Da’s death drug me back to this town; nothing else could’ve. There’s nothing here for me but the people who made my pain a sport, chief among them the one male who should have protected me.

Who would have, if I was anyone but a crazy old Orc’s half-Human motherless daughter.

I’m older now, I can defend myself a bit. I’ll make sure Da’s final affairs are in order then I’ll decide next steps. I won’t make a decision out of fear.

“Do you think there’s something better out there, Ky’a?”

My tormenter’s harsh voice, his harsher hands around my arms. Hands that taught me to fish and hunt when Da couldn’t, then taught me to fear fists, then taught me to crave a male’s touch.

“Gaithea will make meat of a little girl like you. Slavers, Fae, radiated monsters—”

I try to pull away, but he’s gotten big over the last two years and I’ve stayed small, a runt. His grip only tightens, more from warning than necessity.

“What would be different?” I demand. “You let the others—”

His expression twists with a snarl, tusks too close to my throat. “I protect you.”

“You liar! I don’t want to listen to this again. Let me go.”

Dark, cold eyes stare down at my face. “Did you forget our oath? I’ll let you go when you can gut me and get away with it. You don’t know what’s waiting out there for you.”

I know now. He. . .hadn’t been wrong. But I’d gotten stronger, which he hadn’t anticipated.

I’d also gutted him, and gotten away with it.

Satisfaction wells, then dies. Until he finds out I’m back, at least.

“What do you want, Ky’a? What would it take for you to stop fighting me?”

I gape at him. “When have I ever fought you?”

He snorts. “All the damn time. In front of my parents. You make things worse.”

“You’re blaming me?”

“You know I don’t have the support to challenge them yet.” He shakes me. “Fiuthen needs more time. You know I have to—”

“Hurt me. Humiliate me.” A tear trails down my cheek and he watches it, expression stony. “That excuse worked when we were young. Not anymore.”

“Just words, Ky’a.”

“Actions break bones, but words scar souls.” I fling the words at him.

My younger self hears the Uthilsen adage, but my adult self is more pragmatic; broken bones hurt like all the hells. As long as neither he nor my former bullies put their hands on me, they can hurl verbal stones all they want. Life traveling the Outlands taught me there are worse hurts.

Arriving too late to save a hemorrhaging mother.

A sudden fever that steals a newborn’s life fast, or the milkless breasts that steal it slow.

He releases me, eyes no longer cold, but feral. “You run, Ky’a, and I’ll catch you. I will hamstring you. One day you’ll thank me for saving your life.”

“You can’t—”

He turns and walks away, ignoring my delusion. Of course he can. He can do anything he wants to me. The strong always can.

Town is bustling as I walk through. More people than I remember, more animals. The buildings are wood, that’s all they ever are around here, weathered and in better repair than last time I was home. There’s not a lot to do around here growing up, and Orclings need danger to thrive the way plants need water and soil.

I’d needed it too, being half Orc, and I’d assuaged that need by coming to love the people who’d enjoyed tormenting me. We’d bonded; through shared pain, through wild afternoons and wilder nights, through time and understanding and twisted trust.

They’d hurt me to escape their pain, I’d endured the hurt to escape my loneliness. A. . .fairish trade. Until I’d stabbed the ringleader and fled.

I double take as a few Humans stroll by. Healthy, relaxed. Have the old clan leader and Matriarch fallen? Scanning because I want warning if an enemy approaches, I decide if I run into my former bullies or. . .him. . . I have no reason to think they'll be interested in tormenting me further.

We're all adults now, and I've been away from home for two decades. They’ll be otherwise occupied. With life, with their own spouses and families. I rub my shaking palms on my trousers.

Iloni probably took a husband, the others presenting their throats to a female. Though I was never inducted as a full clan member, I doubt the wives of my bullies would allow them to torment me. That much attention to another female is an insult to the wife.

I’m about as safe as I can be, considering whose blood I had to spill to leave. The one thing I know, that I can count on, is he wouldn't have told on me.

Pushing open the door of my first destination, I step inside and wilt in relief. Someone bought an air cooling charm; expensive because you have to travel to a City and hunt down a Fae, but always good for business.

