Page 20 of Bite Sized Bride

KAEL

T he air is wrong.

It is thin and sharp in my lungs, carrying a scent like ozone after a lightning strike, a constant, low-level hum of raw power that makes the teeth in my jaw ache.

The curse inside me, the Urog’s rage, is a restless, snarling thing in this place.

It hates the untamed magic. It feels threatened by a power it cannot dominate.

But the orc, the ghost of Kael, feels something else. A pull. A resonance. It is like hearing the faint, distant echo of a clan horn from a life I can barely remember. It is a call home.

“This is the place,” I grunt, my voice a low rumble.

We stand on a ridge, looking down into a valley choked with a forest unlike any I have ever seen.

The trees are not merely twisted; they are sentient in their wrongness.

Their bark shimmers with an oily, rainbow sheen, and their branches reach for the sky not in supplication, but in agony.

The moss on the ground glows with a brighter, more insistent green light, pulsing in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.

“It feels…” Mikana whispers from beside me, her hand instinctively finding my arm. Her skin is cold. “It feels like it’s watching us.”

She is right. This place is alive. This is the borderland of the Wildspont. We are close.

The knowledge does not bring relief. It brings a new, sharper fear. The path ahead is a descent into madness, into a storm of pure creation. I do not know if I will survive it. I do not know if the thing that emerges on the other side will still be me.

And if I do not survive, she will be alone.

The thought is a spear of ice in my gut.

“No,” I say, turning to face her. My gaze falls on the small, pathetic letter opener she still keeps tucked in her belt. A scribe’s tool against a world of swords and claws. It is not enough.

I unbuckle the sheath from my own hip. The blade I took from the Miou warrior is a beautiful, deadly thing, its curved edge still sharp enough to shave hair. The hilt is wrapped in worn leather, the pommel a heavy, solid weight. It is a warrior’s weapon.

I hold it out to her.

She stares at the knife, then at me, her dark eyes wide with confusion. “What is this?”

“Yours,” I say. “You fight.”

She shakes her head, taking a step back. “Kael, no. I’m not… I can’t…”

“You will,” I say, my voice harder than I intend.

I step forward, closing the space between us.

I am a mountain of scarred flesh, and she is a sapling in my shadow.

The old power dynamic, the one of monster and prey, rears its ugly head, but I shove it down.

This is not about dominance. This is about survival. Her survival.

I take her hand, her small, ink-stained fingers cold in my massive grasp. I press the hilt of the knife into her palm and curl her fingers around it.

“Hold it,” I command, my voice a low growl. “Feel the weight. It is not a part of you. It is a tool. Like your needle. Like your flint.”

She is trembling, but she holds the knife. It looks impossibly large in her hand.

“The first lesson,” I say, moving to stand behind her, my body a wall of warmth at her back. “Is the stance.”

I place my hands on her shoulders, my touch as gentle as I can make it. I turn her to face an imaginary opponent, one of the twisted, shimmering trees. I move her feet with my own, positioning them shoulder-width apart. “Balance,” I grunt. “Power comes from the ground. Not the arm.”

We spend the next hour in the sickly green light of the glowing moss.

I teach her. I show her how to hold the blade, how to use its edge, not its point.

I show her where to strike—the throat, the eyes, the soft space under the arm.

I move her body with my own, guiding her through the simple, brutal dance of combat.

She is a clumsy student at first, her movements stiff and awkward. But she is clever. She learns quickly. She listens to my guttural instructions, her brow furrowed in concentration. The fear in her eyes is slowly replaced by a focused determination.

I show her a simple parry, how to turn an opponent’s blade away. I stand before her, my massive forearm acting as the incoming sword.

“Block,” I command.

She raises the knife, her small arm trembling with the effort. She meets my arm, the steel scraping against my hardened hide.

“Again,” I say.

We repeat the motion, over and over. Her block becomes stronger, more confident. The blade is no longer a tool in her hand. It is becoming an extension of her will.

“Good,” I rumble, a strange, unfamiliar pride swelling in my chest.

