Page 18 of Savage Devotion (Orc Warrior Romances #2)

The council continues for another hour, but I barely hear the tactical discussions, the supply reports, the casualty assessments.

I focus entirely on Tarn, watching how he positions himself near Heldrik, how he nods at precisely the right moments, how his gaze keeps returning to Ressa with predatory calculation.

When the meeting finally ends, officers file out in clusters, their voices low as they discuss the implications of what they've heard. Ressa lingers, studying the maps with forced concentration, but I can see the tension in her shoulders, the way her jaw tightens with suppressed anger.

"I need air," she says finally, not looking at me. "This tent feels like a tomb."

I follow her outside, but my attention is on Tarn. He's speaking quietly with one of the junior officers near the supply wagons, exactly where Vorth said he'd seen the coded message exchange. As I watch, Tarn glances around carefully, then slips something small into the other man's hand.

There.

The transaction is quick, professional, and nearly invisible unless you know what to look for. But I've seen enough battlefield intelligence work to recognize a dead drop when I see one. Tarn has just passed another message, another piece of information about Ressa's activities.

"I'll catch up with you," I tell Ressa. "Something I need to check."

She nods absently, still lost in her own thoughts about the morning's accusations. I let her walk toward the ridge while I circle back through camp, following Tarn as he makes his way toward the shadowed corridors between the storage tents.

This is where the actual business happens. Tarn moves with the confidence of a man who knows he's untouchable, protected by his position and his patron's favor.

He's wrong.

I catch him in the narrow passage between two supply wagons, my approach silent as mountain mist. He senses something at the last second, turns, but my hand is already on his shoulder, spinning him around and slamming him against the canvas wall.

"Tarn."

His eyes widen with genuine surprise, then narrow with calculation. "Commander Ironspine. Can I help you with something?"

"You can start by explaining the coded messages."

For just a moment, his mask slips. I see fear flicker across his features, followed quickly by defensive anger. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"The messages to Heldrik. About Lady Ressa's movements. Her tactical decisions. Her personal associations."

Tarn straightens, trying to regain his composure. "Even if such communications existed, which I'm not admitting, they would be well within the scope of my duties as an intelligence officer. Keeping the commander informed about all relevant developments."

"Including private conversations between allies?"

"Including potential security risks." His voice hardens. "Which is exactly what you are, orc. A security risk wrapped in false loyalty."

The accusation stings more than it should. Not because I believe it, but because I can see how easily others might. An orc warrior, embedded in human command structure, with access to sensitive information and private moments with their most capable field commander.

"You're working to undermine her authority."

"I'm working to protect this command from a woman who's forgotten her duty and her true family." Tarn's eyes blaze with self-righteous conviction. "Who's so blinded by orc charm that she can't see the knife aimed at her back."

"What knife?"

"Yours, obviously. Did you think we were fools?

That we couldn't see the pattern?" He leans forward, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper.

"Every time she meets with you, our patrol routes get hit.

Every time she shares intelligence, our supply convoys get raided.

You're feeding information to your clan, and she's too besotted to realize it. "

Not because it's true. It isn't, but because it's exactly the logic that could destroy everything we've built. Correlation twisted into causation, coincidence molded into conspiracy.

"You're wrong."

"Am I? Then explain the timing. Explain why Bloodfang raids have increased since your arrival. Explain why they always seem to know exactly where to strike." Tarn's smile is cold, triumphant. "Face it, orc. You've been found out."

I study his face, looking for the telltale signs of deception, the micro-expressions that separate truth from lies.

What I find is worse than dishonesty. I find genuine belief.

Tarn isn't just spinning a convenient fiction to justify his actions.

He actually believes that I'm a spy, that Ressa is a fool, that his betrayal is patriotic duty.

Which means this goes deeper than one ambitious officer looking to advance his career. This is ideological warfare, and they disagree about how to fight this conflict and who they can trust to do it.

"She trusts you," I say finally.

