by Layla Harper
Upon my return, I will strangle Aelinor for allowing Kyra to wander the Forest of Night unguarded.
If anything had happened to my mate…
The force of my anger sends a shudder down my spine, and for the first time in centuries, I fear I might not have the strength to control my impulses. The bond’s hold on me grows, no doubt affected by my proximity to Kyra, and the longer we remain together, the stronger the effect. I need to deposit this female into the queen’s capable hands before I completely lose my mind.
My breeches stick to my wet legs when I yank them on. I cinch the tie at my waist and quickly strap on my weapons, then grab my boots off the ground. I have been given the one thing most orcs dream of possessing—a soul bond. One I disavow. My sire would writhe in shame if he were alive.
Blowing out a breath, I move to sit on a large rock near the pond and stab my foot into a boot. Behind me, the horses nicker softly from where they feed.
Would surrendering be so bad? To hold my fated female in my arms, I would gladly spend the rest of my days slaying my foes to defend her. But I live in a world that destroys human life, and if we escape to Earth, what chance would I, a half-blood, have of surviving hers?
None.
And where will I be when her short mortal life fades from existence?
Alone and broken and hated in a realm that is not of my choosing.
I fist my hands and move off to collect the horses. Curse this bond. Curse my destiny. And curse the damn fae trying to steal my kingdom out from under me.
* * *
After securing the steeds, I march through the encampment with Kyra’s strange tunic gripped in my hand like a trophy. Gauron is bent over his kill, some type of hare he guts near the spit built over the fire. Avoiding my gaze, Kyra sits on a sleeping roll, arms clasped around her legs with her chin resting on her knees. Aelinor, my shaman and advisor, is nowhere to be seen.
My anger thrums behind my temples. “Is she on patrol?”
Gauron snorts. “She’s out looking for ancestors know what. Some sleeping herb. For her.” With the knife in his hand, he gestures to Kyra, who stares into the fire with pinched brows.
I grind my teeth in a futile attempt to hold on to the last of my sanity. Aelinor should be sitting beside the female, allaying her fears, not off hunting plants.
My second-in-command gives me a commiserating look. “It’s the magic. This place makes me want to kill something.” He shakes his head. “I can’t hear for shit. You?”
“Same.” It makes my skin crawl. “I want two of us on patrol through the night. You sleep. I will—”
“You?” Gauron sets down the knife he is using to skin the hare and then stands. “I speak to you now not as your second but as your friend. When was the last time you slept?”
I open my mouth to object, but he holds up a hand.
“When?” He shakes a bloody finger at my face. “Eh?”
I have not slept in… I stop myself. The when is unimportant. My duty is to my people, first and foremost.
When I fail to answer, Gauron smirks. “That’s what I thought. You do us no good dead. Guard the mortal. Rest if that brain of yours allows. The elf and I can manage one night of patrol without you breathing down our necks.”
“I do not breathe down necks.”
Gauron laughs. “Sure you don’t.” He squats and threads the meat onto the spit, glancing quickly at the tunic in my hand. “Did someone grow tired of smelling like malodorous drow repellant?”
Unbidden, the vision of Kyra slowly rolling the foul garment from her body, exposing pale, smooth skin gleaming beneath a stormy gray sky, emblazons itself into my mind’s eye. My jaw clenches and the rest of me goes rock hard.
“Until we acquire the blocker,” I grind out, “she will wear the repellant.” And if I have to spray every article of clothing to ensure her safety, so be it.
Gauron lifts the speared hare and fits the meat over the fire. “You can’t blame her, now can you? You produced enough musk to cloak half of Drengskador.”
I admit, I panicked. Scratching the back of my head, I say, “What choice did I have? With the drows in our vicinity, you would have done the same.”
Using a rag to wipe the blood from his hands, Gauron shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. There are more interesting ways to camouflage a female’s scent.”
The hair on my nape rises. Ignoring Gauron’s taunt, I pivot, scouring the tree line for the source of my discomfort.
