Page 28 of Orc's Little Human
13
SELENE
Idon't mean to fall asleep. The plan was to slip back to my room before anyone noticed, to pretend this never happened and go back to the careful distance I've been maintaining. But Korrath's arms are warm and solid around me, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm beneath my cheek, and for the first time since I escaped the camps, I feel... safe.
That realization should terrify me. It should send me scrambling from his bed immediately. Instead, I sink deeper into his embrace, letting the sound of his heartbeat lull me into the first peaceful sleep I've had in months.
I wake to the pale gray light of dawn filtering through the gaps in the hide covering his window. For a moment, I'm disoriented—the scent is wrong, the feel of the furs beneath me unfamiliar. Then awareness crashes back, and I remember exactly where I am and what I've done.
My heart lurches as I realize how completely I've fucked up. Thali will be looking for me soon. She always comes to my room early, chattering about whatever adventure she has planned for the day, and if she finds me here...
The thought of that innocent child discovering me naked in her brother's bed makes my stomach clench with shame. But it's not just the impropriety that has me scrambling to untangle myself from Korrath's arms. It's the way I feel lying here with him—the bone-deep contentment, the rightness of it that makes me want to stay forever.
That terrifies me more than anything.
I slip from the furs as carefully as I can, trying not to disturb him. In sleep, the harsh lines of his face have softened, making him look younger, less forbidding. One hand is stretched across the furs where I was lying, as if he's reaching for something that's no longer there. The sight makes my chest ache in ways I don't want to examine.
I dress quickly, my hands shaking as I pull on my pants and straighten my tunic. The mark on my collarbone throbs with a dull heat, a reminder of whatever happened between us last night. His magic had surged through me like molten metal, leaving me feeling raw and exposed and fundamentally changed.
Even now, I can feel something humming beneath my skin—an energy that wasn't there before, a connection to something I can't name or understand. It should frighten me. Everything about this situation should send me running as far and as fast as I can.
Instead, I have to fight the urge to crawl back into that bed and lose myself in his arms again.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I've spentyearsbuilding walls around myself, learning not to trust, not to feel, not to want anything beyond basic survival. I've made it this far by being smart, by being careful, by never letting anyone close enough to hurt me again. And in one night, I've let this orc—this brutal, dangerous man who could snap my neck without thinking twice—tear down every defense I've built.
The worst part is how right it felt. How perfectly I fit against him, how his touch set every nerve ending on fire, how for those few hours I forgot about everything except the way he looked at me like I was something precious instead of something broken.
Desire and self-loathing twist in my chest like twin serpents, each feeding off the other until I can barely breathe. I'm a fool. A weak, desperate fool who's forgotten every lesson I learned in those camps about what happens when you trust the wrong person.
But I can't make myself regret it. Even now, with shame burning in my throat, I can't make myself wish it hadn't happened.
I slip through the doorway into the main room, my bare feet silent on the stone floor. The fire has burned down to glowing embers, and the longhouse is quiet except for the distant sound of the ocean and the soft snores coming from what I assume is Thali's room.
Perfect. I can make it back to my own space, pretend I spent the night alone, act like nothing has changed. Maybe if I'm convincing enough, I can even fool myself.
I'm halfway across the room when I hear the soft patter of small feet. My heart stops as Thali's door creaks open and she pokes her head out, dark hair wild with sleep.
"Selene?" She blinks at me in confusion, taking in my rumpled appearance and the fact that I'm coming from the wrong direction. "What are you doing?"
Think fast. Come up with something believable. Anything that doesn't involve explaining why I was in her brother's bed.
"I couldn't sleep," I say, which is technically not a lie. "I was just... looking at the fire."
She accepts this with the easy trust of childhood, padding over to me with a sleepy smile. "Bad dreams?"
"Something like that."
She slips her small hand into mine, and the simple gesture makes my throat tight. This child trusts me completely, looks at me like I'm someone worth caring about, and I've been lying to her from the moment we met. About who I am, about what I've done, about the mark burned into my skin that seems to react to her brother's magic in ways I don't understand.
"Come on," she says, tugging me toward the kitchen area. "I'll make breakfast. That always makes me feel better when I'm sad."
Sad.Is that what I am? The emotion churning in my chest is too complex for such a simple word, but I let her pull me along anyway. We work together in comfortable silence, Thali chattering about the shells she wants to look for today while I focus on the mundane task of cutting fruit and arranging it on wooden plates.
It's peaceful. Normal. Exactly what I need to convince myself that last night was an aberration, a moment of weakness that won't be repeated.
Then Korrath emerges from his room, and my carefully constructed calm crumbles to dust.
