Finding Her Heart (Orki War Bride #2)

by Isoellen

  "We need to get out of here," Lurann mouthed, pulling Annabell close. The tension in the room rose as Boss tried to negotiate with the dark-skinned Orki. His war beast stepped forward, nose lifted, scenting.

  "No, I want to see." Annabell couldn't take her eyes off the scene. She remembered this Orki. There were scars on his cheek and he lacked the tusks some of the other's had. He had come into town to trade once or twice.

  "We can take the back while they are distracted," Lurann said, taking Annabell's hand and giving her little choice. She motioned to as many women as she could, trying to get them to leave before the battle started. Eyes all on the biggest threats in the room, none of the men tried to stop them from taking the exit that opened up by the bakehouse.

  They found raider bodies out there, another of the Originals, with two of the big wolf-faced war beasts. Lurann shook with fear. Older than Annabell, but slightly shorter, her body lean where Annabell carried muscle and softness, she clung like a fearful child. "We have to get away from here."

  "They've killed the raiders. I think it's going to be okay." Annabell patted the other woman's hand, hoping she would stop her clutching. The tug and pull of unwanted man hands the last couple of days had left Annabell bruised up and down her arms.

  "It's gone from bad to worse. Men I know how to deal with. But these are not men. They never smile. They don't act like men. They killed a friend of your brother's!"

  "That was so long ago, and that man broke the Peace Law. Will they never be forgiven for following through on their own laws? The Orki have come. And those men you were kissing are dead!" She hadn't meant to say it. She knew that Lurann hadn't wanted the hands of murderers on her. She couldn't have.

  Lurann stopped short, looking at a man slumped against the corner of the left bakehouse. Nearly sliced in half, fresh blood everywhere, the smell of his guts ripe in the night air. Kneeling down, she grabbed a handful of greasy-looking hair on the head, lifting so that she could see his face. "You're right."

  Seconds ticked by. Annabell standing and Lurann kneeling, looking into the dead eyes of the man who had bitten her neck hard enough to bruise and bleed. "You are. The Orki have come and all the men are dead. You are dead. You are all dead. And you can't hurt me. You can't hurt anyone anymore."

  She spat in the face of the corpse before throwing it away from her. The body slipped in the bloodied dirt, cut so deep that the pieces separated with a disgusting noise. Lurann stood up, taking Annabell's hand, her grip lighter.

  Something had happened. Annabell wasn't sure what, but the woman who took her hand was the confident, standoffish woman that Annabell had always known and not the frightened child of moments before.

  Lurann's parents were late settlers to the village. They applied for a home when they married, but were not approved and able to take up residence until after their daughter was past her toddler years. As a founding town, Righteous Way was the oldest on the Peace River, with few fresh families. Lurann's parents won a lottery to get a house already built. There was a stiff superiority to Lurann that sweetened around men. As a girl, Annabell watched Lurann grab the attention of her brothers, like she was a cake they couldn't take their eyes from.

  "You're right. Of course. The Orki look like monsters and though they do take brides, they offer first, don't they?"

  "Only if the woman is young. The Orki only have one woman. They will carry away a woman who has no family to tell them no, but she is treated like a princess in a fairy tale."

  "How do you know so much?" Lurann rubbed her free hand over her face. She was calmer now, but Annabell saw a tremor.

  They walked away from the bakehouse and Gathering Lodge, the Orki outside doing nothing but watching them. Her composure returned. When the war beasts lifted their heads to sniff the air, Lurann moved faster. Walking in the direction of her house, jumping at the shadows caused the bright double moon, another war beast coming from that direction stopped them. The noises it made brought distressed sounds from Lurann.

  The war beasts were huge, strange looking. Dangerous. But Annabell knew they would never hurt a woman without cause. "It's okay."

  "I told Kejere I would do what I could. He told me to take care of you," Lurann said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  "You did. You kept me ugly just long enough," Annabell agreed.

  "It is going to eat us."

  "No, we will be fine. But I don't think we should try to go to your house right now. Let's go back to the Gathering House."

  "That place," Lurann breathed.

  "They are all dead. They can't hurt anyone anymore," Annabell echoed.

  Lurann straightened her shoulders. "That's right, they can't."

  Chapter 6

  I Never Forgot You

  The survivors didn't know what to think or do. Tall, thick bodies, monsterish faces. Walking, grunting, war-like beings with rock-toned skin, muscle, and violence. Lurann wasn't alone in her anxiety, the survivors of the massacre by the steel city outcasts disintegrated into instinctual fear in the presence of the Orki. The Originals rescued them, but the human women wept louder than they had for weeks.

  The irrational reactions of her fellow humans irritated Annabell. She could still feel her face throb, the soreness of her marked-up arms, the pain in her entire body from lack of rest. Dirty, the smell of death, alcohol and bread yeast on her clothes, the loss and woe everywhere, Annabell had no patience for this behavior. Overwhelmed by the violence of the outsiders, none of them did a single damn thing to protect themselves. Not one of them tried to escape or save their loved ones. The raiders stripped them of power and forced them to turn on each other.