“It’s unnerving.” Beside me, Gauron bares his teeth. His hand hovers over his sword, ready to draw. “I hate this wretched place.”
I couldn’t agree more. We watch and listen until the feeling subsides.
Kyra glances around her, then scoots closer to the fire, rubbing her arms.
“Do you think she speaks true?” Gauron asks quietly.
I release the jaded breath I was holding. “For our sake, I hope so.”
“I’m going to make my rounds. Don’t let our dinner burn.” Gauron salutes me, then disappears into the darkness, leaving me alone with my mate.
I skirt the periphery of the fire, my pulse beating faster than it did a moment ago, and cross the encampment. Dropping the garment on the ground by her feet, I ask, “Forget something?”
Her eyes fall to the crumpled fabric reeking of my territorial musk. Her face is a blank canvas, but I catch the subtle twitch of her right eye. She lifts her head and meets my gaze straight on.
My orc half growls in approval.
“So, you’re a king? Shouldn’t you be back at your castle doing kingly things with your entourage instead of hanging out with an outlaw like me in the middle of”—she waves a hand in the open space between us—“Mirkwood?”
My female does not mince words. Nor does she blush, make concessions, or apologize for eyeballing me naked.
A worthy mate.
“Kingly things?” I remove my weapons and drop to the ground beside her, leaving no space between our bodies. Unable to stop myself, I lean over until my mouth is poised over her ear and inhale the sweet fragrance saturating the air. She likes me. Her face may say otherwise, but she cannot hide her body’s response. “What kind of kingly things should I be doing?”
She swallows. “Oh, I don’t know. Fancy balls? Takeovers? Political machinations?”
By the ancestors, the rapid pulse at her neck is an open invitation to lick the creamy skin beneath her jaw.
Placing a hand at the center of my chest, she gives me a good shove. “Dude, ever hear of personal space? And what the hell is with all the sniffing? Enough already.”
I laugh. A real laugh. The kind that explodes from deep in my gut. I cannot remember the last time I expressed amusement. Or smiled.
My mood sobers. What does that say about me? About who I am becoming?
Kyra frowns and gives me a strange look. “You people are… weird.”
“That is your first mistake. We are not people.” Sighing, I fall onto my back, pulling her down with me. “Humor me, female. Stare up into the starless night with me. Let us pretend for a moment that all is right with our world. You and I are…” She tenses beside me. “We are good friends enjoying a quiet evening.”
From my peripheral vision, I see her mouth work. A grin spreads across my face.
She sputters. “A quiet evening? Seriously?”
“Do humans not partake of nature?”
“Did you snort some magical narcotic while snorkeling in that black pool?”
“Ah, so you were spying on me.”
“I—no.” She sits up with a yelp.
I jump to a crouch. “Are you hurt?” I see no blood or broken bones, but that does not mean she did not damage an organ. The human form is so fragile.
“No. Will you sit down?” When I do not move, she says, “I’m sore from the attack, the horse… My body took a beating today, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. Besides, your shaman offered me her miracle salve.”
“Yes.” I take my seat beside Ky
ra. “The salve will help the pain.”
She scrunches her face. “About before, it’s not what you’re thinking. I wasn’t spying. I wanted to wash the blood from my hand. Aelinor smelled the stream in that general vicinity, but I couldn’t hear a thing, and when I moved beyond the tree, well, there you were in all your glory.”
Male pride swells in my chest. “You find my body pleasing.”
Groaning loudly, Kyra rubs her eyes. “Don’t make this weird. I left as soon as I realized it was you.”
I lie back down on the ground, my hands folded beneath my head, giddy as a pup because my mate enjoys looking upon me naked. Have I gone mad?
Kyra casts me a sideways glance. “As far as orc kings go, you’re not too shabby. I’ll give you that. Just don’t let it go to your head.”
Another laugh escapes me. “I will keep that sage bit of advice in mind.”