She is flushed with exertion, her dark hair stuck to her temples with sweat, her eyes shining with a fierce, new light. She is no longer a survivor. She is a fighter.

The sight of her, so fierce, so alive, so full of a desperate, beautiful strength, triggers something in me. A memory, not of the ambush, not of the pain, but of this. Of training.

The sun is bright on the snow of the Stonefang valley.

The air is clean and cold. I am sparring with her.

My mate. Her name… her name is Lyra. She is a warrior, as fierce as any male in the clan.

Her laughter is a wild, free thing as she ducks under my clumsy swing, the flat of her axe tapping me sharply on the ribs.

“Too slow, my love,” she teases, her eyes, the color of a winter sky, dancing with mischief. “You are thinking with your muscles, not your head.”

The memory is so vivid, so complete, that I stumble back, a low groan of pure, unadulterated grief tearing from my throat. The pain of it is a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs.

“Kael?” Mikana’s voice is sharp with alarm. She drops the knife, taking a step toward me, her face wearing a mask of concern. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I cannot speak. I press my hand to my chest, to the great, swirling scar that covers the heart that broke the day I lost her. The ghost of Lyra, of her laughter, of her touch, is a fresh, bleeding wound.

Mikana is before me now, her small hands on my arm. “Talk to me,” she pleads. “Please.”

I look at her, at the deep, unwavering empathy in her dark eyes. She is not afraid of my pain. She is not repulsed by my grief. She is simply… here.

And I know I have to tell her. She deserves the truth. She deserves to know about the ghost that haunts the man who has claimed her as his mate.

“I… remembered,” I say, the words sounding like a rough, painful rasp. “Her.”

Mikana’s face does not change. There is no jealousy, no anger. Only a quiet, patient waiting.

“My… mate,” I force the word out. It feels like a betrayal to say it to another. “Before. In my clan.”

I am terrified. I am terrified she will see herself as a replacement, a pale shadow of a memory she can never compete with. I am terrified she will pull away, that the fragile trust we have built will shatter.

She does not pull away. She moves closer, her hand sliding from my arm to rest over my heart, her warmth a steady presence against the cold ache of my grief.

“What was her name?” she asks softly.

The question is a gift. It is not an accusation. It is an invitation.

“Lyra,” I whisper, the name a ghost on my lips. “She was… the sun on the snow. She was… fierce. She taught me how to fight with my head, not just my fists.”

The memories pour out of me now, a torrent of broken words and raw emotion.

I tell her about our mating, about the small hut we built with our own hands, about the child we had hoped for but never had.

I tell her about the ambush, about watching her fall, her sky-blue eyes wide with a surprise that has haunted my every waking moment since.

“I could not… save her,” I say, the phrase a confession of my greatest failure. “The beast… it took me. And I could not… save her.”

Tears, hot and thick, stream down my face, carving paths through the grime on my cheeks. I do not try to stop them. I am Kael of the infamous Stonefang Clan. And I am a warrior who has lost his world.

Mikana does not offer empty platitudes. She does not tell me it wasn’t my fault. She simply stands there, her hand a warm, steady pressure on my chest, and she shares the weight of my grief. She is a silent, unshakeable anchor in the storm of my sorrow.

“She was a part of you,” she says finally, her voice a soft, steady murmur. “And the things we love… they become a part of us. They are not a debt to be paid, or a ghost to be appeased. They are the soil from which we grow.”

She looks up at me, her dark eyes shining with an empathy so profound it takes my breath away. “You are not replacing her by being with me, Kael. You are honoring her by choosing to live. By choosing to feel again.”

She rises on her tiptoes and presses a soft, gentle kiss to my lips. It is not a kiss of passion. It is a tender kiss of acceptance. Of understanding.

She is not afraid of my ghosts. She is willing to stand in the darkness with me.

The grief is still there, a dull, heavy ache in my soul. But it is no longer a solitary burden. She is carrying it with me.

I look from her beautiful, determined face to the dark, twisted valley below. The path to the Wildspont is a path into a nightmare. But for the first time, I am not afraid.

I have a warrior at my side. And we will face the storm together.