"Then she's a bigger fool than I thought." Tarn says with genuine pity now, which is worse than his earlier anger. "But don't worry, orc. When this is over, when the truth comes out, I'll make sure she receives appropriate consideration for her misguided loyalties."

The promise sounds like a threat wrapped in silk. Whatever Tarn has planned, whatever evidence he thinks he's gathering, it won't end with Ressa's simple removal from command. It will end with her disgrace, her exile, possibly her execution for treason.

Unless I stop it first.

My grip tightens on Tarn's shoulder, fingers digging deep enough to leave bruises. The urge to snap his neck here in the shadows burns through me like molten steel, clean and simple. One quick twist, and the spy who threatens Ressa disappears forever.

But killing him solves nothing. Heldrik would simply find another informant, another weapon to use against her. And if Tarn's body turned up after our confrontation, suspicion would fall squarely on the orc who's been whispering in Lady Ressa's ear.

Think like a tactician, not a berserker.

"Walk away from this," I tell him, my voice pitched low enough that it barely carries beyond the canvas walls. "Stop the messages. Stop the surveillance. Find some other way to serve your commander."

Tarn's laugh is bitter, mocking. "Or what? You'll kill me? Prove everything I've been saying about orc treachery?"

He's right, and he knows it. Any direct action against him plays perfectly into the narrative he's been building. The savage orc, corrupting noble Lady Ressa, finally revealing his true nature through violence.

I release him and step back, but my posture remains predatory. "Consider this a warning."

"No, orc. Consider this a warning." Tarn straightens his jacket with deliberate calm, smoothing away the wrinkles from my grip. "Your time here is ending. Soon. And when it does, when Lady Ressa finally sees you for what you really are, she'll thank me for opening her eyes."

He brushes past me toward the main camp, confident in his untouchability. I watch him go, my mind churning through possibilities, scenarios, ways to protect Ressa from the web closing around her.

But doubt creeps in like poison through a wound.

What if he's right?

Not about me being a spy. That's paranoid fantasy.

But about the correlation between my presence and increased Bloodfang activity.

I've been so focused on building trust with Ressa, on proving myself valuable to her command, that I haven't questioned whether my information sharing might have unintended consequences.

The intelligence I've provided about Ironspine patrol routes, clan territory boundaries, traditional hunting grounds, all of it could theoretically be useful to a rival clan planning raids.

If someone in Ressa's command is feeding information to the Bloodfang, then every tactical discussion we've had becomes a potential weapon against human interests.

Have I been the knife at her back without realizing it?

The thought makes my stomach clench with something worse than guilt.

If my presence is genuinely endangering her, not through active betrayal, but through na?ve trust, then the honorable thing would be to leave.

To remove myself from her command before my mere existence destroys everything she's worked to build.

But last night surfaces unbidden: her body warm against mine in the firelight, her fingers tracing scars on my chest while she whispered secrets about the forge techniques her grandfather taught her.

The way she looked at me afterward, not with the calculated assessment of a military commander, but with something raw and unguarded and terrifyingly vulnerable.

She trusts me.

That trust is the most precious thing I've ever possessed, or the most dangerous weapon I've ever wielded against her. And I'm no longer certain which.

I make my way back through camp, noting the subtle changes in how people look at me.

Sidelong glances and whispered conversations, which stop when I pass, now replace the respectful nods from yesterday.

Tarn's work, most likely. Doubt is a poison that spreads quickly through military ranks, especially when it confirms existing prejudices.

The thought of what Ressa must be facing, the questions and suspicious looks from her own officers, makes anger surge through me again.

She's spent years building her reputation, proving herself worthy of command despite her gender and her family's questionable political alliances.

Now, that reputation is being systematically undermined by a man who sees her trust in me as weakness rather than strength.

I find her near the eastern ridge, standing alone at the edge of camp where the rocky ground drops away into a maze of shallow canyons. Her posture is rigid, controlled, but I can see the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands clench and release at her sides.

"Ressa."