CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

"Almost Elf! Almost Elf, wake up!" a high-pitched voice demands, tiny hands patting at my face.

I open my eyes, but it's too bright. After blinking blearily a few times, everything swims into hazy focus. Soft furs cover me, and I'm wearing one of Krivoth's huge linen shirts like a nightgown—when I move my legs, I can feel sheets slide across the bare skin of my calves. I'm in a wooden room with sunlight pouring through an open window directly across from me.

Sprites pour through it, too, their butterfly wings filling the air above me with color.

"It was so hard to find you," the head sprite scolds. "We had to fly forever."

"I'm sorry." My voice sounds raspy, my throat dry. "I don't even know where I am."

I crane my neck. Mist lies fast asleep on the floor to the left of the bed I'm on. To the right…

Krivoth sleeps, his large body sprawled awkwardly in a chair. His head's tipped back at a horrible angle, his open mouth taking big deep breaths.

"Hey, that's gonna hurt." I try to reach out and touch his knee, but my body feels weak and distant. It's kind of like the cotton wool feeling I got after using too much magic, but without the pain. I look up at the sprites. "Can you wake him for me?"

"Eeeee!" they scream as all of them circle his head like the alarm clock from hell.

Krivoth jerks upright, coming fully awake in an instant, his mouth snapping shut so quickly he almost bites a sprite by accident.

It flaps out of the way, scolding as it goes.

But he has eyes only for me. "My bride!"

Then he's on the bed, his huge arms sweeping me up in the hug to end all hugs.

I cling to him with every bit of strength I can muster. God, he feels so good. I nuzzle closer, breathing in the pine and leather scent of him.

After several minutes, Mist's amused voice says, "I'm here as well, you know."

"Mist!" I ease away from Krivoth and turn to her.

She puts her front paws on the bed and leans in to sniff at me, then gives my cheek a scratchy kiss-lick I wouldn't trade for the softest silk in the world. "I'll go and tell the unicorn you're awake."

"Thank you."

She pads to the door, then stops to look over her shoulder, green eyes full of mischief. "Hey, sprites! I know where the pixies sleep during the day. Want to go and bug them?"

"There are pixies here?" "They can't have our Almost Elf!" "Take us to these pixies!"

The sprites stream after Mist in a flutter of butterfly wings, leaving me alone with Krivoth.

He presses a pewter mug of water into my hand and says, "I should get my sister, Gerna."

"I want to meet her, but it can wait." I take several gulps, the water sweet and cool and perfect on my parched throat.

"No, she's the one who made the deathsleep antidote. She'll want to examine you and make sure you're okay. And she needs to know it worked."

"Deathsleep…" I frown down at the furs, wracking my brain. "The last thing I remember, you killed the ogre that kept trying to capture me, and then… Then…" My hand opens and closes on the soft pelt. "God, why can't I remember?"

"A sluagh dropped a gourd of deathsleep right on top of you. A new kind made to affect humans. You breathed it in immediately." He scowls, looking more pained than angry. "We didn't know if the antidote was going to work. I thought—"

"You're awake!" A female orc bustles into the room, a leather satchel looped over her shoulder. She's as tall as Krivoth and almost as muscular, wearing the same kind of leather pants and boots but with a light-pink linen shirt.

Krivoth turns his scowl on her, and she smacks him on the shoulder with the ease of long familiarity. "Don't look at me like that."

I know immediately that they're siblings.

"We were talking," Krivoth mutters. "It was important."

"More important than her health? Now out of my way, or I'll tell her your childhood nickname."

"You wouldn't dare." His eyes narrow.

"Try me."

I bite back a laugh when he moves.

"Hi, Taylor. I'm Gerna, Krivoth's sister." She starts pulling things out of her satchel. "I'm also an herbalist, and I'd like to run some tests to see how the deathsleep affected you."

Krivoth stands by the door, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall with one shoulder.

"Examine away," I say.

She has me sip various potions and asks how they taste. Then one of them makes my hands turn purple, and she looks a little nonplussed and pulls out a book to confirm everything's okay.

By the time the color fades to my normal tan, she pronounces me healthy and two human women come rushing into the room. They're both dressed like orcs, in leather pants and boots with linen tunic shirts.

