"And then... you."
I reach out my hand. My real hand. It is shaking.
"You spoke. Your voice... it was the only thing. It was... quiet. It stopped the screaming. Your scent... I... I held onto it. It was my anchor. You fed me. You warmed me. You touched me... and I was not a monster."
I take her hand. The one clutching the star. It is so small. "My life before... Namir... it was a shadow. This time... with you... that was my real life. You are my life, Betty. I am your Threk."
Her hand turns in mine. Her small, cold fingers clutch me.
"I love you," I say, the words raw and true. "I love you, Betty."
She makes a sound, a sob of shock and joy and disbelief, and she lunges for me.
She throws her arms around my neck, her small body crashing against my naked chest.
I pull her up from the snow. I lift her as if she weighs nothing. I stand, holding her against me, her legs wrapping around my waist as if she will never let go.
Her hands frame my face, her cold fingers touching my cheeks, my tusks, my hair. She is learning me.
"Threk," she sobs. "You're real. You're here. You're whole."
"I am here," I rumble. My voice. My arms. My heart.
I kiss her.
It is not the clumsy, curious press of the Urog. It is not the savage, claiming hunger of the beast.
It is me. It is Namir's memory and Threk's love. It is slow and deep and sure. I taste her tears and the salt of her skin. I taste her hope.
She kisses me back, her lips parting, her body melting against mine. It is a reunion. It is a first time. It is everything.
We break apart, panting, our foreheads pressed together in the falling snow.
"You... you saved me," I say, my voice thick.
She pulls back. Her hand lifts and touches the star-scar on my chest.
"No, Threk," she whispers, her blue eyes shining with a strength I have never seen. "We saved each other."
30
BETTY
We walk in a world of impossible, silent white, from sunrise, to evening to another new day. The walk back to Oakhaven is way easier than walking out of the lowtown. We eat along the way, with whatever we found as we travel back.
The snow falls in thick, gentle flakes, a soft curtain that muffles our footsteps and seals us in a private world. The shrieking, tearing energy of the Wildspont is gone, replaced by the crisp, clean scent of the mountains.
I am holding his hand.
It is not the massive, scarred, clawed hand of the Urog, a hand I had come to know better than my own. This is a new hand. It is still huge, his fingers still dwarf mine, but it is a hand. The skin is a deep, healthy green, the nails are blunt and clean.
I cannot stop looking at him.
He is not Threk, the monster I saved. He is Threk, the man who saved me.
He is walking beside me, a green-skinned warrior, his long black hair, still damp from the Wildspont’s magic, stirring in the wind. He is wearing a mismatched set of armor and furs, scavenged from the bodies of Larda’s dead soldiers. The blackelven steel is too small for his massive, Orcish shoulders, and the human soldier's cloak is too short, but he wears it with a new, quiet dignity.
His face. It is strong, with a high, noble brow and a jaw that is all hard, masculine lines. His tusks are small, sharp, and frame a mouth that I… that I kissed. His eyes, no longer burning red, are a warm, intelligent hazel, and they are fixed on the path ahead.
