She set the note aside and cupped his face even as a few more tears spilled from his eyes. “You are no beast, Garrett.”
The tears came faster as he shook his head. He couldn’t believe her. Even now, he couldn’t shake the thought that he’d survived his comeuppance at Edmund’s hand. “You don’t know that. You don’t know me.”
“But I’d like to if you’d let me.” Bridgette’s thumb brushed the tears from his cheek. “Why did you leave home, Garrett?”
Garrett let out a shuddering breath. He’d seen her without her mask, so wasn’t it only fair he let her see past his? He lifted his bruised arm to cover his eyes, blocking out the flickering lantern light. He settled into the darkness, let his mask fall, and told her everything.
“It started when my father passed,” Garrett said and heard the gentle slosh of water as Bridgette wet a cloth. “Went peacefully, just before his eightieth birthday. Before he did, he told me that it was a good, long life for a human. He told me he was tired, but I don’t think me or my mother were really prepared for him to go.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Bridgette said, her voice as gentle as her hands as she brought the damp cloth to the wound on his side. He let out a shuddering breath. It was strange to realize that it had been over a month since Lucas’ death. It somehow felt as if a lifetime had passed, yet it had been no time at all.
With all that had happened since, he hadn’t gotten a chance to really grieve. Not until now. Tears streamed from his eyes as he continued.
“When someone in my clan dies, their body is taken to the moot hall - the main building of our village. They undergo funerary rights before they’re buried at the base of the mountain to be reunited with the earth. But because my father was human… there was a debate about what rights he was owed.”
Even now, he could see his father lying in the moot hall, unconcerned by the heated discussion that had taken place around him for the better part of a week. Garrett barely felt Bridgette’s gentle hand as she started to clean his cut.
“The loudest of the debaters was an orc named Rogan. I don’t know if it was because he was human or because he was a better hunter, but Rogan hadalwayshated my da. But in the moot hall, in front ofeveryone, Rogan contested my da’s right to be buried on the mountain. Said he should be cremated, and that as his mongrel son, I should take his ashes back to his hometown.”
Even as gentle as she was, Garrett gasped, flinching when she hit a particularly sore spot on his side. “Sorry,” she said quietly, but Garrett shook his head.
His father would have loved her, he was certain. Yet the realization that he’d never get to meet her made his breath hitch as a new wave of grief overtook him.
“It was an attack on my honor as much as my da’s. And suggesting that his body be burned was… a dire insult.” He gave a wet laugh as more tears streaked down his face. “Truth be told, I don’t think my da would have given two shits about where he ended up, but honor is important to orc kin, and Rogan had dragged both of ours through the mud.”
His mother’s words echoed through his memory.If you can’t do this for your living honor,at least do it for the memory of his.
“I wanted to let it go, but the pressure from my mother and the clan was heavy,” Garrett said. “There were orcs who saw me as a half-breed who’d inherited his father’s weakness, and I can’t deny that some part of me wanted to prove them wrong. So when Rogan refused to recant, it escalated to an honor duel.”
He could almost feel his mother’s fingers in his hair. She had brushed it and wove it back that day with meticulous care. Had wrapped the clean white cloth around his knuckles to protect his hands.
“My mother was one of the fiercest warriors in our clan. She never understood why I wanted to study herbs instead of combat, and I never understood why she insisted on teaching me anyway. Not until the duel, at least.”
And again, in the alley with Edmund and his men. He couldn’t deny that his mother had given him a gift by teaching him. A great and terrible gift that had kept him alive twice now.
“No one knew I could fight.”
He could almost hear the gossip that had murmured through the square, the bets that had been placed against him. He hadn’t been the favorite to win, hadn’t been the favorite for anything.
“It was almost satisfying seeing that slack-jawed look when I threw Rogan to the ground in front of the entire clan. I thought that was it, that he would yield, but…”
He could almost see the stars that had erupted when Rogan’s fist had found his nose. The sickening feel of Rogan’s jaw cracking like splintering wood under his knuckles.
“He just wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t stay down,” Garrett said, remembering the unnatural give of Rogan’s knee under his kick. “He wouldn’t yield.”
The face from his nightmares seemed to stare at him from the darkness, bloodied teeth and tusks snarling their hatred. “Rogan chose an honorable death, and I was the one to deliver him to it.”
“Garrett.”
He gasped, jolted out of the memory by Bridgette’s quiet voice. It took all of his courage to lift his arm away, to face her judgment. Yet when he opened his eyes, Bridgette looked down at him in a way that made him feel… seen.
Gently, she cupped his battered cheek. “Beasts don’thavehonor, Garrett. They can attack without reservation, kill without remorse. They choose cruelty, spread suffering and claim it makes them strong.” She leaned close, a small, sad smile on her face. “Believe me, I know beasts. And you are anything but.”
Garrett watched her close the distance between them, perplexed until the moment her lips touched his.
Oh.
A jolt of sensation rushed through him at the simple contact. Every ache and pain suddenly seemed secondary to the feel of her soft lips against his own.
