Page 60 of Orc's Pretend Mate

The resistance members move quickly through the streets. The chaos has most of the citizens retreating to their homes, or what remains of them. Smoke is even heavier in the air than it has been since the quakes. The acrid scent burns my sinuses.

We’re heading for the outskirts. I push aside all other thoughts besides moving. Eyes alert to every hint of a threat. The slightest motion and my attention is there, expecting a Maulavi army to emerge from every shadow.

Occupying my attention is better than thinking. I do not understand what she has done. What her connection is to all of this. Was she always part of the resistance? No. No time for those thoughts.

It isn’t long before we reach the outer edge of the city. The two Urr’ki leading the way stop, look around, then motion us into a building. I follow the leader into the dark room. The only light is that which penetrates through the cracks and holes in the walls. The leader goes to the rear wall and crouches. I join him there.

“Maulavi guards,” he says, peering through one of the cracks in the wall and pointing.

I look for myself. Two Maulavi in their dirty white robes huddle close while two other guards stand around looking bored. They’re guarding one of the exits from the cave. It is new for the Maulavi to be there.

“Plan?” I ask.

“We will create the distraction,” he says, pointing at himself then the other resistance member. “You two slip past. Do not engage. Run.”

I glare, unwilling to take a passive role. If there is to be a fight, I should fight.

“I can fight,” I protest. “We can beat them.”

“No, brother, we cannot,” he says. “If we could, you wouldn’t be going on this mission. You think we want to join forces with the lizards? You think we like this anymore than you do?”

“Then why?” I ask, anger surging. “They have destroyed everything. They kill us without remorse. Why engage with them?”

“Because, Vapas, they are by far the lesser of two evils. If we don’t stop the Shaman there will be nothing left of us to fight. The lizards kill our bodies. The Shaman is killing our souls. You see it, don’t you?”

I grit my teeth, not wanting to admit he’s right. It goes against everything I’ve ever known. The Zmaj are the enemy. The stories we grow up with says they are the monsters. Driving us from the surface and then finding us here they continued their genocide.

But he is right. My people are no longer what we were and it is not the Zmaj who have done this to us, but the Shaman. The spying, the mistrust, the whispers, the total loss of honor. This is not who we are.

“How?” I ask. “How am I to entreat with them?”

“The humans,” he says, “they are the key. They’ve opened the door and we must walk through.”

“Vapas, I can help,” Phoebe says, her voice trembling, though it’s barely a whisper.

I look at her, uncertain what I see any longer. I thought I knew her, but I was wrong. She has secrets and layers that I never suspected. She is not the scared, lonely female who reminds me so much of my former dragoste. She is something different, more maybe, but deceptive above all. And that is a hard pill to swallow.

“Fine,” I snap. “We will run. I will try this. If I end up dead, so be it.”

I rise and walk to the hovel door.

37

PHOEBE

Vapas walks away without a word and it feels like my heart tears out of my chest and drags in the dirt behind him.

I follow in his wake, the heat of my regrets burning with every step. He doesn’t look back, his broad shoulders stiff. Every instinct screams at me to tell him the truth, to explain why I was sent to live among the Urr’ki. But the words stick in my throat.

Now? Seriously Phoebs? Get real girl. He’s not going to listen.

What would I even say? That I was a pawn in a plan I barely agreed to? That my silence wasn’t meant to deceive him but when have we had a chance to talk? The weight of it presses on me, and for all Vapas seems to care, I might as well be invisible.

Ahead, the resistance members move into position, their dark silhouettes darting through the gaps between broken walls and piles of rubble.

“Human,” one of the resistance members whispers, motioning for me to stop moving. He points off to the left, away from theguards. “When we move, you follow Vapas. Don’t stop. Don’t hesitate.”

I nod, though my stomach nervously churns.

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