We are silent for a moment, me reclined on the bedroll, Kyra sitting rigidly beside me. Her mouth twitches from side to side, and when she stretches onto her back, keeping a safe distance between our arms, I suppress my lips from sliding into the wide grin they beg to form.
“So, is this something you often do?” Her eyes are focused above, but I know she is as aware of me as I am of her. “Visit enchanted forests and gaze at cloudy skies with good friends?”
“No,” I admit. “I cannot remember a time when I ever did so. You?”
She chews the inside of her mouth. “Once. My parents died when I was young. My second foster family was really big on camping and stuff. At the end of my first summer with them, they took me to the cape. I swam in a pond. Played in the sand. We sat around a campfire and roasted marshmallows on twigs.” She smiles, but I sense her sadness. “All the clichés. On our final night, we lay outside our tents and counted stars. I hadn’t realized it was goodbye. I moved to another foster a week later.”
Although I do not comprehend some of her strange terms, I understand loss. My mate and I share a heartbreak. “I too was not blessed to know my birth mother or father. They were killed when I was very young. I was taken from my home to be raised by my aunt, an elven princess of the autumn court.” The realm responsible for the destruction of my people.
Kyra lifts onto one arm, facing me. “Your aunt is an elf?”
“Was. My mother’s sister.”
My mate scrunches her face, studying my features with her dazzling blue orbs. “Is that why your skin is a different color from Gauron’s? Or the shaman?”
Before I can answer, Aelinor ambles into camp, startling us both. She drops a skin of water, a handful of herbs, and some berries on the bedroll to my right.
My stomach turns to stone.
“Where is our cook? If he burns our fare…” Aelinor stops and looks at me. “What?”
“Nothing.” I roll to my feet. “Prepare the salve for Kyra. Now.” I pace to the spit and rotate the hare before the meat burns. Aelinor’s arrival caught me off guard. Instead of my shaman, a drow could have burst through those trees and murdered my mate, and I would have no one to blame but myself.
How could I be so careless?
Never again.
I vow to the ancestors that I will not rest until Kyra is secure behind the unscalable walls of the high queen’s fortress.
Whatever the cost.
Chapter Twelve
Kyra
One minute we’re having a moment—a really nice moment, I might add—and the next, the orc king is on his feet barking out orders like a madman.
Moody much?
I sit up. Aelinor doesn’t seem fazed by Rogar’s sudden about-face, so I don’t know why his behavior bothers me. He travels across the encampment, hips swaggering in that cocky warrior stride I’m beginning to associate with him, and stops before the fire, shooting daggers at the roasting hunk of enchanted forest meat that’s about to be our dinner.
What’s gotten into him?
Is it something I said?
Although Rogar isn’t human, in the short time I’ve known him, I find him to be temperate and fair. His actions seem to stem from a drive to protect those in his care. He’s angry, yes—that’s clear as day on his face—but the anger is a symptom of another emotion. I don’t know why I think this, but I’m sure of it. I recall the flash of alarm we both experienced when Aelinor abruptly emerged from the woods. Is embarrassment the root cause of his sudden temper or something else?
What am I missing here?
Trying not to groan, I rise off the bedroll. The woods are still eerily silent. Aelinor rummages through her pack and drops a wooden mug and a few other supplies near the herbs she’d deposited on the blanket a few moments ago. Rogar continues to scowl at dinner, his gaze steadily shifting from me to Aelinor and the woods before circling back again. I follow the path but see nothing to cause the visible tension in his body.
Maybe he sensed or smelled a threat nearby?
If I’m in more danger than I already am, I want to know about it. I walk over to him. “Would you mind telling me what’s wrong?”
He jabs a hand through his black hair and pierces me with his fiery eyes. For a minute I think he might confide in me, but he shakes his head. “Go tend to your injuries, female. Unless you prefer to roast the hare?”
“Sure, if you want a quick introduction to salmonella.”
He frowns.
“Food poisoning?”
Still nothing.
“From undercooked meat? I’m the queen of microwaving, but that’s the extent of my cooking abilities.” I don’t know why I’m sharing this with him. “Forget it. It was meant as a joke. What’s going on, Rogar?”
