Page 32 of Where the Shadows Land (Garden of Hope #1)

ASTORIA

T he forest slowly woke from the winter slumber, and the animals did, too.

Astoria snagged a pheasant and two rabbits, as well as a full pouch of early spring forage that would help add some variety to her diet.

A gift she found for Mairuk—a dead raccoon—sat tied around her waist. Astoria wasn’t kind to her captor turned lover when she first arrived, and she hoped that the gifts she brought them helped make up for some of her mistakes.

She approached from the south to come in through the empty space where Mairuk likely worked on the wall.

The sooner she delivered her gift, the sooner she’d get rid of the smell.

As soon as Astoria was within sight of the village, she gave Bastian a rabbit and he bounded off to eat his lunch.

Mairuk’s snarls and a laugh she didn’t recognize reached her over the wall and Astoria sank down into a crouch.

She moved on careful, silent feet around the long border.

Astoria notched an arrow and drew her bow. She couldn’t hear Mairuk or whoever they spoke to outside of snarls. Another Ardelok was in the village, and between the growing growls and their previous confessions of loneliness, she doubted the stranger’s presence was welcome.

She crept forward and peaked around the wall.

Every muscle in her body went tight when her eyes landed on the red and white Rholctai looming over Mairuk.

Astoria loosed her arrow. The taller Rholctai noticed her a breath before the arrow landed and moved just enough to prevent the strike from hitting them in the heart.

They roared and pushed Mairuk out of the way, then charged right at her.

The ground under her feet shook with each of their heavy steps.

Without time to notch another arrow, Astoria dropped her bow.

She drew her hands together and weaved her magic, calling for it to protect her.

Mairuk leaped over the other Rholctai and landed directly in front of her.

The magic dissolved in her palms and Mairuk turned, catching the stranger by the neck.

“ If you harm a single hair on her head, burning would be a preferable death to what we would do to you, Leri. She is ours, ” Mairuk snarled, the words sharp and pointed as they squeezed Leri’s neck in their large fist.

“She shot us!” Leri shouted. “The human needs to be reminded of her place! If you are too soft to do it, we will.”

“You will not. She is our human, and we will deal with her behavior.” Mairuk took several steps forward and pushed Leri back with them.

“This is why you must mark her as your loktossi . Unbound humans are dangerous beasts!” Leri twisted out of Mairuk’s grip, then ripped the arrow from their shoulder with a growl.

“She is not ready to become our loktossi . We will mark her once she is,” Mairuk said, their voice apologetic.

Astoria’s mind caught up to the topic the two monsters discussed and any softness she held in her heart for Mairuk solidified into barbed fury.

Mairuk wanted her as their loktossi ? Few words from the Ardelok tongue crossed the border between their kingdoms, and fewer still were well known, and that was the worst of them.

Loktossi was a term reserved for the magically bound human whores and servants of the Ardeloks.

Those who accepted bonds were the most disgraced in the Kingdom of Lanhure, and anyone with a mark faced death once discovered.

It didn’t matter what Mairuk awoke in her or how many times they made her orgasm, she wouldn’t reduce herself to a fuck puppet tethered to their will. Loktossi were little more than thralls, a set of holes for Ardeloks to rut. Of course, that was all Mairuk wanted from her.

“I will never agree to be your mindless whore,” Astoria spat. She threw the gift she brought Mairuk at their feet, lifted her bow, and stormed off into the village before any of the angry tears fell.

I already spread my legs for them. I’ve fucked them of my volition at least once a day for the last, what, ten days?

Gods, they’ve spilled inside me almost every time.

What if… Astoria shook her head to stop the thought.

No. Absolutely not. She wouldn’t allow the word to form in her mind.

She willingly had sex with Mairuk because she desired them and she thought they understood her.

That their pain mirrored her own and that they touched each other to ease the pain, to not be alone.

That wasn’t the case at all. They wanted to claim her as their fuck puppet, bind her will to theirs, and use her.

Shame rolled deep in her gut and she groaned at herself.

Stupid. Astoria was stupid. She allowed herself to get lost in her desires like she was twenty-one again.