“But I want the berry filled,” a small Orcling whines at the front counter.

“They don’t have berry,” the mother says, voice firm and patient. . .but edged with that particular cadence of a Uthilsen female about to teach her young a lesson. “Choose another or go without. There are others in line.”

The child subsides. I grin in sympathy. I want the berry too, and begin to mentally make a different selection.

“I’ll take a cruller for Nathen,” the mother is saying. “You saved one?”

The female clerk snorts. “Course I did, or we’d never hear the end of it. Meanest male with the ax, but the biggest babe when he don’t get his Vhorsday cruller.”

“Don’t you know it,” the mother mutters. “He’s lucky I like him.”

The mother purchases and leaves. I suppress a twitch of envy as they walk out. That’s always what I’ve wanted, and always what’s eluded me. Family of my own, a mate, a house, one or two littles after a nice, uneventful birth. A place in a community where the baker knows my family well enough to have saved the last cruller for my pouting, but dangerous, mate.

His appreciation when I bring it home to him.

“Clever girl,” he murmurs, brushing his lips across my cheek. “But if you keep spoiling me, I’ll grow too fat to kill for you.”

I run my hands up his chiseled abdomen, rest them on strong, scarred shoulders, and tilt my head so those lips can skim my neck, teeth bite down affectionately.

“You spoil me,” I say, desire unfurling.

“That’s my duty, and my right.” Another, harder, bite. “To spoil you, to make you come on—”

“Are ya ready?”

Blinking out of my well-worn fantasy, I jerk my attention to the semi-patient clerk, an Uthilsen female of indeterminable age—always hard to tell with semi-Immortals once they reach adulthood. The counter doesn’t conceal her pregnant belly. She’s no warrior, though, not with the lack of beads in her fat black braid, and the softness of her round face. She’s someone’s plump pampered wife.

I suppress more than a twinge of envy this time. “I’m sorry, my mind is somewhere else.”

“That time, huh?” Her nostrils flare a bit.

I’m Uthilsen enough that my scent changes at the onset of ovulation like any other predator species, and of course any non-Human with a nose can pick up on it. If I’d been a blooded female of the clan, I’d have the right to signal a male an invitation to kneel for me, but my Human blood made my life miserable in this town.

“Getting close,” I say.

She leans a hip against the counter. “I can vouch for a few fine females who’d be willing to ease your time, and not get clingy after. Unless you’re just passing through town.”

Males are off limits to non-blooded females, except those contracted through the Immortal Sorting, a glorified flesh auction. The Immortals look for females of all species willing to breed, male laborers for their households. Those who offer themselves are given protection and whatever remuneration they can contract during the Sorting.

“I may be here awhile,” I say.

I hesitate. There’s nothing but curiosity, some sympathy and a touch of amusement in her eyes. Has the sentiment towards Human hybrids changed since I left? It’s clear what I am, tuskless with my smaller frame, my skin a touch too yellow brown under the already light green.

“I’m in the old Lethergen cabin.”

Her gaze sharpens. “Henry’s daughter?”

I nod slowly. She knows me, but I don’t remember her. “I’m a traveling midwife.” Grief clogs my throat for a moment. “I was coming back from the Outlands when word reached me.”

The copied note had been posted on a way station bulletin board, and I’d been told the commission was twelve weeks old. The bulletin boards are the best way to send messages when magic isn’t involved, and you don’t know where the receiver is.

“Rough out there.”

“It is. A quarter of the babes don’t make it.” Grief again, though for another reason. “I came as soon as I heard, and there was a replacement for my mothers.”

If the clerk had been male, I wouldn't have bothered with an explanation. But if I want to spend any time in this town the female’s circle must accept me, and they need to know it wasn't filial impiety that caused my delay. A midwife acting responsibly towards her mothers is something they'll understand, even under the circumstances.

She nods and begins to pack up a box. “This is a sample of our populars. On the house as a welcome for a clan daughter.”

That’s the most acknowledgment I’ve ever gotten. “Thank you. You’re welcome to send your males to fish the pond on my property. I reblooded the enchantment this morning.”

