“Then you’ve got to hold onto that,” he told her. “You have to keep that feeling alive so you can keep going. That’s the only way we stand a chance of helping her.”
“But how can wedothat? What’s the plan? You haven’t even told me where we’re going.”
“We have time to plan. You don’t have to be at your conference for over a week, remember? Right now, we’re going to ground. We’re going to regroup and reevaluate.” He let out a long breath. “I’m taking us up to Montana. Someplace I know for a fact that no one, not even my own family, will think to look.”
Atria sniffed hard. In a watery voice, she asked, “And what’s in Montana?”
Kaz’s throat threatened to close around the words, but he pushed them out anyway. “My mom’s homestead.”
“Oh.”
They drove another mile before Atria tentatively asked, “Won’t we be intruding?”
“No.” Kaz squeezed her hand again, but not for her comfort. This time, it was for his. “She’s dead. The homestead is… technically mine.”
“Oh,” she said again, more faintly this time, before they once more lapsed into silence.
ChapterThirty
The quiet persisted.Kaz didn’t push, though his instincts grew increasingly hard to ignore as her misery became more and more apparent. Though he was content with her proximity, the elvish half of him raged against his inability to soothe her, the lack of her challenges.
The beast wanted her to claw at him, to make him work and to play, but that couldn’t happen when she looked so lost and forlorn.
And when that confused desperation became too much, his orcish side stepped in, pressing him to move faster, to get her home as quickly as possible.
Orcs had once lived exclusively in caves. The desire to nest was intimately tied to their origins in the bowels of the Earth, where they once absconded with their mates and raised their young. When they began to venture out into the world, plundering and farming and crafting empires of iron to battle the elves and dragons for dominance, they took their caves with them — metaphorically, at least.
Orc clans hailed from all corners of the world and had their own traditions, but the same instincts drove them all, which resulted in similar practices. All orcs needed a nest. They needed somewhere dark, enclosed, and padded comfortably, like the caves of old. Those orcs who chose the nomadic life brought their nests with them, in caravans and tents and modular homes. Those that settled down sometimes built homes underground, or outfitted special nesting rooms without windows and added extra security to more modern homes.
Even Kaz, who was raised almost exclusively by elves before his disastrous stint with his orcish family, felt compelled to board up his bedroom’s windows and pad the walls.
Though he was only now coming to understand the full scope of the urges that gripped him, Kaz knew enough to connect the urge to nest to the uniquely orcish custom of mate snatching. After all, if you were so compelled to make safe and hide away, it stood to reason that one might simply scoop up their mate and run to the closest enclosed space.
In that light, the orcish part of him was immensely gratified to be on the run with her, knowing that soon they would be in a dark nest together. The elvish half of him, however, gnashed its teeth with every quickly swiped tear and haunted look.
Soon,he tried to reassure both sides of the beast.Soon we’ll be able to make it better.
He had no idea how, but he would do it. There was no other choice.
* * *
Kaz did not have the skill to comfort her with words, but that night he discovered his mate didn’t always need them.
It was already creeping into the earliest hours of the morning when Atria, who’d slept fitfully on and off since sundown, asked to pull off at a rest stop. It was on the tip of his tongue to refuse, but one look at her bruised eyes forced his hand. He could deny her nothing.
They pulled into a deserted caravan stop, and after he swept the area around the sheltered parking spots and the small bathroom facilities, he helped Atria out of the vehicle to stretch her legs.
She looked rumpled and exhausted, but the sight of her in nothing but a pair of flip flops, leggings, and his sweatshirt still made something warm and soft glow in his chest. He lovedlookingat her. He loved knowing that she was his, even when she was miserable and tired and uncomfortable.
Atria was perfect even when she wasn’t.
The thought had barely crossed his mind when she turned away from rummaging in her suitcase to look at him with big, soft eyes. They gleamed in the dull lights of the overhang.
For a long moment, she didn’t blink or breathe. He felt that syrupy, foreign warmth again, like pure golden light dripping slowly through his veins to fill every pit and crack of his soul.
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” he whispered, taking the half-step necessary to corner her against the open door, “but I love how that feels.”
He watched her throat bob with a hard swallow. Atria’s shoulders bunched again as that soft look was replaced with something akin to guilt. She turned back to her suitcase and clumsily yanked out everything she needed for a shower. “I shouldn’t— it’s invasive for me to sift without your permission. I’m sorry.”