  The last she saw of Benjere's Bo Bess, her eyes gawped wide with terror as the others forced her forward. The image would never leave Annabell's mind. And no one saw Bess again after she left that pit of hell in the bakehouse root cellar. Bess was dead. They had killed her.

  Those men had done that.

  And now they were dead. As it should be.

  The town should be celebrating. Thankful.

  Managing herself better, her sister-by-marriage rubbed at her arms as if cold, shoulders hunched to make her less noticeable, but she was not weeping and wailing dire predictions. She understood. They were saved and the bad men were dead.

  The Orki saved them.

  The war beasts wouldn't let them leave the center of town. Holding tight to Annabell's hand, Lurann tried different directions. "Everything will be all right at home. I just want my life around me again," she said.

  That life was over. Annabell knew it. Nothing, would be the same again.

  "Let the gloom find its own; there are enough rats in the barn," Mama's voice echoed, admonishing her. Watching a pair of Orki males stack and drag bodies of dead men into the Gathering Lodge, Annabell bit her lip to keep from saying anything out loud.

  Lurann was not the only village woman trying to leave the Gathering Lodge behind: Annabell saw others, frantic, trying to get past the Originals and out of the center of town. The Orki and their war beasts created a circle and slowly closed it, guiding survivors toward an area near the front of the Gathering Lodge.

  The Orki had lit torches. Some were held, and some were stuck in the ground. They were ever-burning flames, a special fire that didn't consume what it burned, that came from somewhere in their lands. One of their many secrets.

  Their presence changed the structure of things. Made the homes smaller, transformed all the people into little children, and made the mess of the raiders look like the acts of small carrion predators like ground foxes.

  It had been years since she had seen any of the planet natives in town. Not since the council acted in bad faith. Her brothers took part, new and ambitious on the town council novices making rash-thinking changes.

  Deciding to expand the town's borders, forgetting everything they knew about the law, Righteous Way's leaders thought they could talk their way over the primitive, simplistic Peace Contract their forefathers had set
up.

  Everything went wrong from there. Suspicious of the Orki because of their natural differences, the council fermented distrust and dislike, blaming the Originals for a greedy deal gone bad. Later, when Orki traders came through, the tension in the town escalated to the point where women went indoors to avoid them. Seeing them in her town again, Annabell realized how rare their trade visits had become. She hadn't seen the Orki since the day by the river when she was too young to run off on adventures.

  Shaking off Lurann's hand, she turned, wanting to see them. As fluent in their language as a human could be, her papa was often part of the team that greeted the Orki when they came to trade for steel and other goods. Indulging Annabell, he took her to town with him to meet them. Seeing them walking the streets sparked forgotten memories. Things she shut away as silly and impossible. Some of them felt familiar.

  She saw the darkest one by the front of the Gathering Lodge, a tied-up woman the raiders had captured, at his feet. The darkest skinned one who had come in the hall, she was sure she knew him, but the others?

  Trying to get Annabell's hand back, Lurann protested, until an Orki and war beast moved between them. Fear taking over, Lurann darted away.

  Directing them with grunts and pointing, the Orki herded the survivors into the circle of light. Many begged for mercy, or asked what the Orki would do to them, crying that they had broken no laws.

  They hadn't. So why were they so terrified?

  Annabell had no energy for being afraid anymore. She'd never been afraid of the Orki and would not start now. She wanted to go back inside the lodge; to check the bodies, to see the dead. It had been fast for them. They did not suffer like Benjere or his wife. They escaped the brutal treatment they deserved. But she needed to see and count them.

  "Rats breed in the dark. All it takes is one to get twenty, and then a hundred," Mama whispered in agreement.

  Driven with a need to know, her steps stumbled. She had not slept, barely ate, and was beyond her limit. A smoldering lantern, Annabell felt herself going out. She fell. Lurann called her name as she forced herself upright. Her vision swam, the edges of her eyesight darkening, but she'd crawl on her hands and knees to see them dead if she had to.

  A great big bristle-haired beast, bigger than every single cow on her farm, stepped in front of her. The color of coal and ash, with white teeth exposed in a smile, the creature blocked her escape.

  The Orki weren't touching any of the women. They seemed alert to other things, watching the surrounding areas and that was an Orki thing, Annabell knew. They rarely acknowledged the existence of human women, as if they knew the stigma it could cause. Using the battering ram of their presence, they directed everyone into a group. The beasts they rode acted like the most intelligent herding dogs Annabell had ever seen, yipping, growling, warbling, and nosing-nudging human women as they needed. Silent under the watch of the men from the Steel Cities, wails rose in a chorus of fear and woe as the villagers carried on in front of the Orki.

  The war beast blocking Annabell craned its neck to snuffle at her from head to toe. Sticking its nose where it wasn't welcome, it sniffed the places on her body where the salted sweat of fear and living had gathered. That great nose went right to her crotch, and Annabell fell forward, grasping at the animal's head and ears, falling onto it.

