15. Kaila

Ihad a dilemma. I was starting to care for Turren, yet I still ached to be free from anyone who’d place demands on my time and body. When my brother and I fled the village, I’d looked forward to joining up with the women and starting a new life.

Now I kept picturing the desert world Turren described and seeing myself there—with him.

How could I decide what I wanted?

Tomorrow, we’d reach the village, and I’d need to choose. Did I dare change the course of my life for a male I only met a few days ago?

As darkness started to gobble up the sunlight, we stopped and gathered wood for a fire.

“I’ll go hunt,” Turren said softly. His gaze fell on Brunnen. “Will you protect your sister while I’m away?”

“I will.” Brunnen’s chest puffed, and he brandished his staff. “She’ll be safe with me.”

I would be, which is a funny thought. A few days ago, I was my brother’s protector, not the other way around. In a short time, Brunnen had changed from the young boy slowly growing into the man he’d one day be into someone with confidence. Determination. He was incredibly brave.

“If you’ll give me a blade, I can protect myself,” I said dryly, not wanting to make my brother feel bad, but he was only thirteen. Taller than me already, but in many ways still a child.

“Will this do?” Turren slid a medium-length blade from the sheath at his waist and held it toward me, hilt-first.

“Yes.” I flashed him a smile. It seemed all I wanted to do when he was around was grin.

I wasn’t falling in love.

I was in like.

My growl slipped out. “My feelings are not changing.”

Brunnen huffed. “Kaila.” Shaking his head, he turned and started toward the river not far away. “I’m going to go bathe.” He grabbed his bag with the clothing I’d washed and hung to dry the night before and stomped over to the bank, where he hung the bag on a low branch.

“I’m not trying to change you,” Turren said softly, nudging the blade toward me again.

I took it and held it by my side. “That’s not what I meant.”

His head tilted. “Then what did you mean?”

“I feel as if nothing in my life is stable, and that’s a complete betrayal.”

“In what way?”

“When my parents died, I promised my little brother I’d be there for him, that I’d provide him with a home and stability. Yet, here I am, dragging him through the forest. You described your home, how you move from one location to another, how you don’t care about possessions. But I do.”

“Things don’t make the person.”

That didn’t make any sense. “Don’t you see? My life—Brunnen’s life—is in complete turmoil. I abandoned the only home I’ve ever known, which some would call foolish. It wasn’t much, but it provided the stability we both needed. But, no, I left it. Walked right out the door as if it meant nothing. Someone else will move in and claim it. My parents worked hard to make it nice for us. It was the only legacy they left us. It was a home, and I tossed it aside. For what?” I waved my arm toward the pile of wood we’d use to cook our meal. “We have nothing. All my work, all these years to provide for Brunnen, and we have nothing! We still have to hunt and prepare and cook the food, all while hoping wild creatures don’t attack and kill us. Then we’ll sleep in a tree. A tree! That isn’t a home. It isn’t stability, the one thing I crave above all else.”

“You keep stating this is about giving Brunnen what he needs, but have you asked him what he wants?”

“Of course he wants what I provide for him. A home. Food on the table. A future. Right now, he has nothing but a staff and a few pieces of clothing.” My eyes stung with tears, but they were generated by frustration and self-loathing, not true anger with Turren.

“Do you think a building and food make a person happy?”

“It’s much easier to be happy when you have things than when you don’t.”

“Is it?”

“You don’t understand. You live the life of a wanderer.” I shuddered, though even I had to admit, if only to myself, that his life sounded free and compelling. “You don’t know from one moment to the next where you’ll sleep or what you’ll eat. How can that make you happy?”

He tapped his chest. “Because I carry my home and my happiness here,” His arm swept out, “I don’t expect the world around me to bring me joy. I find it within myself.”

“It’s not possible to be happy with nothing.”

“It is. You just need to see it.”

Yet, I couldn’t. “I’ve made a mistake.”

“In leaving the village? Tell me now, and we’ll turn around. I’ll take you back, and I’ll not only bring you to the fortress gate, but I’ll also go inside with you. If someone thinks to steal your home from you, I’ll help you take it back. If you wish to live elsewhere, I’ll be there beside you, helping you find that place.”

“You’d do something like that for me?” The notion did something to me, making my bones melt and my heart thump faster. “Why?”

“Because I want to help you.”

“Is it really that simple?” And was that the only reason?

“Few things are ever simple, though I’m sure you’ve learned that already. I told you that you’re my fated mate. That I will love you until the day I die and beyond.”

“That’s the fates talking.” Reaching up, I flicked his pendant that blazed even now. “It’s this thing, not you. Not the real you inside.”

