by Isoellen
"What are you doing, Annabelle Roe?" Mama asked.
"I don't know. I can't stop," she said into the soft skin of his chest.
As skilled hunters, the native Originals were said to be sensitive to things like smells, sounds, and air vibrations. They had abilities unique to their kind, many natural enhancements and few natural weaknesses. No one knew for sure, not exactly, all the capabilities and secrets of the Orki. Those who did know were dead. Papa had taught her. This sound he made. It incapacitated her completely. It could be a weird defense mechanism. Something. But it was powerful. She lifted her hand to bat at him-push his arm away-but found herself stroking his skin.
It was her father's stories come true. The Orki had taken her as a war bride.
Three years after her mother's death, living under the negligent care of her elder brothers, Annabell had been approached by this Orki.
He was her forbidden dream, come true. Just like the stories her father told her.
Humans could settle the Peace River Valley. The Orki protected everything but the mountain pass. Snuggling into their lands, in a fertile and mild climate, accepting their protection, came with a price. The Orki had the right of way. Could enter the towns, trade for man-made goods, and like a man, offer for the town's daughters. If the girl was young, still with her family, they would speak to her family, just like any man. If the girl was a woman of age and still unmarried, the Orki did not have to negotiate. He had the right to take. It was in the Peace Law, even if the villages chose to ignore it.
"Just take a woman away, steal her in the night against her wishes?" Mama said in outrage.
The memory of her father countered, "It is only if she is unmarried. And what woman can survive the humble life alone? And from what I understand, those who have gone with them do not regret it."
"Doesn't make it right. Doesn't make it right," Mama grumbled.
When Annabell was too young to be taken the first time, the pale-skinned, white-eyed Orki and his war beast approached her. He asked her brothers for marriage rights. They knew the bargain. They received the same lessons from Papa, but after that damned stupidity with the council that got a man killed, it was no longer an honor but a shame to become an Orki War Bride.
Agreement or no, the Peace villages did not view kindly on the proposal. Just to be approached marked a girl. Already branded as a Child of Woe, set apart as strange and her first offer of marriage comes from an Orki Original.
Annabell had been delighted. Excited. It was her most secret dream come true. She would get to see their world, the rest of Dorsus. A romantic adventure.
Her brothers were disgusted. Appalled. Insulted. They did not believe Papa's tales. They told her Mama would never want that life for her. They told her she could not do such a thing, that she would be taken from her life. They told her she would have no one she knew around her.
An Orki had her now.
She tried to tip her head to see him better. He was a warrior in every way, holding her across his lap in the vee of his legs while he rode atop the war beast that singled her out earlier from the crowd. Slashed, scarred lines marked his pectorals with unusual precision. Without thinking, she rubbed her cheek there, silly with that sound he made. The texture of supple leather. The feeling was as 'cream' as she had ever encountered.
"Good leather is cream," Mama's voice was an unhappy echo. She did not approve.
He wore something around his neck, clearly seen from her vantage point. A necklace of scarred flesh circled his throat and protruding from the front was a rectangle of black stamped metal, a circle, with strange shapes were indented in it. In the dark, with only the moons and shadows of night to see by, it looked like the metal disappeared inside of his body. Above that, the sharp line of his lower jaw, which jutted forward in an underbite that accommodated two overgrown teeth. Tusks. Not human.
They had not spent more than twenty minutes together that first meeting. The great war beast bounded up to her, a giant thing acting out the sweetness of a harmless puppy. She laughed and tested her Orkis words on her. She knew more of it then. Her family, her father in particular, was a knowledge keeper of sorts. He'd even been a temporary schoolmaster, and he shared his insights with Annabell, who soaked up every word. His death cursed it all, but Annabell still retained a good grasp of words, even if her pronunciation was bad. She had understood what he was saying.
Had he introduced himself? She searched her memory but couldn't find it. He must have. She remembered his unique eyes. White like his skin, with triple eyelids that blinked at her. White skin, white eyes rimmed in then rings of black. But she couldn't remember his name.
"Dawdling and distracted. What am I going to do with you, Annabell Roe?" Mama said unhelpfully.
"What is your name?" Annabell asked, ignoring her critical inner voice.
Dipping his head to look at her, milk eyes with black centers looked back at her. He grunted, a sound centered in the barrel of his chest. But he didn't open his mouth to answer. Under the heavy, hairless brows, he searched her face.
Annabell wondered what he saw. She had no idea what drew an Original to choose a human woman, but it had nothing to do with beauty. She'd lost the small beauty of her girlhood. Her family was known for their handsomeness—it had never done her any good at all; time dulled her considerably. When they met, her hair glowed with a subtle nimbus of red and gold in the sunlight. Now, it was the same muddy color as the earth around Righteous's main boat launch. Her clear moss-colored eyes had been large, heavy-lidded. Now she looked in the glass and saw dark circles, patchy spots, and wrinkles in her eyelids, the color dulled, darkened. Sadness and sleeplessness changed how she carried her shoulders. The firm youth and elasticity of her skin and body hardened with long days and nights. She was bony in places she didn't want to be and soft in places she didn't need to be.
