Page 3 of The Orc Outcast's Mate

“The only living things I saw were those fucking dogs that chased me down and kept me moving and herded me to the ocean—oh, god, Govek. The ocean wasgone. Dried up. Ican’t?—”

“I have you, Miranda,” Govek vowed, continuing to rock, to squeeze, and to exhale his cool breath against her face. His life soaked into her frame and dragged her back to sanity.

“I don’t even know how I got out of that vent.” Her voice was a high sob against the cords of his neck. “I was stuck and then I wasn’t. I was burning and then I was healed. I was starving and parched andpoisoned,but I survived. We don’t havemagicon Earth, Govek. How am I stillalive? Why am I alive?

“And then I just... I just went to the ocean. I don’t even remember half of it. There are blanks spots. Missing pieces of time. It’s all spotty and distorted. Rotting dogs herded me and signposts guided me and there were cars. Strange cars that somehow survived the explosion and had food and water and... oh god, Govek, why didn’t I go back? I should have gone back to find them. I should have known they wouldn’t be at the ocean.”

“Who?” Govek asked.

“My babies.” Miranda’s voice cracked, breaking under the weight of the horrors she was speaking. Her mind blistered from the agony. Her eyes flooded. “Oh god. I left them. I should have gone back, Govek. I should have gone to make sure they hadn’t... that they weren’t... what if they needed me? What if they were crying, and I didn’t even bother to—Oh god. I can’t?—”

Miranda gasped on her sobs. She vented her confusion and sorrow and guilt all over Govek’s chest as he breathed gently against her hair. His heart was steady under her ear, anchoring her to him.

“You said that you cannot remember some of your final moments on Earth?”

She swallowed hard but still couldn’t find her voice, so she nodded against his shoulder.

Her thoughts scampered right over themselves trying to remember exactly what had taken place.

She remembered being in the vent, being trapped. It had been so brutally hot.

And then she’d been walking near the edge of New Seattle. Or what she assumed was the edge of it. She saw the lit-up road sign pointing her toward the ocean. Forty-two miles.

She’d turned back and had seen the destruction of her city. The vision shot agony through her even now. Making her want to curl in on herself. To wail until all her breath was gone.

She’d wanted to go back to search for survivors. She’d almost gone back. She’d stepped toward it. And then...

And then what?

She couldn’t remember.

There had been a bright flash. And she was further along. Near the car where she’d found the gym bag and workout clothes. She’d raided it. She’d administered the radiation boosters and switched out her clothing and drank the water and ate the granola bars and packed up and prepared to go back.

She’d wanted to go back to help. To find her babies. She was set. Ready.

And then the dogs arrived, and she’d ran.

And things got hazy again. A blur of chaos and destruction, of broken pavement and stale air, of heat and dust and pain.

And those fucking road signs. They shouldn’t have been working. Why were they working if no one was ahead of her fixing them? Why were they leading her to an ocean that had already burned up?

Why did she believe, to the deepest part of her soul, that her babies had had something to do with those signs? It didn’t make sense.

Nothing made sense.

“You should not blame yourself for things you are not certain of, Miranda.”

Govek’s words wrenched her back to the present, and she took a deep breath as he slowly continued. “You did what you needed to in order to survive. So too would they. You do not know that you could have saved them. Or that they were not somehow saved by other means. You made it here and survived. So too could they. Allow your guilt to ebb.”

Her body jolted with shock.

Could . . . could they have lived?

“Could they be here on Faeda?”

Govek’s body went tense at her question.

“Do you think they could have, Govek? Do you think they could be here on Faeda somewhere? Do you think we could find them?”

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