“Do you think I believe solely because of my pendant?” So much emotion cratered his voice, his face. It wrenched my heart right out of my chest. “I feel this way because I’ve come to know you.”

“You can’t,” I whispered.

“I can.” His face darkened, and I found such despair in his eyes. “You’re everything I need. Everything I’ll ever want. You’re the spark in my heart, the surge of power in my blood. With you, I’m more than just Turren, more than just an orc male doing his best to please his people with this.” He thrust his scarred arm between us.

“How did it happen? You didn’t say.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does.”

“Because you think it makes me a lesser male?” He shook his head.

“No. Because I think it makes you a better one.”

His sigh bled out. “When I was very young, a creature in the mountains where my parent’s clan made their home grabbed me. It nearly killed me. I was left with this.” He twisted his arm, showing off the network of scars. “I was told this made me weak. I was told I’d never be a full male. But I tell you right now, I am.”

“I’m sorry.” Here I was, floundering around with my emotions when Turren had something so horrible happen to him. It had impacted his entire life.

“If you reject me,” he said softly, returning his arm to his side. “I’ll go on. I’m much too strong to do anything else. As I said, my clan needs me, and I have so much of myself to give.” He gripped my shoulders tight, his gaze full of passion. I couldn’t look away. His voice lowered to a whisper. “Yet without you, I’m nothing. Not inside, where it matters most.” Turning, he stalked away. He stopped at the edge of the clearing and remained motionless, staring toward the water.

I wanted to go to him, wrap my arms around him, and tell him . . . what? I wished I knew, then I could find the words to tell him everything within me. But when my parents died, and I shed the carefree girl I’d been and donned the mantle of a woman, mother, and provider, I’d lost my voice. I’d suppressed it.

And I wasn’t sure I could bring that person, that voice, back to the surface again.

“I don’t want to go back.” Utter defeat made my shoulders curl forward. For one moment, I felt as if I was giving up already, turning away from a battle I hadn’t yet fought. But that was silly. Turren and I weren’t enemies.

Yet we weren’t lovers either.

“I just need time to decide if I want to go forward on the path I’ve chosen,” I said. Or if I needed to consider something new.

He turned and walked back to stand in front of me, in control of his emotions once more. If only I could calm the turmoil inside myself.

Suppress it, I supposed.

“If that’s the case,” he said. “Then you have some time yet. You need to decide what you want for your future. I believe you left your village because you wanted a new life. Money is a physical thing. So is a building. Even food. They’re not things you can truly hold on to. In the desert, we have nothing but what we can carry and what’s held in our hearts. One could say we’re poor because we don’t clutter up our lives with possessions. But they’re wrong. We always have each other. That’s the true value in life, not a roof overhead or food on the table. Yes, we carry weapons. We hunt. We move from one place to another and at each destination, we settle back into the life we left behind. Our buildings wait for us with tight bags full of possessions. But none of that has true value. None of it is real.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Of course it’s real.” I lifted the blade. “This is real.”

“Is it?” He tapped my chest. “In here, is the home your parents lived in real? The food you fed your brother while he was growing? Or do you carry what’s most important inside your heart already?”

“There’s nothing in my heart. I closed it off when my parents died. It hurts too much to care.”

“You love Brunnen. I see it in your eyes, in every gesture. You cannot deny this.”

“I do love him.”

Only him?

“This is about more than Brunnen, more than a building and food,” he said. “This is about us.”

Us? There was no us. I couldn’t let this male into my life. “You’re making me feel things!”

“Then you’re living.” He said it earnestly; I could feel it, warmth on my very soul.

“I don’t want to live if it means feeling like this,” I said, trying to make him understand. “I’m being consumed alive by rushes of joy when . . .” I couldn’t name it out loud. Rushes of joy when he was near. I wanted to touch him. An enormous wave of water was threatening to drown me because I knew . . . I knew . . . that tomorrow I’d have to tell him goodbye.

And that was what this came down to. To give my brother what he needed, I’d have to lose . . .

No, don’t name it,I chided myself.

But the feeling kept cresting within me before sliding back again. If I remained with Turren much longer, it would burst into view and then I’d have to own the fact that I was falling in love.

“Don’t you see?” His words were tender, like his fingers gliding down my face. His gaze was no longer focused on me but on the ground—or inward. “You left everything tangible behind. So much waits for you in the future if you’re willing to grab onto it and hold it close. This is a chance to be the person you’ve always wanted to be.”

“Who is that woman?” I started pacing in front of him while he watched me with gentleness in his eyes. It smacked me in the chest, in that place that had spasmed since my parents were killed. My ribs ached, and my heart hurt even more. “I don’t believe I know her any longer.”

“Give her time.” His smile rose, but it was crooked. “She’s waiting for you.”

With that, he melted into the woods.