else now. Something he has claimed.

I stop struggling, my body going still. He seems to take this as acceptance, the tension in his arm easing slightly.

He makes a low, rumbling sound in his chest, something I am beginning to recognize as his version of contentment.

It makes the shame inside me curdle with a confusing, unwanted warmth.

He releases me and pushes himself to a sitting position. He picks up a piece of the cooked suru from the night before and holds it out to me. An offering. A provision.

My stomach churns, but I take it. To refuse would be a rejection he would not understand, and I am suddenly terrified of seeing that hurt, confused look on his monstrous face again. I eat the cold, greasy meat, my eyes fixed on the fire, unable to meet his gaze.

When it is time to leave, the awkwardness is a tangible thing, a third presence in the cave. I gather my meager belongings, my movements stiff and jerky. I wince as I pull on my damp, muddy boots, my feet a symphony of protest.

Kael sees the wince. He is across the cave in two strides, his massive form blocking out the light from the entrance. He looks at my feet, then at the rough, uneven terrain outside. He makes a decision.

Before I can protest, he scoops me into his arms.

“No!” The word bursts from me, a gasp of pure panic. “I can walk.”

He ignores me. He adjusts his grip, settling me against his chest as if I weigh nothing. He holds me with a new, infuriating gentleness, his hands careful not to press on my bruised ribs.

“Ground… sharp,” he rumbles, his voice a low vibration against my ear. “Mikana… soft.”

He says it like it is the most obvious fact in the world. Like stone is hard and water is wet. And then he walks out of the cave, carrying me as if I were a precious, fragile doll.

This is a new kind of prison. I have never been cared for like this.

I have never been treated as something to be protected, to be cherished.

In Malakor’s world, I was a tool, useful but ultimately disposable.

To Kael, I am… soft. Fragile. Something to be carried.

The loss of agency is terrifying. The reason for it is a strange, unfamiliar comfort that I hate myself for feeling.

He moves through the forest with an easy, rolling gait, my body cradled against his.

I should be fighting, demanding to be put down.

But I am so tired. And the sure, powerful beat of his heart beneath my ear is a lullaby of safety in a world that wants me dead.

I give up. For now. I rest my head against his shoulder and watch the forest pass by in a blur of green and grey.

“That tree,” I say, pointing to a massive specimen with peeling, paper-like bark. “It’s a tiphe tree. The nuts are edible in the fall.”

He looks at the tree, then at me. “Tiphe,” he repeats, the word a rough approximation.

“And that,” I say, pointing to a flash of copper and turquoise in the branches. “Is a pavo. A songbird.”

“Pavo,” he echoes, his amber eyes following the bird’s flight. “Pretty.”

We continue like this for hours. I name the world for him. He gives the words back to me, his vocabulary growing with every step. He is no longer merely a monster. He is a student. He is a soul reaching for the light, and I am the one holding the candle. It is a heavy, terrifying responsibility.

The childlike innocence of his learning is heartbreaking.

He asks me why the sky is blue, why the leaves fall, why the moon changes its shape.

I answer him with the science and the stories I gleaned from my books, and he listens with a rapt attention that no one has ever given me before.

He is seeing the world for the first time, and I am seeing it with him.

I am seeing past the danger, past the fear, and finding the simple, brutal beauty of it all.

We are so lost in our strange, mobile classroom that we don’t sense the danger until it is upon us.

There is no warning sound. Only the sharp thwip of an arrow slicing through the air, so close to my head I feel the whisper of its passage. It strikes Kael squarely in the thick muscle of his shoulder with a sickening thud.

He grunts, a sharp exhalation of pain, but his first instinct is not for himself. It is for me. He gently but swiftly sets me down behind a massive, moss-covered boulder, his body a shield between me and whatever is coming.

“Stay,” he growls, the single word a command of absolute authority. The childlike student is gone. The warrior is back.

They emerge from the trees like ghosts, silent and deadly. Four of them. Miou warriors, clad in the familiar black armor of Malakor’s personal guard. They fan out, their movements coordinated, their curved swords held at the ready. They are not here to capture. They are here to kill.

Kael pulls the arrow from his shoulder with a snarl of contempt, tossing it aside. Dark blood wells from the wound, but he ignores it. He turns to face them, and a transformation occurs.

The amber of his eyes, so recently clear with curiosity, ignites with the red storm of the curse.

His body hunches, his muscles coiling, his form seeming to swell with a raw, malevolent power.

A low, guttural roar builds in his chest, a sound that is not just a challenge, but a promise of utter annihilation. The Urog is unleashed.

He charges.

It is not a clumsy, lumbering attack. It is the charge of a fallen god. He moves with a terrifying, tactical brutality that I have only seen glimpses of before. He doesn’t just run at them; he uses the terrain, his massive form a blur of motion as he weaves between the trees.

The first Miou meets his charge head-on, sword raised.

Kael doesn’t even try to block. He takes the sword strike on his hardened shoulder plate, the blade screeching and skittering off the cursed hide.

In the same motion, Kael’s fist, a hammer of rock and rage, connects with the elf’s helmeted head.

The sound is a sickening crunch of metal and bone.

The warrior drops like a puppet with its strings cut.

The other three converge on him, their swords a whirlwind of silver. They are fast, but he is faster. He spins, his massive arm scything through the air, catching one of them across the chest and sending him flying into a tree with enough force to shatter his spine.

The remaining two are skilled. They work together, one attacking high, the other low, their blades a constant, stinging threat.

Kael takes the cuts, the shallow gashes on his arms and legs, as if they are nothing more than insect bites.

He roars, a sound of pure, primal fury, and grabs one of them by the leg.

He swings the elf like a club, smashing him into his companion.

The sound of their armor and bodies colliding is a wet, percussive horror.

He drops the one he is holding and brings his foot down on the elf’s chest. The crunch is absolute.

Final. The last warrior, his leg broken, tries to crawl away.

Kael stalks toward him, his movements slow now, deliberate.

He is savoring this. He places a foot on the elf’s back, pinning him to the ground. He reaches down, his claws extended.

“No,” I whisper from behind the rock, my voice shaking. I don’t want to see the Urog but the warrior. He’s back to a mindless killer that enjoys the torture and loss of life.

He freezes.

He turns his head, the red haze in his eyes so thick it almost eclipses the amber. He looks at the terrified, broken elf beneath his foot. He looks at me.

A war rages behind his eyes, a battle between the monster and the man.

With a final, guttural roar of frustration, he lifts his foot. He does not kill the last one. He turns his back on him and limps toward me, the red light slowly, reluctantly, receding from his eyes.

He stands before me, a terrifying apparition of blood and violence.

He is covered in his own blood and the dark, glistening blood of his enemies.

He is breathing heavily, his body a canvas of fresh wounds.

He nudges my cheek with the side of his massive head, a strangely gentle, animalistic gesture.

He is checking on me. He is making sure I am safe.

I look from him to the carnage he has wrought. The broken bodies of the dark elves, some of the most feared warriors in all of Protheka, lie scattered like discarded toys. I should be horrified. I should be repulsed.

And I am. A part of me, the part that remembers civility and peace, is screaming in terror.

But another part, the part that has lived in fear my entire life, the part that knows the cruelty of the men he just killed, is flooded with a wave of profound, terrifying gratitude.

He is a monster. He is a killer. He is my captor and my warden.

And he is the only reason I am still breathing.