Orc’s Forbidden Claim (Red Planet Dragons of Tajss #33)

21. Saylor

21

SAYLOR

“ W hat did you say to him?” I ask Wren.

I whisper even though I’m speaking Common and neither of the boys understand it. Or I don’t think they do, but it feels appropriate anyway. Both because I don’t want them listening in but also because it’s so freaking dark that Wren is little more than a darker shape in the darkness.

“Hmm?” she makes a musing sound. “Say? Oh. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

I grit my teeth knowing very well she is lying to me. Any other time I would argue with her, demand she tell me, but all of that would be noisy.

“Wren,” I say, hissing her name.

I can see her turn her head to me and I can also assume there is a wide smile on her face even though I cannot see it. I know her and I know how she handles things like this. When I’m angry or frustrated she is an expert in deflecting and redirecting.

“All I said is that if he hurts you, I’ll kill him,” she says softly.

That stuns me. I blink rapidly as if it’s going to do me any good at all. Did Wren say that? To Khiara? What does she think she’s going to do to even hurt him? He’s two, almost three times as big as her. Both of us together wouldn’t pose an issue for him to overpower.

But all those thoughts aside, a warmth fills my guts and spreads through my limbs. She said that. To him. And most importantly she said it for me.

“Oh,” I murmur, feeling grateful. “Uhm. Thank you?”

It unintentionally comes out as a question and Wren giggles. Her giggle makes me laugh too. I stop that as quickly as I can before I begin snorting. Gods above I don’t ever want to do that in front of Khiara. I would literally die if he heard me snorting like some kind of animal. Ugh, I hate it when I do that.

“We need to talk about what happens when we get back,” she says, returning to the earlier subject.

“Heh,” I say, not wanting to tackle it. “Don’t we have enough on our plates?”

“Walking?” she rightly points out.

“Walking, yes,” I say, still wanting to avoid the entire thing.

Thanks to the near-total darkness her hand on my shoulder startles me because I don’t see it coming. I jump at her touch, but then realizing it’s her, I relax.

“Say,” she says. “You know we have to handle this. Better yet, we can. I’ve already broken the ice with Sek’su.”

“Sure, but…” I trail off, staring ahead at Khiara’s hulking shadow.

“But?” she asks.

“I mean, he’s Zmaj. That’s easier.”

“Is it?” she asks. “I didn’t notice. It got pretty hairy, and I thought I was throwing it all away.”

“I know,” I agree in a whisper. “I was there.”

“Exactly,” she says., “Why is this different?”

“The Zmaj don’t hate Sek’su,” I say. “It’s not just our group. Honestly, fuck them. They’re all small-minded and you and I have talked plenty about our perceived roles in the world. I’m not worried about them, or even how the ‘razzi will see it. It’s not that, but it’s… everyone.

A lot of humans are still on the fence about Zmaj pairings, now I’m going to go flaunting another alien race in their faces. That alone is asking for trouble. That’s not even considering what happens if the Zmaj and the Urr’ki go to war. What then? This alliance is so tenuous if the wind blows wrong, it will fall apart.”

Wren doesn’t say anything for quite a while, leaving me to walk in silence. It’s lonely in my head. I want to be at Khiara’s side. Everything is always better when he’s close. He’s only a few feet away but maybe it’s because of the dark. I don’t know what or why but, it feels as if I’m completely isolated.

My thoughts are spinning on all the terrible outcomes that could happen. I can’t seem to shake them off. I hadn’t put my fears into concrete concepts before and now that I have, I wish I hadn’t.

It was bad enough when the thoughts were shadowy ideas flitting around in my head but pulling them out and putting them into the world in the form of words seems to have given them power. Power to dominate my thoughts and to spin into worse and worse possibilities. My stomach is churning and I’m nauseous.

“You’re not wrong,” Wren says at last, breaking the silence but her words do nothing to ease the grip fear has on my mind.

“Yeah,” I agree, hearing the dejection in my voice.

“But,” she says, then nothing more.

I wait. And wait, and the silence drags out until it feels so pregnant it has to burst and still, she says nothing.

“But?” I prod.

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong, but I’m wrong? About what? You think this alliance is strong? You think the Zmaj aren’t just as likely to destroy every Urr’ki they can find? You think the Urr’ki aren’t going to fight with all they are? That a lot of people won’t be killed on both sides? That maybe…”

I can’t speak the thought. I see it, though, clearly in my head. Khiara killed. His brother killed. In my head there are literal fields of bodies, every one of them with a face I know. A face I care about. The sick feeling grows, bile rising into my throat. I press my hands to my stomach in an attempt to keep its contents where they belong.

“All that could be,” Wren says softly. “Of course it could be.”

“Then what am I wrong about?”

Wren’s lips make a popping sound. She’s pursing her lips and popping them open, it’s a thing she does unconsciously when she’s thinking about something. A quirk that I don’t think she knows she does.

“It’s… a feeling,” she muses. “But something more. Do you not feel it? When you’re with him? Or maybe more when you’re not?”

“Wren, I’m not sure what you are talking about,” I say, but that’s a lie and it tastes like ash on my tongue.

I do know. Or I think I know. But I don’t want to say it. It’s too… crazy? Weird? Impossible? Wren is silent for some time. We trudge along behind the boys. The darkness presses in while I try to keep all my attention on the world around me and out of my head where all the bad things wait.

“A certainty,” she says, breaking the silence. “I don’t know, Say, but, well that’s not true. I do know. I just know.”

“Know what?” I ask when she doesn’t continue.

My throat is so dry I can barely get the words out and my voice cracks. My heart is pounding as my stomach ties itself into knots. She’s going to say it. Leave it to Wren. The Ice Queen knows no fear, she says what she wants, and the world be damned.

“That it will all work out,” she says, and the shadow of her head shakes side-to-side. “Fate?”

She whispers the last question.

“Fate,” I agree. “But… we can’t… it’s not…”

I don’t know how to finish the thought. It’s not that I don’t know, but I don’t want to. I’m scared. Scared to say it out loud, scared to jinx it, and scared that it’s only some kind of delusion. I’ve never believed in fate. If anything, to me, the universe seems more like chaotic motion and things happen because two events or moments happen to crash into each other.

But if that’s the case, how do I explain Sek’su and Wren? Or Khiara and me? This connection we have, these feelings, this certainty I’ve known him for so much longer than we have.

“Say, I don’t know,” she admits. “Sek’su says Tajss provides and… I believe it.”

“But that doesn’t mean everything will work out. It doesn’t mean that no one we… love… will be hurt. Or… worse.”

That image of Khiara lying broken and bloody dances in my head. Now I can’t get it to go away. It overlays the darkness in front of my face. Dances and wavers when the dim light of the hooded lantern happens to toss a few beams of light in my direction.

“No,” she agrees. “It doesn’t, but if it’s true…”

“If?”

“It helps, doesn’t it? A bit?”

I smile at her optimism. It’s not a trait I would ever have associated with Wren before Sek’su. Not the Wren I knew in private. The real her, but she’s changed. Changed for the better and I think, at least I hope, that I’m changing too.

I want to change. I want to be better. I want to be worthy of him. I look at his shadowy shape in the lead and my heart swells. I’m the rich girl. The one born to high society and station. I’m the one who has it all and yet, no matter all that, I realize that the biggest problem I have and that most of my doubts are rooted in this one single idea.

I’m not worthy of him. Not yet.

I will be. No matter what it takes, I will be.