One's short, plump, and pretty as can be, with flowing red hair and a wash of freckles spread across her pale cheeks and nose. Her wide smile's totally infectious, and she ignores my hand to wrap me in a bear hug. "I'm Ashley, and it's so good to see you awake!"

The other one's taller, with long brown hair and a beautiful face with an olive complexion. She looks a little more athletic than me, not that that's saying much with my skinny-assed muscles. Her hug's a little less enveloping, but just as warm. "I'm Olivia."

Gerna looks at Olivia. "Taylor needs to eat."

"Ready to see some magic?" Olivia holds out a hand, and a tall paper coffee cup appears, complete with insulated sleeve. "One caramel macchiato."

I grab it from her and take a gulp, the mix of sugar and coffee and milk so heavenly on my tongue I moan. "Oh, god, that's good. How'd you know I like caramel macchiato?"

"Who doesn't?" She gives a quick shrug. "What's your favorite food? What sounds really good right now?"

"Normally, I love a good cheeseburger and fries, but right now…" I'm hungry—really hungry—but my stomach kinda feels like a cheeseburger might be too much. "Pancakes with syrup and bacon."

A plate pops into view on her hand, complete with a banana. At my questioning glance, she gives another shrug. "Figured you needed some potassium."

"Your power is so cool!" I look at Ashley. "What's yours?"

She grins and floats a foot into the air. "I can fly!"

"Awesome!"

"I've got a broomstick and everything." She settles back down on the bed.

"So we're really witches?" I ask.

"Yep." The redhead nods. "I think it runs in our families, but when all the doors of Faerie closed three-hundred years ago, Earth got cut off from magic."

"What's your power?" Olivia asks. "Krivoth talked about it, but how do you think of it?"

"It's telekenesis, kinda. I can ‘push' things away. That works really well—I just blast a wave of power out." I grin. "I can also ‘pull' things to me, but that's not really as useful. I can't pull small things, and if I pull a big thing…" I smack my palms together. "Whack."

"What about levitation?" Ashley asks. "Can you make something fly?"

"I don't know!" I reach for my power, and my necklace warms on my chest, glowing through the linen of Krivoth's shirt. I stretch out a hand toward the chair and think, Up!

Nothing happens, and I let my power drop. "I felt something. But it's like when I tried to pull a pinecone to me—the chair's too small for my power to grab onto. I'll have to practice on something bigger outside, without a ceiling." It's the safest option, especially since my "something bigger" tends to be Krivoth.

I glance over at Krivoth to find him talking to two other orc men. They're both as big and muscular as he is and handsome, though I don't find them as good looking as Krivoth. "Good god, what do they put in the water around here?"

"I know, right?" Ashley says, her green eyes glittering with mischief. I have a feeling she's going to get along with Mist. "The hot one with the beard is my husband, Dravarr."

"The hot one without a beard is Rovann," Olivia says. "My husband."

The pancakes are perfectly fluffy, and the maple syrup's real. I moan and chew for a second, then add a bite of salty bacon. But as good as the food is, there's something I want even more. I drop my voice to a whisper and dig my fork into the pancake stack. "So it was the same for you? Bam, the Moon Goddess married you to them automatically?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Olivia says.

"Technically, before we even met, but no regrets." Ashley smiles, her eyes going a little dreamy. "I can't picture anyone more perfect for me than Dravarr."

I look over at Krivoth, knowing exactly how she feels. I can't imagine loving anyone other than him. "I guess the goddess isn't such a bad matchmaker after all."

"She knows her shit," Olivia says, making us laugh. Then she magicks herself and Ashley coffees and says, "I wouldn't want to be anywhere but here."

"And, uh, where is here, exactly?" It's all a little confusing. Krivoth's sister and the other human women live in his home village, but we were traveling to the king's castle when the ogre attacked.

"This is Moon Blade Village, and you're going to love it!"

I nod and take another bite, continuing to eat as they tell me about village life. The cottage we're in is inside a huge living tree! It even has a bathroom and running water. Everything's done with a mixture of hard work and magic. They hunt, farm, and make goods by hand, but the magic of the standing stones gives them the magical version of electric lights, cleaning appliances, and other cool stuff.

It all sounds absolutely amazing, but my eyes keep going back to Krivoth.

No matter how much I want to live here in the village, I know in my heart my real home's with him. If he wants something different, I'll find a way to make it work. He's worth it.

We'reworth it.