Her body made decisions when she should have thought things through.

Every Ardelok wanted a loktossi , or so the stories said.

They didn’t ask for that when she first arrived and she thought…

tears fell from her eyes and she wiped them away.

She thought she was safe. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Rumors of human’s fertility when paired with Ardeloks whispered across both kingdoms, so of course the monster would want her to fulfill that purpose.

The joke was on Mairuk, though. It took Astoria and Damien years to conceive.

Her cycles remained irregular her entire life, and she often went months with out a cycle or a pregnancy.

If all Mairuk wanted was a broodmare, then they wouldn’t get that from her.

Still, Astoria wouldn’t let the risks she stupidly allowed to stand.

She needed to find sour root and laceweed to ensure nothing stuck from her lapse of intelligence.

Astoria never gave any thought to having any more children.

She’d never birth her own without Damien, but she could have adopted.

Astoria was too lost in her grief to consider it.

There was no possibility of having a family again before she met Mairuk.

Could I tolerate being pregnant again, of carrying another baby I could lose?

A shard of Astoria’s soul formed Inara’s.

The moment she confirmed her pregnancy, Inara became her whole heart.

Yet, Inara died before she ever drew breath.

Astoria never got the promised scream of life or to hear her baby’s tiny heartbeat against her ear.

Astoria received none of the promises sworn by new life.

A part of her ached for it, burned to call herself a mother in a way that felt meaningful to her.

Motherhood was so much more than the birth of a body and it felt dishonest to Astoria to claim a title she didn’t believe she earned.

She wasn’t a parent, but by all the gods, there was a part of her soul that screamed to be.

The other part of her was too afraid to dream of it.

The frozen dread of the unknown yawned out in front of her and reminded her of everything she’d lose if she had to bury another.

Inara’s death almost killed Astoria, too.

Astoria had to teach herself how to breathe again and color had only just returned to her world.

She wouldn’t survive if she lost another baby.

She couldn’t give more of herself, only to have another promise unfulfilled by a cruel turn of Fate.

Something dark and sour sank into her heart as she considered the ingredients she needed to be sure there was nothing in her womb for Fate to take from her.

There was no life to end. Nothing had yet taken root, even if she happened to be fertile, yet shame tangled with her fear.

Ending a pregnancy was never wrong, and neither was taking precautions to ensure one didn’t happen. Neither were illegal nor immoral, yet…

It didn’t matter. Astoria wasn’t ready to be pregnant, and she wasn’t sure if she ever would be again.

Even if she was, she wouldn’t have a child with someone she didn’t love and didn’t love her in return.

Something as precious as a baby deserved to be loved, taken care of, and cherished.

She wouldn’t subject an innocent life to the animosity and desolation this village held in spades.

Astoria didn’t love Mairuk, but she harbored a sense of warmth and affection for them.

It grew out of the understanding she thought they had with one another, and their strength in the face of all they lost. She was an idiot to believe Mairuk held any semblance of the same feelings for her.

They wanted a loktossi and would have said and done anything in their power to gain one.

She thought they were friends and was proven wrong.

All that mattered to Mairuk was turning Astoria into their human fuck puppet.

The ritual was a formality when Astoria already allowed them to use her like one.

Begged them to, in fact. Astoria reached for them and their influence to chase away the darkness, their magic both healing and intoxicating.

She slammed the door to the cottage closed behind her as she stomped inside and threw her new kills on the worktable.

Gathering a waste bucket and a knife, Astoria started the dirty work of butchering her meat as her thoughts spiraled deeper into the dark.

This is what she deserved for allowing anything other than the grief to settle in her bones.

This is what she deserved for daring to feel any sort of contentment or hope.

Her life would never be a happy one. It hadn’t been, and that would not change.

She was too normal to be extraordinary at anything, and yet she was too strange to find genuine acceptance.

The cursed magic in her blood, something she was born with and had painfully little influence over, separated her in ways those without it would never understand.

In order to protect those she loved, she had to hide so much of herself from everyone except her closest loved ones .