Bound to the Orc Guardian (Brides of the Moon Blade Clan #4)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Bella’s words should have refocused my thoughts on our mission. But all my mind wants to do is replay the memory of how effortlessly Sturrm held me over his head as his huge body fought against the raging river.

The sheer power of it! The control! No matter how hard the current bashed against him, he never wavered. I didn’t worry for a single second that he’d drop me.

And I love that. I love that I can depend on him. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to feel that way.

Losing Papi broke something in Mami. Grief stripped her to a shell of her former self. Oh, she was still around. She still went through the motions, and I always had everything I needed in terms of food, clothes, and a place to live. But she checked out of emotional stuff, no longer the happy, attentive mother of my childhood.

I was sixteen, I’d lost my father, and I no longer felt like I could burden her with anything I was going through.

She remained like that for years, a brittle fragileness surrounding her. It didn’t change until my junior year in college. She met her new husband when he visited Miami on a business trip, and I got my mother back for three wonderful months. Then they married, she moved to Texas to be with him, and I kind of lost her all over again. I couldn’t say a thing about it, because it felt wrong to be upset that she was finally happy. And I was happy for her. I just… missed that secure feeling of having someone nearby I could really count on.

I’m only able to admit it now because of Sturrm. I’ve pushed on for years, proud of my independence. But he lets me put down that burden, and carajo, it’s such a relief.

He strides before me now, all wide shoulders and strength. I want to run to him, to be caught in his arms, to have him never let me go.

After several more hours of walking, the gnomes halt, their little hats forming a cluster of glowing moss in the tunnel ahead as they hold a whispered conversation. When they break apart, the leader does a front flip toward us, landing and throwing his arms wide like gymnasts do when they stick the landing.

“We are here! The cavern with the crystals is right through there.” He points to a thin fissure in the rock wall of the tunnel. We’ve passed countless cracks that look just like it. Even if we had a map of this place, we might have walked right past this entrance without a second glance.

“Thank you,” I say. “We never would have found this without you.”

“This does us no good.” Sturrm glares at the rock as if the power of his gaze alone can melt it. “We can’t fit through here.”

“Maybe I can. I’m the smallest.” I slip the guitar case from my shoulder and sidle up to the crack. Only two feet in, my boobs and butt catch and scrape on the hard surfaces. Carajo! I love my curves, but they’re a little too generous for this.

“No.” A strong hand curls around my trailing arm, pulling me back.

“The narrowness of the passage will not stop the sluagh,” Bella says. “It will turn into its bird-flock form and slip through easily.”

Which means we have to get in there, and if I can’t do it… I spin around to face the gnome. “Will you get the crystals for us?”

“That wasn’t part of our bargain.” His expression turns sly. “What will you give the gnomes for this?”

“She’ll give you nothing ,” Sturrm growls, his voice dropping so deep the final word reverberates off the walls of the tunnel. “You still haven’t met the terms of your original bargain. You promised to take us to the crystals. Until you get us all the way to them and back to the dragon caves, you’re bound by your bargain.”

The gnome frowns and mutters something. Tricksy little thing! He sure doesn’t like Sturrm catching him out like that.

“The gnomes said we would take you to the crystals, and so we shall. We will take you through the rock.”

“No.”

“But—”

“No. It’s not negotiable.” The knife blade of Sturrm’s hand slices through the air. “You will find another way to fulfill your promise. Use your magic to widen the passage.”

All of the gnomes start to talk at once, a high-pitched chorus of protest. Then they clump even closer to the leader, who stands right in front of the fissure. They all put one hand on him, and then all of them stretch their free hands forward. He uses both of his, gesturing dramatically at the rock.

Magic blasts from them, and the fissure stretches until it’s a good four feet wide. They did it!

They all drop their hands and plop to the ground, panting like they just ran a marathon.

Sturrm sticks his hand into the opening, glow stone raised.

I lean against him, eager to see inside, too. “Oh.” It gusts out of me in disappointment. The new opening might be wide, but it’s only a couple of feet deep.

“Get up,” Sturrm says to the gnomes. “You’ve barely begun.”

The lead gnome shakes his head tiredly. “We can’t. ”

“What’s the issue? You mine more rock than this every day.”

“We mine by traveling through the rock, not by moving this much of it. Gnomes can sculpt rock on a small scale, but we have to rest often. Making a passage large enough for all of you will take days.”

Mierda. With the sluagh coming, we don’t have days. We have to think of something…

I snap my fingers and spin to face the unicorn. “Dash, what’s it like for you to run with me healing you versus without me in terms of stamina, etc.?”

“It’s amazing,” he says. “Your magic makes it so I never get sore or tired, and I can run all day instead of only a couple of hours before needing to stop, and that’s mostly because I need to eat.”

“That’s our solution.” I spread my hands wide. “I’ll heal the gnomes while they work, and everything will go faster.”

“Fast enough?” The gnome looks skeptical. “The sluagh will get here soon.”

“We have to try,” I say. “And if this doesn’t work, we’ll travel through rock with you.”

Sturrm grunts his no grunt and starts to open his mouth.

I talk quickly before he repeat voice his objection. “We won’t need to do that if this works, so let’s try it!”

The gnomes shove up to standing and climb on top of each other to make a cheerleader pyramid! A chuckle escapes me as the head gnome clambers right to the top, forming the apex of the structure.

It puts him at my height, and I set my hand on his shoulder. My healing magic immediately pulses into him, and the orange glow of fatigue that suffuses his whole body fades. Then I heal the two below him, and so on down to the bottom row.

They all stretch one hand forward, their balance good enough that the loss of support doesn’t make the pyramid waver. Another blast of magic barrels from them and into the newly forming tunnel.

Now the formation does tremble a bit as they all drop their hands tiredly to use them for support.

I stand and go through it all again, healing their magical fatigue, one after the other.

It becomes a mindless routine, with me doing more squats in one day than I have at any other point in my life. There’s nothing but defeating the orange glow, again and again. I don’t even keep track of what their magic is doing to the rock.

After an indeterminate amount of time, I shove to my feet for another round, my magic flickering through me, healing my tiredness.

Sturrm grips my shoulders, breaking me from my trance. “Selena, enough. You need to rest.”

I blink up at him, then look into the tunnel. “How far along are we?”

“Twenty feet.”

“How much farther to reach the crystal cavern?” I touch the head gnome’s shoulder and send a pulse of healing magic into him.

“We’re halfway,” he says with a relieved sigh.

“Then we keep going.” I reach down and heal the next row .

Sturrm growls, “Selena—”

“No.” I shake my head and ignore the burn along my nerves as I heal another row. Mierda. My magic’s starting to… hurt a little bit with each use. Then it hurts a little more as it heals that hurt. It’s turning into a continuous loop, with shorter and shorter pain-free interludes. But I refuse to give up. “Don’t stop me. I’m doing this.”

I’m doing this for the quest.

And I’m doing it for him. We have to succeed so he can see himself like I see him—someone amazingly competent and sure. Someone worthy.

Someone to believe in.