Benjere pointed out the circles around her eyes every time he visited. After her run-in with the raider, the bruising had more purple and green than usual, but she'd seen her reflection. The change was not so great.
Her father hadn't known how the Orki chose their brides. She had asked. Often. She'd grow up and catch an Orki husband, she told him. As if an Original could be caught like a fish. Papa made becoming a war bride like becoming a princess. It sounded like true love, like adventure, like freedom.
An Okri treated his bride like the most important person in his life.
"Don't you dare, Annabell Roe. Don't you dare," Mama whispered, ignoring Papa's memories. She always did that.
Everything, everyone in Righteous was gone. Dead. The raiders arrived in the dark of night, leaving no men alive. They killed her brothers. Her family. Perhaps her oldest and youngest brothers were alive, safe in other towns, with their families— she could only hope. But her last ties to the town of Righteous Way were buried in the earth with stains of blood.
The sharp memory of graves struck her hard. For a moment, giddy with still being alive, those losses had thinned, the wave of their return hit her hard, along with guilt ripping at her gut. A sob cracked free from a dark place, evaporating all the relief she felt at being saved, and submerging it with shame.
She survived. They had not. She had nothing left but woe.
Covering her face with her hands, she cried.
"What have you done, Annabell Roe?"
Woe made her the eye of every storm, unscathed at the center of it, forced to watch. The truth of her curse sank into her bones. Pressing her against the snowy-colored skin of the Orki. She didn't deserve to escape death or the mauling rape that others had suffered.
Surrendering to the curse stole her desire to do anything but weep. She was the least worthy of the entire family. The cursed one. The disappointment.
The tears came with a burning tightness in her face. Steeped in the male's comfort and security, her pain felt even sharper. A wail of denial squeezed out of her throat and into the air. She cried for her village. The beloved settlement where people went to live
to escape violence. She cried for family members. For faces she would never see again. For Benjere, her most hated and beloved of her brothers. His children, Bess, their pain. She wept for her neighbors, for the women who survived and now lived with the loss of many loved ones.
Screams boiled up, anger and regret that she pressed into the muscular chest. If she had realized sooner what attacked them. If she had taken a boat and crossed the river for help. If she had done something other than walk right into the middle of it all, getting herself captured. Could she have saved one life? Could she have spared one woman? Annabell didn't know.
Lost in herself, she missed the obvious signs of danger. "Stupid is as stupid does."
She wept at every accusation of her mother's voice. Wept past tears and energy until she fell into silence. She tried to turn her head away from the body and male holding her after a few moments of jagged breathing. Tried to turn in on herself and shrivel up with all of the emotion that had no place to go.
The Orki's hand came up, so big it cradled her whole face. His thumb traced small circles over her cheekbone, small to wide swirls, while the fingers reached back, cradling the back of her head. The action distracted her from the heavy, dark feelings inside. Over and over, that same circle as the war beast covered the land, racing through the night with the other hunters. Coupled with the rumble in his chest, she lost her grip on some of the raging emotions storming over her heart.
Her breathing was even when the circles stopped, and his hand moved to the back of her neck. Massaging. Gentle, firm pressure moved to the base, his fingers finding the swollen stressed muscles on both sides of her spine and rubbing back and forth. He went up into the base of her skull, finding sore spots she hadn't known existed. The touch was everything. Felt everywhere. Tethering her to him. To the world around them. She wanted to drift away, but he would not let her.
His surrounded her, his hand in her hair, massage ING her scalp, neck, and shoulders. He was heat, safety, comfort. It hurt and felt good, the same way that sound in his chest felt good. His touch pulled out the poison of the last few days turned her liquid and languid, taking her back to helpless acceptance.
Annabell tried to fight the peace. She had to hold on to that guilt—she deserved it. She had survived. She had to remember what had happened. Remember every feeling. They deserved that. After failing them in every way, she could not fail in remembering the sharp edge of horrors her village and family suffered at the hands of murderers.
"You did this. Stupid is a stupid does. Thoughtless. Dilly, dally, dawdler. This is your fault."
As if the Orki could hear the thoughts in her head, his fingers chased each one down over her scalp, the side of her face, back to the base of her skull, down her neck, and even to her shoulders. Wherever he could reach, rubbing and smoothing. Pushing on muscles and tension.
His hand smoothed over the front of her face—petting her eyebrows. Her eyelashes down the plane of her nose over her cheekbones, so gentle it didn't even hurt where she knew she was still bruised. His fingers drifted over her lips to her bottom lip. Until he cupped under her chin and his thumb brushed back and forth over her bottom lip.
