“Maybe the wild things never got a chance to say anything to him while they were here?”
He laughed. “True. I don’t think Grandpa tried to have a conversation with your folks.”
“Or give them a bath,” I added, making him laugh even more heartily.
The back of his fingers stroked the skin over my spine, eliciting a shiver of pleasure in their wake.
I sighed softly.
“What happened to your family, Khala?” Grat asked.
“I just…don’t have one.”
With Rolly’s death two months ago, I lost the only real family I’d ever had.
Roland, or Rolly as he preferred being called, was almost fifty years old when he died from fever, but he was born with what some called an affliction and others claimed to be a curse. Rolly’s mind remained on the level of a small child, no matter how old he grew. We became good friends during my marriage to the High Lord of Renya, Rolly’s father. Rolly was the only soul in this world who loved me simply for being me. With his death, I lost the only person who truly cared for me.
“How about your tribe? Your clan? Your community?” Grat kept asking.
After Rolly’s death, his father’s estate that had been my home for thirteen years became the property of the crown, and all the people who lived and worked there were no longer my “tribe.”
“No… No community, either,” I said.
That seemed to disturb him even more than my lack of a family.
“I can help you find them,” he offered, “if you want to return.”
My throat closed for a moment.
“No. I don’t wish to return,” I croaked.
I’d stabbed a man with a dagger and left him bleeding in his tent. Nothing good waited for me if I came back. But I couldn’t tell that to Grat. The less he knew, the better off we both were.
“Where isyourtribe?” I asked, eager to shift the focus of our conversation from me to him.
“Back in our keep.”
“Why are you alone here? Did they send you away?”
He laughed. “They wish! But I’m not that easy to get rid of. I love my keep. My clan is my family, every single orc in it, regardless if they’re related to me by blood or not. Usually, I don’t leave the keep for long. But I’ve been hunting here every autumn since I was a kid. Grandpa used to bring me here, me and Agor.”
“Who is Agor?”
“My best friend. We grew up together.”
“Why is he not here this year?”
He grunted, shifting uneasily behind me.
“Agor is a busy man,” he said. “He’s our High Chief. He also got married last year. His wife Becca is his best friend now, so…”
“Why aren’t you married?” I asked.
He reached for the soap and lathered my hair before replying. “I haven’t met a woman yet that would convince me to give up all other women for her sake.”
“Do you have to give up other women after getting married?”
“Of course. Why get married otherwise?”
