I kept thinking about our kisses, which was useless. The feeling refused to stay down, slipping between thoughts of Abagail’s vital signs and whether we had enough emergency blankets in the supply room.
I ran faster.
Laina had looked up at me after I kissed her, and I’d thought,I could stay in this cave with you forever.
Instead I’d said, “I’ll be back.”
A compromise with honor.
Sofia banked hard left at a split pine, and I ducked under the branch. She knew these woods the way she did my shoulder.
Finally, the facility lights cut through the rain ahead. I shouldered through the front door and wished the others had returned from their trip. But Laina and I could handle this.
Sofia flew down the hallway and scratched on the supply room door.
“I’m coming,” I said.
Inside, I grabbed a sack and started filling it.
Emergency blankets. A heavy ground cover. Camp stove, fuel, two tin cups. A pan wide enough for Abagail to drink from. Wrapped food we kept in the supply closet. More of the loose-leaf tea I’d bought for Laina went in last. I’d bought out all they had and put it here for when she needed it. Now counted as need.
Moss mash for Abagail. A nursing snugglethorn would starve herself before letting her young go hungry. I packed enough for days, though I fully intended to bring her back in the morning.
Sofia tugged at the small pouch of dried ember berries. Her contribution. Abagail would love them.
She carried it to the open pack and dropped it in.
“Good thinking,” I told her.
She peeped and returned to the door.
It took two trips to load everything in the cart. Sofia supervised from the roof and made her opinion of the rain known in sharp peeps.
I climbed into the off-road vehicle and drove out through the equipment gate, the cart bouncing behind me, supplies shifting each time I hit a rut. I kept the headlamps low and the speed down. A newly-delivered animal didn’t need the approach of something loud and bright.
What Abagail needed was Laina.
I thought about her for the length of the drive back, which was not long enough and also too long. She’d saidI’ll be here, and I knew she’d be waiting.
She worried that she was too small for this wild place, but she didn’t see what I did. Her hands are the only things in this world strong enough to hold my heart without crushing it and gentle enough to make an orc want to be soft.
The rocky outcropping appeared in the headlamp’s sweep. I cut the engine and coasted the last stretch, coming to a halt outside the cave.
Sofia darted ahead, her glow shining through the rain from inside.
I grabbed an armload of bags and crouched at the entrance, scooting inside.
Laina sat cross-legged on the emergency blanket, both twins tucked in her lap. The larger one had its face turned up toward her chin. The smaller one had both front paws locked around her wrist and wasn’t letting go. Abagail lay against Laina’s side, sleeping, though her eyes opened when I appeared.
The smaller twin blatted and Laina looked up.
“You made good time,” she said.
“Sofia helped.” I laid the bags on the ground. “How are they?”
“Nursing well. Abagail had a small bleed after the second birth, but it stopped on its own. Thankfully, she passed both placentas and they were intact. I’ll check her again now that you’ve brought light, but I think she’ll be okay.” She unwound her wrist from the smaller twin’s grip. It immediately squawked. “This little one is quite determined.”
“She takes after her mother.”