His black brows crush together like he’s in pain.
Ordinarily, this is where I back off and give the other person space. No one wants to look weak or have their vulnerabilities made public, least of all a leader. But for reasons I can’t explain, I don’t. My palm is on his forearm before I realize what I’m doing.
Crap. I don’t touch people, especially men I’ve known for less than twenty-four hours.
Before I can pull away, Rogar’s hand covers mine. Something flickers in his expression. He squeezes my hand, the gesture birthing an uncomfortable feeling that warms my core—a connection, a pull. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t afford to have feelings for this guy no matter how drawn I am to him.
I relent. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
He juts his chin to where Aelinor stands clipping herbs into the wooden cup. “Go, female. Tend to your needs.” His voice is gentle, almost sweet. “All is well.”
“You’d tell me if I were in danger of dying tonight, right?”
He brushes a knuckle against my cheek, the touch feather-soft, and those mesmerizing eyes melt into crimson pools that bleed into my soul. “I will slay any beast fool enough to come near you. You are safe with me.”
I believe him. Me, the twenty-one-year-old cynic. Will wonders ever cease?
I sigh and drop my hand from his arm, immediately missing the hard feel of muscle flexing beneath my fingertips. “I have a name, you know. You should try it.”
“And what if I like calling you ‘female’?” The deep rumble of his voice makes the word sound sinful.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I like it too. “Then it’s only fair I create a special moniker all of your own.”
“Is that right?” The corner of Rogar’s mouth kicks up into a half smile.
Oh, so not fair. The sexy rogue can melt a hundred panties with those lips.
He turns to the fire and rotates the spit, meat juices sizzling onto the hot stones beneath. The muscles in his wide back work beneath his tunic. Nice ass too. Maybe I’ll call him hot cheeks.
Satisfied with the state of the roast, Rogar turns his full attention my way.
I bite my lip to keep from giggling like a schoolgirl. “Two syllables. Shouldn’t be too hard. Ki-rah. You should try it.”
Rogar’s half-smile blooms into a sexy smirk. “Perhaps I should wait to
hear this moniker before I conform to your wishes, female.”
“I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. “It could take me weeks of practice and testing to find the right one. I’m nothing if not persistent.”
Oh my fucking word.
I’m flirting with the orc king.
For a girl who doesn’t often, I’m on a roll with the firsts today.
“I am a patient male.” Those crimson eyes heat, and suddenly I don’t think we’re talking about nicknames anymore.
Behind me, Aelinor waves me over.
Am I a coward for admitting I’m somewhat relieved for the distraction?
“The miracle salve awaits. Looks like I’ll be testing that patience of yours another time, your lordship.”
Rogar chuckles. “Ah, female, you already have. You already have.”
* * *
Aelinor and I return to the pool. I wash most of the filth from my skin, including the dry blood crusted on my hand. I can’t express how awesome it feels to be clean, or somewhat clean. I adjust the green tunic over my sports bra and am about to put the leather pants on when Aelinor points to a large rock near the bank.
“Sit.” She holds a strange container in the palm of her hand. “This will help with the chafing. When we return, I’ll make you a brew to aid in the recovery of the injuries you’ve sustained.” She removes the lid from the receptacle and uses two fingers to scoop out a blob of greasy-looking yellow ointment. “Where is the skin damaged?”
Sweat and hours on the saddle left my inner thighs and butt red like a diaper-rashed bottom. “No offense, but I’ll apply the salve myself.” Would I balk if it were Rogar’s hot hands teasing the inside of my thigh, his long fingers kneading and rubbing the sensitive skin between my legs? The thought has me squirming in my seat.
Crap. I’ve got to get my mind out of the gutter.
Eyeing the glob glinting under the light tree’s luminescence, I ask, “Will it sting?”
“No.” Aelinor scrapes the stuff onto my fingers and sets the container down next to my foot. She turns around, giving me her back.