Page 17 of Bite Sized Bride

MIKANA

T he morning air in the cabin is thick with unspoken things.

I woke up tangled in Kael’s arms, the warmth of his massive body a stark contrast to the cold knot of shame and a terrifying, thrilling new feeling in my stomach.

The memory of the night before is a brand on my skin, a secret language that now exists only between us.

He is different this morning. The childlike curiosity is still there in his amber eyes, but it is layered with something deeper, something fiercely possessive.

He watches me, not as a curiosity, but as a territory he has claimed.

Fenris returns from his watch just after dawn, his smile as bright and as false as ever. He brings with him a string of fish from a nearby stream, and the scent of them cooking over the fire does little to dispel the tension.

“Good news,” he announces, his voice a little too loud in the small cabin.

“I was scouting the ridges while you two were… resting. Found a path. An old one, barely there. Leads up into the foothills where the trees get weird. Twisted. And the moss glows at night. Sounds like the kind of ‘sick magic’ the old-timers used to talk about, doesn’t it? ”

My heart gives a painful, hopeful lurch. A lead. A real one. After weeks of aimless running, we have a destination.

I look at Kael. He is sitting in his corner, a silent mountain of scarred flesh, his eyes fixed on Fenris. A low, almost inaudible growl vibrates in his chest. He does not trust this. He does not trust him .

“We should go,” I say, my voice steady, ignoring the warning signs Kael is all but screaming at me. Hope is a more potent drug than any poison, and I am an addict. “Now.”

Fenris grins. “My thoughts exactly.”

The journey is arduous. The path Fenris found is treacherous, winding its way up into the rugged foothills of the Pref mountain range.

The forest changes around us. The trees are no longer just old; they are unnatural.

Their trunks are twisted into grotesque, spiral shapes, their branches reaching like the grasping arms of drowning men.

The moss on the rocks does indeed glow with a faint, sickly green light, even in the dim daylight.

The air grows thin and has a strange, metallic taste to it, like the air in Malakor’s sanctum.

It is a place of wrongness. It feels like the veil between worlds is thin here, stretched taut and ready to tear. It feels like we are walking into the heart of a wound.

Kael is a storm cloud of silent rage. He follows Fenris, but his every movement is tense, his amber eyes constantly scanning the twisted trees, the unnatural shadows.

He walks so close behind me I can feel the heat radiating from his body, his presence a constant, suffocating shield.

He does not like this place. He does not like our guide.

“We’re close,” Fenris calls back to us, his voice echoing strangely in the thin air. “The path opens into a clearing just ahead. I felt the power strongest there.”

He pushes through a final curtain of hanging, glowing moss and disappears from view.

Kael stops. He grabs my arm, his grip a band of iron.

“No,” he grunts, his voice a low, urgent rumble. He pulls me back, trying to position himself in front of me.

But it’s too late.

Fenris’s voice, full of a genuine, heartbreaking sorrow, drifts back to us. “I’m sorry,” he says. “He has my daughter.”

And then the world explodes.

Figures melt from the shadows of the twisted trees, surrounding the clearing ahead. Miou warriors, at least a dozen of them, their black armor absorbing the sickly green light, their curved swords drawn. They move with a silent, deadly grace, fanning out to block any hope of escape.

And in the midst of them, standing beside a tearful, apologetic Fenris, is Vexia.

Her platinum hair seems to suck the light from the air, her violet eyes landing on us with a cold, clinical satisfaction. She is not dressed for battle like last time. She wears a simple, elegant robe of dark purple silk, as if she is here merely to observe a scientific demonstration.

“Well done, Fenris,” she says, her voice like the chime of broken glass. “Your pathetic loyalty is… useful. Your offspring will be returned to you. In pieces, of course, but returned nonetheless.”

Fenris lets out a choked sob and collapses to his knees.

Kael roars. It is not a sound of grief or rage. It is the vibration of a promise being broken, of a trust being betrayed. It sounds like my foolish hope dying a violent death.

He shoves me behind him, his massive body a living wall. “Run,” he snarls, a single, guttural command.

But there is nowhere to run. The Miou are closing in, their swords raised.

The battle is a whirlwind of brutal, chaotic violence.

Kael is a force of nature, a ten-foot-tall vortex of cursed fury.

He meets the first wave of warriors head-on, his fists and claws tearing through their armor, his roars of rage echoing off the twisted trees.

