ChapterTwenty
Atria couldn’t rightly saythat she knew what was going on, but she wasn’t about to question her good fortune. Sitting in the front seat of their stolen car, hurtling down the rural road at breakneck speed, she felt positivelygiddy.
She didn’t know why Kaz was helping her, and although she was not the most politically plugged in, she understood the idea of actions and consequences well enough. For reasons she couldn’t fathom, he was defying a direct order from his sovereign — hisbrother —for her. That had to be… bad.
But if that was the case, would he really have jumped to help her? She doubted it. He had no reason to. Fifteen minutes between her thighs didn’t make a lifelong, ride-or-die connection. He was doing this for his own reasons.
Perhaps nothing would happen at all, seeing as he was the sovereign’s brother — a fact that, no matter how many times she repeated it to herself, still sounded outrageous.
Logically, she knew there would be consequences for his actions, but she couldn’t bring herself to worry about them.
What she knew for certain was that she would make it to the conference and, should anything happen, she had perhaps the single scariest orc in the entire UTA there to help her. Everything would be fine.
Sure, she had no idea where they were going, why this man was helping her, how long she’d have to be in his company, or what danger they might face, but none of those questions seemed important in light of her mission.
This is my service,she’d vowed all those years ago. It was not merely ambition, nor was it vanity. The world needed their research, and every second it was delayed, their world was polluted and another being was stolen off the streets to be drained of their magic.
The vow to be of some good use to the world, tohelp,was what she’d built her new life, her entire being on. In that light, a ridiculous bounty and an invisible threat didn’t seem very important.
Well, not so invisible,she thought, gripping the sides of her seat to hold on for dear life as Kaz pushed the old engine past what was almost certainly safe. She still had a few scrapes from the gargoyles, after all.
But they’re dead. I don’t need to worry about them again, and who knows? Maybe their bodies have been found and everyone will think twice about taking the bounty.
If she’d been on the trail and found the smoking, headless corpses of three gargoyles, she certainly would have turned back.
Everything is fine,she silently repeated as a dip in the road sent her bouncing into the door.
Normally she wouldn’t have enjoyed the ride, but she felt strangely calm even as the car bumped and rattled over potholes and uneven pavement. This deep into the country, the roads weren’t as meticulously maintained as they might have been in the Elvish Protectorate or the Coven Collective. Orcs had a policy of letting things go wild, including unused roads.
Kaz didn’t flinch once. He guided the car over the dusty roads with one hand on the wheel and the other resting casually on the center console, where a sharp turn occasionally tossed it against her thigh.
He was perfectly at ease. A storm of cold rage, lust, and confusion had clung to him in the motel, but it all seemed to have cleared — except for the lust. That remained a steady roar in the back of her mind, no matter how hard she tried to block it out.
Must just be his default state,she surmised.Nothing at all to do with me.
Though the lust remained, the rest of his emotional landscape was a vast, gently rippling ocean. There was determination, yes, but there was also a strange, fragile sort of hope that made her heart skip a beat.
Atria turned her gaze away from the road to watch Kaz. He had a striking profile dominated by a sharp nose and finely wrought lips. His lashes were long, his cheekbones high, and his skin a beautiful, jewel-toned green. It reminded her not of an emerald so much as light scattered within one — vibrant to the point of disbelief.
Now that she knew he was half-elf, she peered at him with renewed interest. The only half-elf she knew was Margot, and even that had been a secret until just a handful of years ago. Atria never suspected the slight healer had any relation to the towering, jewel-skinned predators who ran the Elvish Protectorate with iron fists.
Kaz, however, ticked all the boxes.
He had an orc’s muscle but an elf’s height, making him impressively large all the way around. As the sunlight poured through the driver’s side window, she caught the iridescence of his oil-black hair. She recalled that though he had slightly more prominent lower fangs than an elf might, they weren’t nearly as large as a full-orc’s could be.
One of the priests at the Sanctuary was an orc so ancient his skin looked like wrinkled tissue paper. He was charged with caring for the temple and altar, where offerings were laid for the Selfless God. She used to sit with him, listening to the drone of his chanting and watching the flash of lower fangs so large, they peeked out from behind his wrinkled lower lip. As a little girl, she had once asked him what they were for.
She remembered him answering with a broad, fanged smile,“Making an impression.”
“What are you doing?”
Kaz’s deep, melodic voice broke her out of the memory. Offering him a wide smile, she answered, “Studying you.”
His eyes, so dark and heavy-lidded, briefly cut to her before they focused back on the road. “Cut that shit out.”
“No,” she replied, forgetting almost immediately that she was trying to be extra nice to him.
Not that her attitude appeared to bother him. The tiniest smile kicked up one corner of his mouth. She couldn’t tell if that annoyed her more or less than his growling. “That’s not being very good for me, princess.”
