Page 34 of Bite Sized Bride
The memory is so beautiful it is a fresh agony. The grief is a physical blow that threatens to send me back into the drowning darkness.
But her voice is there, a steady anchor. “It’s all right. I’m here.”
And the cool, silver light from her hands intensifies, pushing back the grief, holding the darkness at bay. It allows me to see, to remember, without being consumed.
The dreams shift.
I am a warrior. I stand before my clan, my hand bound to the hand of another. An orc woman. My mate. Her name is… her name is gone. Lost in the red storm. But I remember her face. Her fierce, loving eyes. The way she smiled when I brought her the pelt of a snow iypin. We are happy. We are complete.
The pain of this lost memory is a blade that twists in my soul. I feel a guttural sob tear itself from my throat.
Her hand moves from my wound to my face. Her small, soft palm rests against my scarred cheek. The cool, silver light flows into me, a river of peace that washes over the burning shores of my grief.
“It’s okay,” she whispers. “You’re not alone.”
The dream changes again. The memory I have tried so hard to outrun. The ambush.
The scent of dark elf magic, a foul, metallic stench that chokes the clean mountain air. The screams of my clan. The clash of steel. Grommash, my chieftain, my brother in all but blood, falling with a dozen arrows in his chest. The face of Vexia, her violet eyes burning with a cold, clinical curiosity as she chants the words that unmake me. The pain. The fire. The breaking of bone and the tearing of flesh. The red stormdescending, burning away my name, my mate, my clan, my soul.
This time, I do not fight it. I let the memory wash over me, the agony of it absolute. But her touch is there, a constant, steady presence. The silver light is a shield, not against the pain, but against the oblivion that follows. It allows me to see the horror for what it is—a memory. A part of me. Not the whole of me.
I feel her begin to tremble. The flow of her strange, healing magic falters. I can feel her fatigue through our connection, a deep, bone-weary exhaustion. She is pushing herself to her very limit. She is pouring her own life force into me to keep the darkness at bay.
How is Mikana doing this? She has purna blood?
No,a part of me screams.Not for me. I am not worth it.
But she does not stop. I feel a final, desperate surge of her power, a brilliant flare of silver light that is so intense it feels like it is physically knitting my torn flesh back together. It is an act of pure, selfless sacrifice.
And then, the darkness breaks.
I wake.
The first thing I am aware of is the silence. The red storm is gone. The screaming in my head has stopped. The fire in my side has been banked to a dull, throbbing ache.
The second thing is her.
She is slumped over my chest, her head resting on my shoulder, her body limp with exhaustion. Her face is pale as bone, her breathing shallow. The skin of her hand, still resting on my cheek, is cold. She has given everything.
I look at the wound in my side. It is still a horrific, gaping hole, but the edges are no longer black and festering. The flesh is a clean, healthy red, already beginning to knit itself together.The poison of Vexia’s spell is gone. She did this. The small, fragile human with the fire of a Purna in her blood.
A feeling, vast and overwhelming, rises in my chest. It is not the possessiveness of the beast, or the pride of the warrior. It is a profound, aching tenderness. It is a feeling so powerful it threatens to break me all over again.
I do not move for a long time. I just lie there, breathing in the scent of her, feeling the light weight of her hand on my face. When the light of morning finally filters into our hiding place, her eyelids flutter open.
Her dark eyes, hazy with exhaustion, find mine. A flicker of fear, then relief.
“You’re awake,” she whispers, her voice a dry rasp.
I open my mouth to speak, and for the first time, the words are not a struggle. They are not rough stones I have to force from my throat. They are clear. They are mine.
“You saved me, Mikana,” I say. My voice is a low, gravelly rumble, the voice of a creature who has not truly spoken in an age, but it is steady.
Tears well in her eyes, spilling down her pale cheeks. “I thought I’d lost you. You can speak.”
I reach up, my hand clumsy, and wipe a tear from her cheek with my thumb. My touch, which should be monstrous, is surprisingly steady.
“Yes,” I say. “You found me.”
