Page 5 of The Orc Outcast's Conquest

But she could not move.

Her brain refused to process the view.

She had reached the top of the peak. The viewpoint. The sight she’d longed to see for three devastating days. She’d made it. She had won.

But the ocean was gone.

An endless blistering desert lay where crisp blue water should have lapped at the cliff side. The stench of baking salt and seaweed burned her nose. Her lungs constricted from a single heaving gulp of the acrid air.

Her babies weren’t here.

They hadn’t made it.

There were no people. No survivors. No base camp. No help.

No hope.

Her knees threatened to collapse under her. The need to cry without tears made her eyes blister like acid. She wanted to scream but had no more voice. She wanted to pull out her hair but was too weak to lift her arms. She could wake up from this nightmare, but she wasn’t sleeping.

She was alive. She wanted to live.

Earth wanted her dead.

A snapping growl jarred her out of her stupor and she whirled around, backing away from the dogs as they advanced.

Her foot hit the precipice and skidded in the sand.

Slipped off.

Her stomach dropped and her weight plunged backward.

And she fell over the edge of the cliff.

Chapter

Two

GOVEK

Govek stormed into his home, teeth gnashing, blood racing. The door frame cracked, splintering against the force he used to wrench it open.

His father, the mighty Chief Ergoth of Rove Wood Clan, wanted him gone, so Govek would get to it. He was leaving tonight. Right now. He refused to wallow in the muck at the outskirts of Rove Wood, begging for scraps for one moment longer.

Govek’s rage was like a vise, gripping his chest with deadly strength, threatening to undo him. The anger bubbled up in his throat, burned at his tongue, and scorched his mind. It flooded him with the need to vent his fury. He would render his home to bits, tear the still living tree it was built within down in one mighty blow. Let the thundering boom of its trunk swallow up the vicious sounds of his clan eating merrily in the Hall while he was sent to his death.

His father was too grief-stricken to see reason, but his brethren could have said something. They could have spoken on his behalf.

No one had.

Govek slashed at one wall, gouging his claws deep into the carved surface, destroying hours of work in a single strike. Hours of his work. Sitting here alone, with only the pops of his fire to break the ill-Faded silence. Painstakingly working vine and leaf patterns into his walls in a desperate attempt to drown out his loneliness.

He stayed away for them. To protect this clan from what he was—an abomination of the Fades, born with the same gifts to conjure magic that all his brethren in Rove Wood shared, but also with a vile disposition that tainted those gifts. Warrior strength that made that power too unpredictable. Too brutal. Too monstrous.

Even for the likes of orcs.

Govek raked his hand through his short, cropped hair. His palms were stinging. He’d made deep cuts from balling his fists to hide his wretched claws. Claws that refused to sheath even now. They’d never obeyed him.

He gulped in air. Forcing his blood to cool. He needed to think. But his rage had always held him in a tight grip. It had a life of its own, burning and prickling, as harsh as the cuts his claws had made.

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