“I couldn’t believe…”
Thor puts a finger to my lips gently. No talking. We cannot risk being overheard by people who are close, or surveillance that might be listening in. I understand his meaning, but it creates an ache inside me. I need to speak so badly, to hear him tell me what he saw when the horrible thing happened, to hear that I am not alone even though his presence tells me I am not.
I lie down on the ground, my head resting on my forearm, and I am asleep in an instant.
It is not a good sleep. It is the rest of exhaustion, the slumber of hunted prey. I am restless, waking every time the forest makes the slightest sound, but then falling back to sleep almost immediately all over again. I miss the comfort of the cave. I miss Drako. I miss Thor, strangely, though he is right beside me. You aren’t really with someone if you can’t hear their voice, or at least communicate in some way besides haunted looks.
CHAPTER 12
For the next several days, we move from hiding place to hiding place. Most of them are deeply uncomfortable and well out of the way. We spend several hours in a mud hollow at one stage while a hunting party moves past. They are not giving up the search for us easily, but we are also not going to be found without a fight.
I come to appreciate Thor in an entirely new way, as I experience all the clever ways he dreamed up for us to hide. One of the little spots is a piece of salvage covered with leaves and debris, and just enough room for us to lie down beneath it.
We are constantly on guard, ever vigilant. I am not allowed to speak at all. Sometimes, rarely, Thor whispers an order to me, and I follow it immediately. I used to think I wasn’t submissive, but I wasn’t really understanding what submission was. It’s trusting someone implicitly, to the lengths of your very life.
I am submissive to Thor, because my life is in his hands unquestioningly. I do as he tells me, and I feel safer for it. Over and over again, he shows me how he not only has my welfarein mind, but he has always planned to protect me, even when I didn’t know I would need to be protected.
In the end, we sneak back up into the mountainous regions. It is the riskiest move we could make being that it is an echo of what we did before, and Drako is well aware of that, but there’s also not much cover on the mountains. We are risking being seen, and that is why we do it in the dead of a very dark and stormy night, where the clouds cover the stars and we can barely see our hands in front of our faces.
Thor chose a higher spot than the cave we inhabited with Drako. It’s colder there, and by the time we arrive, we are both shivering uncontrollably. I curse Drako with every scrabbling step I am forced to take. He does not have to be doing this to us. Having us hunted across a hostile planet, knowing that he is risking both of us being killed by the wildlife, or simply injured in the course of our flight is a cruelty I had forgotten he was capable of.
We slip into a narrow crack in the rock, contorting our bodies to fit. Thor has a harder time of it than I do naturally, and by the time we reach the cramped interior he is bleeding from abrasions.
“We can talk now,” he says. “Quietly, but we can speak.”
I let out a sob and I throw myself into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper, wanting to wail, but knowing I do not have the luxury.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “You’ve been so brave, and so good. I was worried I would have to bring you into line, but you’ve done as I asked, and you’ve made it possible for us both to survive.”
“I should never have allowed Drako to charm me,” I say. “He’s evil.”
“He is, but that is part of his charm,” Thor says philosophically. “Do not blame yourself. You haven’t had much in the way of choice.”
“Maybe I didn’t choose it,” I agree. “But I didn’t have to like it. I knew what he was. He was there when I was first captured. I let myself start to forget how things really were, because I wanted to believe…”
“It’s not a failing to want to believe in the good in someone,” Thor says. “It’s just, in certain circumstances, not very useful.”
“You should be angry at me.”
“I shouldn’t,” he says. “And I’m not.”
Well, that settles that then, I suppose. It’s all fine.
Thor goes to the supply cache he previously stashed. I suppose if I hadn’t been so entertained by Drako, he wouldn’t have had the chance to put all of this together for us. It makes me feel uncomfortable to imagine myself as a sexual distraction in aid of survival, but needs must, I suppose.
“Here,” he says, turning around after extracting what he was looking for. “I saved this for you.”
He hands me a chocolate fudge ration bar, and I start to cry immediately, curling up into his muscular body. He holds me close.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whimper.
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t! I thought you were boring.”
“Well, you don’t have to tell me that,” Thor chuckles.