An enchantment paid for with blood to a Fae sixty years ago, and I’m wary enough to not want to be in her debt for the “welcome”. The clan leader kept trying to wrest fishing rights from my stubborn Da’s hands, and he’d always held out.

“I’ll send my boy around next time he complains he’s bored,” she says. “You take me up on that other offer, too, here. It’ll cause less fuss that way.”

No one wants an unmated, unblooded, ovulating halfling walking around getting the single males confused and riled up.

“I just might.” I lift the box and turn to go.

“Will you be home for female visitors?” she asks. It’s a warning she’s going to pass along word of my arrival.

“Yes. I’ll get the house fit for guests.” If the Matriarch comes to visit, I’ll have to let her in.

Even though she hates my guts.

She’s one of two reasons her son made my life hell growing up. I’d like to put down roots, but if this experiment doesn’t work, I can leave. No one can hurt me unless I let them.

I’ve been telling myself that for two decades. I’m still not sure if I believe it.

* * *

Fresh whitewash on the seamstress’ store front. A coffeehouse. . .Uthilsen outside the Cities hate coffee, it’s too bitter. There have to be enough Humans to support the business now. I decide I've earned an hour sitting outdoors, sipping an overpriced beverage.

This is almost pre-Dreadnought, like the time centuries ago before the Immortals crash-landed on planet Gaithea and their wars decimated it. What happened here? The clan leader has always been allergic to progress.

I order inside then wander back outdoors to settle on one of the square wooden tables. After an hour of people watching I head to the local tavern, my secondary destination. Maezii and I need a hot meal and neither of us cook. It makes traveling rough, another reason we’re both ready to grasp at straws.

The doors creak when I step inside. A few desultory glances my way, but otherwise I'm just another face.

I scan the room. Been in one tavern, been in them all. On the road, especially in the Outlands, you learn quick to identify potential trouble before committing to an hour in a dubious crowd. Slavers, gang members, Immortals in the mood to pick a fight. Maezii and I are handy enough with a knife, and I always have a few charms on me, dearly bought, so we’ve been lucky so far. Plus I'm constantly on the move. Still. A young, female Orc-born midwife with no clan protection, and her Human apprentice?

We’re worth money on the market.

I pass by a table, heading to the bar with my gaze already on the chalkboard sign, when someone grabs my wrist, yanking me to a halt.

“Kyona?” The deep voice is astonished.

The deep voice belongs to one of my nemeses.

Whirling, I yank on my wrist and bare my square, too Human teeth in a snarl. I was barely thirty when I last saw them, not out of girlhood despite being half Human, and all my old fears and vulnerabilities activate at that voice.

“It is you,” Fiuthen says, voice deeper than I remember. He’d just crossed the threshold of adulthood last time I’d seen him, him and the others.

He stands, looking down at me, his blue eyes wide. “What are you doing here?”

There’s a moment of confusion—why is poor, orphaned, barrel scraper Fiuthen dressed like a wealthy City merchant—before I take in the square jaw, slick shoulder length brown hair and the scar on the side of his face he wishes was from a battle but was because the boys were rough playing. The same deep blue-green skin and. . .tusks now capped with dainty bits of gold.

Mother’s tits, he’s become a revenge dandy.

“Let me go.”

I slide my free hand toward the slit in my trousers where I have a blade strapped to my thigh. I have no idea how this is going to go.

From behind, another hand grabs that wrist.

“None of that,” a new voice drawls, masculine amusement prickling the back of my neck as a hard chest bumps my back. “It’s been two decades. We need to catch up before the shit starts flying. Why don’t you sit and have a pint, ankle biter? ”

Ankle biter. I loathe that nickname and they know it.

I twist to glare at the male behind me. He stares at me with half-amused, half-hostile slate-colored eyes, braids falling over one side of his face, the other side of his head clean shaven and inked. Of course Hatthar’s not wearing a shirt because why make it harder to admire his muscles?

Fiuthen and Hatthar.

Two of them.

Of all the fucked odds.