To Defend A Bride (Entangled with the Enduar #3)

Chapter 40

Chapter 40

MELISA

Nine Days Later,

S moke continues to billow up around Zlosa, far worse than when we arrived. Hundreds of women have been gathering in our secluded area, spilling out from the small, broken cabin and into the surrounding forest.

Mercifully, Ra’Sa sent word before his three day mark.

The rebellion must be going well, for we are mostly left alone. I try not to think about the worst while I spend my days watching Wren and Thea and tending to more wounded with melted snow and all the leaves we can forage.

By day five, the hundreds had turned into around two thousand. Worry pierced my heart over the increasing numbers and limited resources, but then an army of human men appeared, weary and armed, and said they would begin the trek to Enduvida.

Small mercies. And within a day, the forest was mostly empty of people.

They asked me to go with them—said their leader requested that I leave with the girls.

I didn’t need to ask to know who they meant.

Ra’Sa.

I couldn’t. Not yet. Not when no one would make me feel as safe as Ra’Sa.

So, even as our camps slowly fill up again with women and children, I work hard to help feed them with what we scavenge and the men hunt. We make sopa de carne ? 1 and bola de hoja ? 2 until I can’t see straight. Then, just like the first group, they leave.

However, Daria and Alisa are still missing. Ra’Sa’s voice is quiet, and his absense drenches me in unease.

This morning, the girls act like little fleas, clinging to my legs as I help to tend to a woman who arrived with cuts up and down her back. Another comes in with one of her arms half gone, and I send the girls away so I can stitch her up with a makeshift needle.

The blood makes me nauseous, but I try to remember the animals that I cared for in my old life. Blood doesn’t mean death. I can help them with the few skills I know.

Luckily, a woman named Maria arrived yesterday, and she knows all about the medicinal herbs the forest provides. She brings leaves that help to ease the pain and moss covered in sap to bandage the wounds.

After cleaning the blood from my hands and apron, I go over to a woman who looks too sick or weak to walk. Maria and I try to feed her, but she is old. Her eyes sink into their sockets, and several teeth are missing.

I fear she will die.

It hits me in an unexpected way. The sudden, bloody deaths that the giants dole out are horrible. They tear at my heartstrings. But… watching someone slowly fade away, utterly helpless against the call of death, prolongs my pain. Perhaps some part of her reminds me of my mother.

Does Griselda still live?

Over my lifetime, I’d had a thousand different emotions toward this woman. Fear, love, jealousy, anger, desperation to be loved… to be accepted.I’m still raw from the rejection.

And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. She made her choice. I should feel guilty for not grieving her more, but those words she spoke still echo in my mind.

I don’t hate her. I just… hope she finds the peace she never found as my mother.

I hurry back outside to find some of the herbs Maria was cutting on an old stump. Thea and Wren play with Coco in the snow, tossing loose balls of snowflakes and giggling with delight. Seeing it gives me pause, for I’d observed their playtimes so infrequently.

“ ?Tienen hambre? ”? 3 I call.

They look up and shake their heads. The light-haired young man, Nicolás, leans against the tree and watches them.

I nod to him and return to the cabin. When I reach the door, I sway.

“Gods, I didn’t realize how tired you are,” Maria comments, coming up to steady me.

“I’m fine,” I start.

“Go—sleep.”

“Call if you need me,” I respond reluctantly.

Maria walks away, and I find a spot next to the dying woman. It isn’t ideal, but it is calm. I sit, and somehow the girls also find their way to my side. I smile, letting them curl up on my lap. Once settled, I begin braiding their now-sweaty hair.

Once finished, I press their heads to my shoulders, holding them as I had ached to do many times in the last three years. They aren’t babies anymore, but I will take every second I could get.

“Mamá,” Wren says. “When is Papá Rasa coming back?”

My heart squeezes. I didn’t know. He’d been gone for over a week now, and I could see the distant effects of the war he waged against the giants. I loved and hated him for being as powerful as he was. I wished that he could be here with me.

“I don’t know,” I say back to them in the human tongue.

Then Thea announces, “He’s all right.”

I look down at her, my heart full of tenderness.

“Oh? How do you know that?”

She confidently looks to me, “He promised us he would come back.”

The trust on her face is a blade cleaving my heart in half.

“He did promise that,” I say softly.

Then Wren holds me tighter. “Is he our papá?”

My throat closes. Then I hear his words, “Your daughters will be my daughters, my starling children promised to me by the stones of fate.”

“He… is,” I say softly.

They both smile, snuggling further into my arms.

“You are so soft,” Thea continues.

I brush back loose strands of her straight black hair and kiss her head. I feel like a woman fraudulently playing a part, yet I am filled with gratitude.

Being with them hurts and heals me all at once.

I close my eyes, ignoring the places where my body begins to tingle and prickle from their weight, and let myself doze.

Melisa?

I bolt upright to noise outside our camp. The girls wake up disoriented, their hair messy, and then ask me what’s happening.

Ra’Sa? I ask.

Yes. I’ve been trying to speak to you for a while ? —

I cut him off before he can finish.

You’re back?

Something in my chest stirs. Yearning, beckoning me in the distance. I stand, holding them as I make my way out of the cabin.

The sight nearly brings me to my knees.

An entire group of men and women stand outside, led by Ra’Sa. Wren and Thea see him at the same time because they both scream, “Papá Rasa!”

I let them down as they run to him.

His head snaps up, looking at them with the most beautiful, open expression. Soul-splitting joy blossoms on his face as he kneels, ready to catch them in his arms. He’s glamoured and covered in soot and blood, but they don’t care. He holds them close, eyebrows drawn together as they throw their arms around his neck.

