Page 35 of Bite Sized Bride
I need her to know. I need to say it, to make it real, before the fog can return, before the curse can try to reclaim me.
I push myself to a sitting position, the movement sending a fresh wave of pain through my side, but I ignore it. I look her in the eyes, pouring all of my newfound clarity, all of my desperate, fragile hope, into my words.
“My name is Kael,” I say, my words a sacred vow. “I am Kael. Of the Stonefang Clan.”
I say it again, the syllables a comfort, a shield. “My name is Kael. I am a warrior of the Stonefang.”
I keep my gaze locked on hers, my voice low and steady, repeating the words over and over, a litany against the darkness. I am introducing myself. I am reminding myself. I am a monster. I am a beast. I am a broken thing.
But I have a name. And Mikana is the one who gave it back to me.
19
MIKANA
The world has become small. It has shrunk to the size of this damp, hidden cave, to the flickering circle of firelight, to the quiet, steady rhythm of Kael’s breathing as he sleeps. It has been three days since the ambush. Three days of a tense, fragile peace, of listening to the forest for the sound of our hunters, of watching Kael heal.
He is different. The change is not just in his wounds, which, thanks to the strange, latent power I’d exhausted myself to summon, are closing with an unnatural speed. The change is behind his eyes. The Urog, the mindless, raging beast, is a ghost now, a faint shadow that only flickers in moments of extreme pain or stress. The soul of the orc, the being who calls himself Kael, is at the forefront. He is awake.
And his awakening is the most beautiful and heartbreaking thing I have ever witnessed.
He sits by the fire, his massive form folded into a space that is too small for him. He is trying to carve a piece of wood with the small, sharp blade I took from the dead Miou warrior. His hands, gargantuan things made for wielding axes and breaking shields, are clumsy and slow. His tongue is poked out frombetween his lips in concentration, a strangely childlike gesture on that monstrous, scarred face.
He is carving a bird. A Pavo, like the one I pointed out to him days ago. The result is a crude, lopsided thing, but it is undeniably a bird. He holds it up, turning it over and over, a low growl of frustration rumbling in his chest at its imperfections.
“It’s beautiful, Kael,” I say softly from my spot where I am mending my tattered tunic with a bone needle and a thread pulled from a spider’s web.
He looks at me, his golden amber eyes, so clear now, holding a flicker of doubt. “Wood… wrong. Hands… big.”
“No,” I say, my heart aching with a tenderness that is becoming frighteningly familiar. “It’s perfect. You made it.”
He looks back at the wooden bird, then at his own hands, at the thick, black claws that tip his fingers. A shadow passes over his face, the ghost of the Urog, the memory of what these hands have done. I see the self-loathing that twists his features.
I put down my sewing and move to kneel before him. I take his hand in mine. It is a terrifying, magnificent thing, my own hand completely lost in his grasp. The skin is a landscape of rough, calloused hide and unnaturally hard plates, crisscrossed with a web of white scars. I run my thumb over his knuckles, feeling the immense, dormant power beneath the skin.
“These hands,” I say in a quiet murmur. “These hands saved my life. These hands keep me warm. They make me… safe.”
He looks at our joined hands, then at me, his gaze so full of a raw, wounded vulnerability that it feels like I am looking directly into his soul. He does not understand how I can touch him without flinching, how I can look at him without seeing the monster.
He doesn’t realize that I no longer see the monster. I see the prisoner trapped inside. I see the warrior who fights a battle every single day against the darkness that was forced upon him.I see the gentle, grieving soul who carves clumsy wooden birds because he remembers a moment of simple beauty.
I am in love with him.
The realization is not a lightning strike. It is a slow, creeping dawn that I have been trying to ignore for days. It is terrifying. It is insane. It is the truest thing I have ever known. I am in love with a creature that the world sees as a monster, a being whose very existence is a crime. And I would not have it any other way.
He brings my hand to his face, pressing my palm against his rough, scarred cheek. He closes his eyes, a low, shuddering sigh escaping his lips. He is not just touching me. He is anchoring himself to me.
“Grak,” he whispers, his voice thick with a memory so painful it is a physical presence in the cave.
“Who is Grak?” I ask softly.
“My brother,” he says, his eyes still closed. “He… we hunted. In the snow. He laughed. The sound… it is gone.”
The grief that pours from him is a palpable thing, a wave of cold that makes the small hairs on my arms stand up. He is sharing his pain with me, offering me the broken pieces of his past.
I lean in, my other hand coming up to cup his face, my fingers tangling in the rough, black hair at his temple. “I’m sorry, Kael,” I whisper.
My lips find his.
