Then he lands.
Hard. In the backyard. His legs absorb the two-story impact like it’s nothing, his enhanced body barely registers the drop. The shock jolts through me and I gasp, but I’m unscathed. He held me secure against his shoulder the entire time, one arm locked around the backs of my thighs like a steel bar.
He doesn’t stop.
He lurches forward and takes off running. Jonus rounds the side of the house at a dead sprint and I catch a disorienting, upside-down glimpse of the destroyed front yard. A left behind mercenary vehicle, shattered windows and I hear the distant wail of approaching sirens.
Then we’re on the street, moving inhumanly fast. I’m bouncing on his shoulder with each enormous stride, gripping his shirt, my auburn hair flying everywhere. The neighborhood blurs past. Houses, parked cars, mailboxes, the morning sun glinting off snow-capped mountains in the distance.
“Garlen!” Aldar shouts from behind us, his voice already getting faint. “He’s heading south on the street. He’s got Sloane.”
“I can see them.” Garlen’s voice, further away now. “He’s too fast. We can’t catch him on foot.”
They’re losing us.
I should be terrified. I’m slung over the shoulder of a feral orc who is running through a residential neighborhood in shredded clothing, steam rising off his green skin, following an instinct that’s ten thousand years old. This is exactly the scenario that every orc in that household has been trying to prevent, including Jonus.
And yet he’s not hurting me. His arm around my legs is firm but not painful. When he rounded the corner of Garlen’s house, he shifted his grip so my body wouldn’t hit a wall. When he jumped a curb, he adjusted his stride so the landing wouldn’t jar me.
Even feral and out of his mind, Jonus is protecting me.
I stop trying to see where we’re going and instead press my palm flat against his lower back. His skin is still furnace-hot through the torn shirt. “I’m here,” I tell him, even though I don’t know if he can understand words right now. “I’m not fighting you. I’m here.”
A sound rumbles through his chest. Not quite a growl. It sounds almost like a purr.
He slows. Not to a walk, he’s still moving fast, but the dead sprint has eased into something more purposeful. He knows where he’s going. This isn’t random flight. He has a destination.
I know we’ve passed Dane and Laurie’s house with the neat yard, and the pretty flower flag on the porch. Two doors down from it is?—
The house Jonus was talking about this morning. The four-bedroom house with the big yard and the mountain views. The one with the For Sale sign in the front yard. The one he told me about forty minutes ago at a breakfast table that no longer exists.
He doesn’t go to the front door and instead leaps us over a fence and goes around the back, still carrying me, his massive body navigating with purpose. The back door is locked.
One massive kick and the frame splinters. The door swings open.
I’m upside down, catching glimpses of this house from my position on Jonus’s shoulder, holding onto his back. Inside it’s entirely empty. Not even a stick of furniture. Bare floors, blank walls…the echoes of a vacant house. Light streams through uncovered windows. It smells like fresh paint and new carpet.
He carries me through a couple of empty rooms and then we are marching up a staircase. He enters a room upstairs. It’s large with vaulted ceilings and a wide window that looks out at the mountains. There is nothing in this room except carpet and light.
He sets me down. Not gently, but not roughly either.
My feet hit soft carpet and I stumble but catch myself. I’m standing in the empty primary bedroom of a house I’ve never been inside before, facing a feral orc whose eyes are still mostly black.
But he’s not grabbing me again.
He’s pacing.
Back and forth across the empty room, his massive body coiled with tension, blocking the doorway each time he passes it. Steam still rises off his skin. His claws score the fresh paint on the walls. His breathing comes in harsh, ragged pulls that echo in the empty space.
The feral brought him here because it needed somewhere safe for his mate. Not a cave in the mountains like his ancestors. Not the wilderness. The feral brought me to the house Jonus picked out for us. The house with four bedrooms because he’s an optimist. The house two doors from his uncle, on a quiet street in Truckee, where he was already imagining our future before he even told me he loved me.
The feral didn’t take me to a lair. It brought me home.
My eyes sting and my chest aches and I press my hand over my mouth to keep the sob from escaping because I need to stay calm right now. I need to not show distress.
So instead I breathe.
“Jonus.” I say his name softly. “Look at me.”