Behind him, I see an array of brightly colored dresses among the slave clothing. My heart lurches as I realize they are comfort women.

Chestnut, black, and deep red hair flow over their shoulders—half tangles, half waves. I recognize many of them from washing. Each face passes quickly as I look for my two friends whom I couldn’t help the last time I was in Zlosa.

And then I see them: Alisa and Daria. I smile, waving in their direction, as they nod and make their over. Holding hands, though Alisa carries a sack.

I smile, grinning to see them together again.

Ra’Sa and the girls catch up to me first. Somehow, the tall man finds a way to sweep a hand behind my back despite holding Thea and Wren. I barely have a chance to gasp when he catches my mouth in a kiss.

I let myself fall into him, working through the layers of fierce longing I’d had over the last week. Even when his mouth pulls away, he keeps me close to his body, between the girls.

They begin to chatter along in the human tongue, telling Ra’Sa about the women we helped and the things they found.

He’s exhausted. That much is easy to see. But he smiles and nods along to Thea and Wren.

“I told you it wouldn’t be goodbye,” I say.

Finally, he looks back at me and gives me a slow smile. One that is as sturdy as him.

“Forgive me, I couldn’t return sooner,” he says softly. “But I promise not to leave again.”

My heart picks up speed. “Really?”

He nods. “Melisa, I’ve brought the women back with me,” Ra’Sa says.

I push up on my toes to kiss him.

“Daria and Alisa. Thank you—truly.” My head automatically turns, looking to watch as Alisa drops the heavy sacks on the ground with a grunt as the weight eases off her body.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Food. For the voyage to Enduvida,” she says gently.

I don’t miss the way that their gazes travel to Ra’Sa. Wary. Biting both lips, I bend over and open one of the sacks.

The sound of women settling around us fills my ears as I uncover vegetables, loaves of bread from gods knows where, and hard cheeses. The round, partially carved wedges are glossy in the afternoon light.

Cheese is a delicacy. Slowly, my head rises.

“Where did you get this?” I ask.

Alisa smirks before walking past me. “Forik won’t miss it.”

I grin and throw my arms around her.

It’s awkward—we’ve never hugged—but she doesn’t pull away. In fact, Daria joins us.

“I’m so glad you both made it out,” I say, still smiling.

Once we break away, I turn back to Ra’Sa.

“We will find you later,” Daria says quickly, before going with the other women to set up a place to sleep.

I toss a quick, ‘see you then’ over my shouldber but stay frozen, entranced by the scene before me. The girls have been let down from my mate’s shoulders and arms and now play with the two crystals they had given him before leaving.

My heart burns as I watch the display. They whisper words into the gems as if they could imbue them with blessings.

Strange girls, we humans are not ones protected by some patron god or icon. I almost tell them that.

But something holds me back.

The world they will grow up in is a world I have never known.

When Coco arrives and snuggles into the girls, Ra’Sa pulls me to the side of the house and wraps me in his arms again as he sits on one of the makeshift chairs. I’m sure it will snap under the weight of both of us, but it stays strong as he holds me.

Beneath me, he relaxes as if I were his safe place, too.

All of this is new. Both intrinsically right and terrifyingly unknown. Every path I could take would end up with him, with us as a family.

I ease back, resting my head in the space between shoulder and chin.

“I’ve missed you,” I admit.

Ruh’flor, smelling your scent is a joy as sweet as a feast after weeks of boiled grains, he murmurs into my mind.

The weariness in his voice, even through our minds, worries me.

How is the rebellion progressing? I venture to ask at last.

I feel him groan at the question.

We gain a little and then lose… too much. We’ve visited eleven of the twelve remaining slave pens across Zlosa. The slaves are mostly prepared when we arrive, but that means the giants are as well.

My throat goes dry.

You aren’t hurt, are you?

He hums, and I feel the sound reverberate through his throat and into the side of my face.

No, my love.

I pause at the title but then ease. Love. We’d already said that to each other. I could grow used to such names.

Others are far worse off than I will ever be. So much slaughter. This morning…

His words trail off, and images pass through our bond. I see the smoke, the blackened bodies of women and men alike. I see the cleaved limbs and blood-soaked ground. A part of me wants to look away, but I can’t.

You’ve saved so many. I hope you think of that just as much as you think of those left behind. Perhaps death is a kinder place for them than life right now.

Ra’Sa’s disagreement is palpable through the bond.

Then he lets out a long breath. The warm air tickles my throat, and his hand tightens around my midsection.

We sink back into silence, but small flickers of what he’s seen continue to pass through our bond as he just sits there. I can feel that he doesn’t sleep.

The berserker’s fury displayed across the painted face of a giant slips through, as do the bodies that fall to the earth. Some of the visions are cloudy. I see women, the Brujas , I think, arriving at the pens. I see the dead rise from the ground, but the vision clouds and fades too fast.

The sight of dead men walking once more makes my skin prickle, but I let it all come through, not wanting Ra’Sa to hold back or protect me. He does that enough.

I can share some of the weight of his burden.

“You need to sleep,” I say.

He sighs.

“There is a tent in the forest. Take the girls. They didn’t nap today. I will finish my chores and join you.”

He smiles weakly. “Are you sure?”

“Rest now,” I reply firmly.

“Thea, Wren!” I beckon the girls. They bound over obediently. “Show Ra’Sa to the tent. I need to help get the meal started.”

They grin and do just that.