  Using her weakness against her, nudging her away from everyone else, the war beast tipped its head down, plopping Annabel onto her bottom. Weak-legged, there was nothing left in her for resisting the beast's greater strength. She brought her hands up to push it away just in time to prevent the giant blanket of a pink tongue from licking up her chest to her face.

  Groaning at the wet animal drool, she turned away.

  She wasn't afraid. Not of these creatures. She'd spent too much time at her father's knee as a little girl learning the Orki stories. The humble life here on Dorsus could not be possible without them.

  Nor was this her first assault with a war beast's tongue.

  This couldn't be the same one, could it? Was this the Orki she had always thought of as hers?

  Mind scrambled from her ordeal, pushed to her limit, she began to relax. Tension deflating her. He was here, he would protect her. She could rest, now.

  "Don't you dare, Annabell Roe!" Mama warned. She sounded just like when Annabell tried to snatch a sweet bun.

  "We're saved now. We are safe now. I'm saved. He came for me," she explained to the invisible woman. Aired, the words seized her mind and body, infusing her spirit. She was safe.

  Her eyes closed. A string pulled too tight, Annabell collapsed inward, let the relief enfold her. Held between the war beast's paws, 'cleaning her' like its kit, Annabell slipped into an exhausted sleep. Predisposed to sleep heavily, she drifted with the vague awareness of the Orki rider arriving and taking her into his arms.

  Her eyes blinked, opened, then closed. She knew him. It was him. He had come.

  Chapter 7

  Woe Is Me

  Startled awake by growls and grunting, Annabell found herself in a new position and in a strange place. Inexplicably moving under the dark blue night sky and the silvery-white light of the Mother and Father. Oddly slung between two thick bands supporting her shoulders and legs, she was cradled in a sweet cocoon of warmth that made no sense at all. Cataloging through the list of odd sensations, she attempted to move, scramble, stand.

  She was not in her bed or her village.

  What had happened?

  Mama said, unhelpfully, "Lazy of mind, lazy of body."

  Taking a breath to calm herself, Annabell answered out loud, "Tired to death, more like. Where am I?"

  Animalistic chuffing answered her question. An Orki war beast. A giant bruise, Annabell hurt but her mind and heart hurt more. The raw wound of guilt and loss leaving no energy left to panic at out-of-place sounds. Shaking her head for clarity rattled her brain. It hurt. An attempt at rubbing her crusty, dry-feeling eyes felt like touching fresh, sensitive bruises. Blinking, she struggled to make sense of things. What was happening? Where was she?

  An Orki warrior held her in his arms and they were traveling over the landscape on the back of a war beast. She'd been on horseback before, long-legged, grazing animals born from antique genetic material imported to Dorsus. She knew a horse's run was smooth, but its trot, like a child's skip, was bumpy. In comparison, the war beast, with shorter legs, claws, and toes moved smoothly over an indiscernible path.

  They couldn't have traveled too far while she was out, yet everything looked different. All the lands around the Peace River were green and cultivated. The scattered trees she could see were taller, older, gray under the light of the moons. Rocks, tinted by moon shadows, rose up out of the ground as sentinels. The fresh she breathed carried unfamiliar scents from unrecognized plants. While sleeping, they had traveled to a different world.

  Body heat, the scent of a musky wild spice and her warrior. They rode on top of his war beast, moving along a path away from Righteous Way and into the Peace Lands–the Orki-ruled territories. Wrapped in a woolen blanket and spotted pelt, her skin was kissed the softness of fur. Annabell’s clothing was missing. The stiff leather and heavy heels of her good walking shoes covered her feet, and her proper woolen socks went up over her knees. But everything else was gone.

  Her breasts bounced, exposed beneath the blanket while her nude bottom curved into the cradle of the lap of a male she had met only once before. The materials of his waist covering rubbed against her sensitive places.

  "Where are my clothes?" Tipping her head back, she glared at his hard jaw. In the night, the white skin of his head and shoulders had a ghost-like, eerie glow—Her White Orki.

  He made a deep sound, acknowledging having heard her. That was all she got.

  Annabell twitched her shoulders and tried to kick her legs, uncomfortable. This male made her aware of her vulnerable nudity and her femininity in new ways. Glad he and the others arrived in Righteous Way, she hadn't expected this invasion of perso
nal space. She wanted to push him away and and take a moment to adjust to the abrupt change. Not asking what she wanted, he scooped her up without a please and thank you.

  She'd always been a heavy sleeper, but her recent newfound ability to collapse and fall asleep where she stood was not a habit she wanted, not if it led to waking up in strange places. Undressed. The Orki had undressed her. The knowledge sunk in along with a vague idea that he'd also dipped her in ice water.

  The white Orki had washed her in the Peace River. Put his hands on her, cleaned, dried her helpless body, took care of her. By the moons, the male washed her like a helpless little baby in the cold river while her eyes rolled in her empty, senseless head.

  Seen her. Touched her.

  Outraged, she tried to sit up away from him, but he pulled her against him, so that she took in his delicious scent while making a noise that infected her brain with an accepting lassitude. Instead of letting him know what she thought, she found herself cuddling into him.