Episode Twenty-Eight I Like No Conflict

E ldar

Best of friends? She's lucky I merely raise an eyebrow in scorn rather than tell her what I really think of her ridiculous assertion—best of friends, indeed.

After closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and tell myself it won't do us any good for me to allow my bitterness to show.

"Let me skin the critters," I say as I grab the rabbits and take them into the forest to ready them for the stew.

Everyone is pretending our predicament is normal. I can do that, too.

Except I can't. As soon as I return and clean my hands, I climb on Zoron's back and unbraid his hair. Why had I seldom braided it before? It makes him look fucking sexy. Maybe it's because he's the one who always braids my hair. It's one of the many ways he shows how much he cares.

"Did you like it braided, mate?" I lean forward to whisper in his ear.

"What I like is no conflict, my love," he says softly. "I like no one's feelings hurt. Tell me what I can do to make that happen."

The proudborn and his female are inside the cabin. Zoron and I are outside. I'm sitting stock still on my lover's back. I've known this male for so many turns of the seasons it's as if I live inside his head.

My actions are hurting him.

My reluctance, my resistance to this four-way mating that is barreling at us without even slowing down, is tearing him apart. I need to pull myself together for his sake.

Before my head is fully onboard with the plan, my fingers re-braid his hair, putting it back the way Lylah had it. My mate's heart is soft and easily bruised. I resolve this moment to stop my petulance because it is causing him pain.

"My apologies." I lean forward, hug him tight around his waist, and kiss the sensitive place behind his ear. "Consider me officially on the team as of right this moment."

He sighs with palpable relief and wraps his arms over mine as he closes his eyes and leans his head back against my shoulder.

My heart hasn't changed, but by all the gods, my mate will never know it.

S oon we're back inside, waiting for the stew to heat and discussing our next steps.

We never took the time to get these two up to speed on why we rescued the slaves from the Works. Zoron and I take turns explaining how our end goal is to free the females in Tower One. Nadira, Azael the monk chieftain's wife, was mated to a leader there.

She explained how horribly the females were treated by many of the males. It took all my self-control not to kill every male we encountered when we attacked the Works, but we let all who surrendered live.

Our goal to take the Tower couldn't happen while there were so many still enslaved at the Works. We needed to free them and, in Nadira's words, "Arm ourselves with laser weapons and steal everything that isn't nailed down."

It was always our plan to free all human females as well as all the poor souls locked inside that hellhole.

For a few minutes, I let Zoron do all the telling. Some of my memories come hurtling back to me and it's all I can do not to leave through the front door and go for a run to shake off the pain I feel whenever I dive too deeply into my past.

"So, at some point we need to return north to the Village," Zoron says. "There are hundreds of monks, half a thousand orcs, and hundreds of many other species. The monk village grew to thousands as we waited to attack the Works."

He sidles over to me and slips his hand around my waist. He knows I was deep in thought, and exactly what those thoughts entailed.

"Right now, they're planning to take Tower One. You're free to join us in the fight or not, but we all need to travel north to prepare."

I watched Lylah as we talked. At first, she was shocked, then I could smell her fear.

"This is good," she says, her voice shaking with apprehension despite her words. "Perhaps there are a few good males up there, but I never met any. They're all quite happy with how things are. Happy with how they can marry and abuse young women, cast them off, then marry again. Selling your daughters? What human could do such a thing? I may not be able to fight, but there must be other ways I can help."

I'm jealous of the female, but I can't suppress my pride for her. She's stronger than I ever dreamed.

"Eat hearty," Hazlan says. "In the morning, we head north."