He is magnificent. He is terrifying. And he is outnumbered.

While he is engaged with the warriors, a shadow falls over me. Vexia. She has moved with a sorcerer’s silence, appearing before me as if from thin air.

“The anomaly,” she says, her violet eyes ablaze with a predatory curiosity.

She circles me slowly, like a scientist studying a particularly interesting insect.

“The flaw in the matrix. I spent years perfecting the Urog curse. It is a masterpiece of magical bio-engineering. It should be flawless. And yet… you broke it. With a word.”

She stops in front of me, her gaze intense. “I must admit, I am fascinated. What are you, little slave, that your presence can soothe a storm of pure chaos? What is in your blood?”

She reaches out a slender, pale hand, her fingers crackling with a faint, purple energy. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

She is going to kill me. Or worse.

Panic, cold and sharp, lances through me. I scramble backward, but my back hits the hard trunk of a twisted tree. I am trapped.

She begins to chant, a low, sibilant string of words that make the air around me feel thick and heavy, like syrup. A binding spell. I can feel it beginning to take hold, my limbs growing heavy, my muscles refusing to obey.

I am going to die here.

No.

A wave of pure, defiant rage, a feeling I recognize from Kael’s own amber eyes, surges through me. I will not be a specimen. I will not be a victim on a slab.

I throw my hand up, a desperate, instinctual gesture to ward off the encroaching magic. My palm connects with the shimmering purple energy that surrounds Vexia’s hand.

The result is instantaneous and violent.

There is a sound like a whip crack, and a flash of brilliant white light. The purple energy of Vexia’s spell doesn’t just dissipate; it short-circuits, fizzling out in a shower of angry, spitting sparks. The binding sensation vanishes, leaving a strange, tingling warmth in my veins.

Vexia stumbles back, her hand clutched to her chest, a look of utter shock on her perfect, cruel face. She stares at her own hand, then at me, her clinical curiosity replaced by a hungry, predatory excitement.

“Purna blood,” she breathes, the words a reverent whisper. “Fascinating. Diluted, but present. Oh, the things I will learn from taking you apart.”

She begins a new chant, a more powerful one this time, the air crackling with malevolent energy.

Kael sees it.

He is engaged with three warriors, his body a canvas of fresh wounds, but his head snaps toward us. He sees Vexia, her hands weaving a web of dark magic around me. He sees his mate, his peace, threatened by the architect of his own personal hell.

A sound rips from his throat that is unlike anything I have ever heard before. It is not a roar of rage. It is a torturous sound of pure, unadulterated agony and loss, the sound of a soul being torn in two.

The last vestiges of the orc, of Kael, are burned away. All that is left is the Urog. The monster. The berserker.

He moves. He is no longer a warrior. He is a natural disaster.

He throws one of the Miou warriors into another with enough force to shatter them both.

He ignores the sword that sinks deep into his side, his only focus on the last warrior between him and Vexia.

He grabs the elf by the head and simply… squeezes.

He is a blur of motion, a ten-foot-tall engine of death charging across the clearing, his eyes a solid, blazing red.

Vexia sees him coming. The look on her face is not fear. It is annoyance. Her spell, meant for me, changes its target.

“You have become a liability, beast,” she snarls.

She thrusts her hands forward. A spear of pure, black energy, crackling with lightning, erupts from her palms and slams into Kael’s side. It is not a shallow cut. It is a grievous, mortal wound. It punches through his hardened hide, leaving a smoking, cauterized hole the size of my fist.

Kael stumbles, a choked, agonized sound escaping his lips. His momentum carries him forward, but his charge has been broken.

He should have killed Vexia last time, it’s all my fault for being weak.

Vexia does not press the attack. She gives me one last, promising smile. “I will have you both, eventually,” she says. Then she blinks out of existence, teleporting away to safety.

The clearing falls silent, littered with the broken bodies of the Miou.

Kael stands for a moment, swaying on his feet, his amber eyes finding mine. The storm is gone, replaced by a dawning horror as he looks down at the smoking wound in his side. Then, his eyes roll back in his head, and he collapses to the ground with a sound that shakes the earth.

I rush to his side, my brief moment of power, my impossible discovery, forgotten. All that matters is the monster lying broken at my feet. The monster who just sacrificed himself for me.

His blood is a dark, spreading stain on the glowing moss. Our trust in the world, in anyone but each other, is a casualty lying among the dead. We are alone. And he is dying.