Page 28 of Orc's Mate

“He sounds like a wonderful male. I’m sorry I won’t get to meet him.”

“Me too.” Her voice trembled, and I wished there was something I could do to ease her pain.

“My offer still stands. I’ll be happy to slay the person who murdered your friend.”

She was silent for a long time. “She knows what she did, and now she’ll have to live with that knowledge for the rest of her days.”

“If you change your mind—”

“I won’t.” She squeezed my arms where her hands rested on them. “Thank you. I never dreamed I’d ever meet someone like you when I fled the village.”

“I prayed I’d meet someone like you.” It wasn’t weakness to admit something like that. “I’m strong for my people because I have to be. But when I’m in my home, it’s nice to relax and be the orc I am inside.”

“I see your strength and your kindness, Odik, and I like it very much.”

And that was enough for me.

The islands loomed in the distance, a peppering of land far out to sea.

“Is that your home?” she asked, but I couldn’t read anything from her neutral tone.

Tension tightened around my spine. I was doing my best to make sure everyone was provided for, but it was never enough.

“The salty air must smell wonderful all the time,” she said.

“It’s briny.”

“It’s new to me. The water’s gorgeous. Can you see it from your home?”

“Ourhome,” I said, though I didn’t snap. It would take time for her to accept this as her new home; that was to be expected.

“All right.Ourhome.”

“I live in a house overlooking the sea. It’s been in my family for a few generations.”

“Do you sit outside in the morning and grin at the view?”

I hadn’t in so long, I couldn’t remember. “I’ve got a stone deck where you can sit. I have chairs there.”

“Will you join me?”

“Yes.”

She relaxed against me as Zarran flew lower. “Where does your vox live?”

“Once we dismount, he’ll fly to his nest on one of the uninhabited islands.”

“I know nothing about voxes.”

“I’ll take you to the hatching grounds sometime, though they’re far from here. It’s very dry there and mostly made up of sand, though there are pools with islands that will amaze you.”

She nodded and studied the land we flew over. “How many live on our island?”

I grinned at her use ofour. “Thirty, the largest group of them clustered in the village center. Our house is within walking distance.”

“A small group, then. You must know each of them well.”

“I know them as best I can. They . . . sometimes hold themselves away from me, as they did with my father. Such is the way of the caedos and his people.”

---