Page 28 of Orc's Forbidden Claim

“Oh,” I say. “What happened?”

Some part of me knows. And with the knowing the dream returns. Or maybe it wasn’t a dream. Something more?

“He saved you,” Khiara says.

Now I cry harder. No one says anything, but they all move in close until I’m cocooned among my friends. Feeling safe I let the emotions free until they have run their course. I’m empty but cleansed. The sadness of the loss of a man I never really knewremains, but there are more important things for all of us right now.

“Can we go home?” I ask.

“Not easily,” Sek’su says. “The explosion collapsed the tunnel. We will not return the way we came.”

I wriggle around and Khiara takes the hint, placing me on my own feet. The world spins as I stand on my own for the first time. I grab onto Khiara’s shoulder for support, and he has one hand on the small of my back while the other hovers over my midsection.

“There has to be another way back,” Wren says.

Sek’su looks at Khiara but doesn’t say anything. Khiara looks around, grunts, shakes his head, then rolls his shoulders and grunts again.

“There should be,” he mutters, extending his hand. “Let me see that light. Are you okay Say?”

“I’ll be fine,” I say, “for now.”

He studies my face carefully as if judging every word for any hint of a half-truth before he nods and then takes the light.

“Wait here,” he says in his gruff way before he wanders down the tunnel.

I take a slow look around. This must be what shock feels like. The only other time I’ve felt anything like this was waking up after the ship crashed in the first place. That was so long ago, and I was so young then, I didn’t register it.

Now I’m numb and it feels like I’m thinking in slow motion. I see something but it takes a second for that something to makesense in my head. Dirt, rock, and even boulders are piled around us. The fact that the four of us are alive at all is a testament to… something. Bits of the dream drift through, but I can’t grasp them, and though it feels important, I don’t know why.

“Are we… it?” I ask.

“Yes,” Sek’su says.

Simple and direct, thanks Sek’su. No beating around the bush with him.

“So…” Wren says, her soft-spoken voice echoing off the small sections of bare stone walls.

I finish my circle looking at her. Blinking in slow motion I study the smudges on her face.

“Only you,” I whisper.

“Me?” she asks.

“Only you can come through,” I make a wide gesture with my arm, “this and still look fucking amazing.”

“Oh,” she says, and I don’t know if she’s blushing or not due to the dirt on her face but I’m guessing she is. She shrugs and shakes her head. “I don’t mean to…”

“You never do Wren. You’re just beautiful. Lucky like that.”

Her eyes are on Sek’su, not me, and he is staring at her with not only open admiration but an underlying tone of lust and desire. He doesn’t care she’s filthy, he wants her and something about that makes me hot too. I look down the tunnel but all I see is a dim bit of light from the lantern. Frowning, I swallow hard.

“Thank you,” Wren says. “But girl…” And that jerks my attention back to her. “Spill. You could have told me. Why didn’t you?”

I huff. It doesn’t mean anything, really, but what am I supposed to say to that? I’m not you, Wren? She clearly doesn’t understand that and why would she? She is my best friend, but I’m not a fool. Ziva was her bestie, not me. I’m close, sure, but Wren lives in her own world and damn it the world hasn’t always bent to her will with no apparent effort on her part.

I shake my head, unable to figure out the words to say why. I don’t know why I didn’t, I guess. It felt like I shouldn’t, but then isn’t that the core of what she just went through herself? But then she’s Wren. The Ice Queen comes through everything and nothing sticks, which isn’t the case for any of the rest of us and most especially me.

“I, uh, I guess… I don’t know,” I finish after stumbling around the words long enough to be really uncomfortable.

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