It was too intimate. So personal and familiar, the gentle touch started her heart to pounding in her chest. Opening her up with his fingers and palm, reaching into Annabell's raw and wounded being. No one touched her like this. No one. She tried to move but there was no place to go, no place to escape. She squirmed, but his other arm tightened, holding her. Resting his hand, he kept it just there on her neck. She inhaled his scent as her oxygen. Feel his skin. Hear that noise. All of him surrounding her.
As if he were a dream come true.
Her breath came out in shudders and waves as he fought a battle against her grief and guilt and won. Thumb moving across her bottom lip, touching the mist of air from her mouth. Sweeping back and forth, back and forth, relaxing her into a daze.
Chapter 8
Drink This
The Child climbed over the horizon, banishing Mother and Father moon for the night.
A jolting hop from the war beast shifted Annabell forward and back. They were going up. The trees shrank with the altitude change. The sky in this place opened up above her head, a carpet of fading stars and misty clouds. Maybe this was a dream, and they would all ride into the air, chasing the memories of her ancestors and the fresh shades of her family members. The pale Orki had come to her as a harbinger of death, to deal the final blow.
In an abrupt shift, they crested the hill, reaching a plateau of rock and sky. The war beasts exchanged noises, with perfect back-and-forth timing. Annabell sensed their urgency, a hunger in their calls. They wanted to get where they were going. Following a path Annabell couldn't see, the group arrived at the open mouth of a volcanic cave.
Two riders entered it holding torches, casting light and strange shadows behind them. She'd read about Dorsus's volcanic caves in books. Natural groundwater cistern caves existed close to the mountains and one or two of the river villages had natural wells, but Annabell had never been inside a real cave, as common as they were said to be. She didn't know anyone who had.
The shape and size of the cavern was remarkable. She wanted to look everywhere. The Orki blocked her when she turned her head toward the other warriors, only allowing her areas where no other male stood. Annabell saw supplies neatly stacked against the walls. Her stomach growled. She hoped there was food. The war beast under her must have heard the noise because it wheezed and chuffed in amusement.
This place was a frequent stop, smelling of wood smoke and wet war beast fur. The beast had walked around an old rock-lined fire pit at the cave entrance where smoke could escape to the back of the natural lava chamber. Extra firewood lined the walls, and she saw places to put torches. The camp space looked ordered and clean.
Shifting in his seat, the Orki rocked her in his arms as he dismounted from the back of his beast. The unexpected movements and spinning disorientation caused a surprised panic. Kicking and bucking, she wanted to jump away from him and take control of her own limbs.
Powerfully strong, the male heaved her onto his shoulder like a flour sack, ignoring her struggles. Head down, bottom up, Annabell's panic increased. His shoulder in her belly cut off all of her air and sent pain rushing to her sore, bruised areas. Spots bloomed before her eyes.
He put her down, facing the wall away from the others around them. With a pat on her shoulder, he went to unpack and unsaddle his war beast. Catching her breath, Annabell took the chance to examine the unique shape of the cave's wall. Growing up, she had loved the study of anything not related to becoming a farm wife. She'd been the only girl in class to know the names of different rock types like basalt. There were places on the walls where the heated lava of long ago had cooled in waves, reminding her of thick cake batter. The Orki didn't share knowledge with people. Everything known about Dorsus and its caves came out of the steel cities, from the big corporation surveys. Using the developer's advanced technology, they had scans her that schoolbooks said were seventy-three percent accurate.
Behind her, the white-eyed Orki and his war beast moved, setting up for the rest. So tired she fell unconscious at their feet, Annabell still felt groggy. Not like herself. Exposing herself and her grief had been cathartic. Having someone to hold her while it happened unsettled her and calmed her emotions at the same time.
"Annabell Roe, are you coming or going?" Mama asked.
"I have no clue," she said, tracing the ripple of rock on the wall.
Hearing a flapping noise, she saw the war beast shaking itself, the spiky ruff on its neck rolling and its jowls shaking. The ridiculous dog-like sight made Annabell smile.
A sudden piercing noise startled a gasp from her; reflexively turning, she looked for the cause of a woman's screaming. White Eyes appeared, crowding her against the wall, blocking her view. One hand at her shoulder, sliding over the muscle to cup her neck and the other tipping her chin up. The blunt tip of his finger tapped
her eyes. Annabell blinked. Fearsome, the kindness in his usual expression was missing.
"Is that girl okay? You don't know what we've been through. No idea what they suffered. Is she being taken care of? Did I see Lurann?" She looked for some softness in his face, but his lips thinned.
He tapped her eyes again, a single hard grunt coming out of his chest.
She knew him. This was her Orki. Her Orki could talk, and this male did not—but it had to be him. She always envisioned him as quiet, confident, sure, a living representation of the spear he carried. Long, lean, targeted. Annabell knew this male.
"Don't look. Is that what you are saying?"
The hand on her neck radiated heat and control. He was in charge. With gentle pressure, he encouraged her to sit facing the wall, away from the temptation of looking at anything and anyone. Heaving and huffing, the great war beast dropped right behind her in a wall of heat. Blocked in, Annabell was too small to see over the back of the great big thing.