Page 11 of Orc's Pretend Mate

We eat in silence. There is a low tension between us. The unspoken thoughts and words are heavy, weighing on everything. I finish eating and only when she reaches over the table and takes my plate do I realize she is also done.

I look over at the door. Any moment, even right now, the Maulavi could return. When they do, it does not matter if they come in force or not, there will be nothing I can do. If I stand up I might stop them for the moment. I am certain I can take two, maybe three of them, but it will only delay the inevitable.

They would return. They would return with overwhelming force and then what? In all my tossing and turning I came up with nothing. No way to save her.

Except one.

Except one. Even that is a stretch. Will they honor the traditions? I don’t know. Not anymore. All that we Urr’ki were has been undermined and eroded by the influence of the Shaman. He is like a disease in the heart of my people. Slowly, inexorably, corrupting all that made us who we were.

Yes, we were losing the war. Yes we were desperate. I am no fool looking on some before time as if it was magical and so much better. If we had not been forced to retreat from the lizards somany times the ground would not have been fertile for him. His evil would never have taken hold and slowly ate away at all that my people once were. What I once was.

What I can be again. The choice is clear. I only have to make it. Will I hold to honor and my own integrity, or will I let fear of death and consequences stop me?

When it boils down to such simplicity there is no choice at all. I will protect her.

Looking up from the table she is cleaning the plates. She hums softly, a tune I do not know, but the similarities again calls to memory. I clear my throat, which has a lump in it. She doesn’t react so I clear it again, louder, but it comes out as an almost growl.

She stops her work, stiffening. She turns slowly, a towel gripped tight in her hands. Her face is pale, her lips a tight line.

“I have… an idea,” I say.

“Yes?” she asks while barely parting her lips.

“You will be my dragoste.”

Her knees give out and she drops.

6

PHOEBE

The simplicity and familiarity of cooking and cleaning are relaxing. Scrubbing the dishes with the sand like substance isn’t the same, by far, as doing dishes on the ship but the intent is.

Vapas clears his throat, but I’m only tangentially aware of it and him at all. My thoughts are on what is next. I know I’m still in danger but maybe I’m getting used to it? For right now at least it doesn’t seem real. No, that’s not it.

It is real. That fear that at any passing second there will be a knock on the door, or worse the door will burst open. I know it, it’s not gone away. Maybe I’m overloaded on how worried I can be. It feels more like that. As if I’ve reached a point where danger and fear are so commonplace they don’t really matter anymore.

It’s weird what we can find to be normal. Vapas clears his throat again but this time there is something of a growl to it. The fear rushes through my new normal and becomes clear and present. Flooding my body. Every muscle stiffens. I have a death grip on the towel in my hands as I force myself to turn and face him.

This is it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s going to be bad.

“I have… an idea,” he says.

He is staring as if he expects me to react with joy or happiness. I don’t have any clue what his idea is or why he thinks it will make me happy. I am sure it’s not that he’s going to take me back to the Zmaj.

His mouth turns down into a frown when I don’t answer and his eyes narrow, furrowing his brow. His busy eyebrows clamp down over his eyes as if they are shielding them from seeing what is in front of him.

My heart thumps in slow motion. I blink slow too. I don’t know what I should say or do. He keeps waiting and all I know is I need this over.

“Yes?” I ask, my throat too tight to say more.

“You will be my dragoste.”

Dragoste? I know that word… no. No, no, no. He wants…

The world tilts unexpectedly, and my vision blurs at the edges, darkening like shadows closing in. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, loud and uneven, drowning out everything else. My legs feel like jelly beneath me, trembling as I struggle to stay upright.

I blink rapidly, trying to focus, but it’s useless. The air feels heavy, too thick to breathe, and my chest tightens. Heat rushes to my face, and then everything goes cold, like ice spreading through my veins.

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