Page 33 of The Orc Outcast's Conquest

His gut pitched. These woods were deadly. Hundreds of creatures larger than her stalked within. But he could not bring her with him to Karthoc’s forge, and he certainly could not venture anywhere near a human village. Soldiers of the Waking Order patrolled for tens of leagues outside the walls.

“You will be fine.”

She would be. She wasn’t the one who was going to have to fight off an imprint that shouldn’t even exist to begin with. She wouldn’t be raked with agony every step she took away from him. She wouldn’t have a burning urge to return to his side, despite all logic and reason.

But he’d broken off Yerina’s imprint. He could break Miranda’s too.

“Use that tincture you have to hide your scent,” he told her.

“Govek,no.I want to go with you.”

A shiver stirred within him at her plea. It broke down several barriers he’d been trying to erect between them. “My path takes me through perilous lands. You will perish in the attempt.”

“I can make it.”

He shot her a harsh look. “I assure you, you will not.” She was skin and bones, and she didn’t even have proper clothes.

“Could... could you take me to the village then?”

Was she trying to lure him to his death? Flames licked the edges of his mind. “You think me foolish enough to risk being slaughtered by the Waking Order to ensure your safety?”

“What is the Waking Order?”

The honest query speared him, made his throat dry.

“Washington state, in America, on planet Earth.”

His stomach clenched, and he chose his next words carefully. “They are a human sect who ignorantly believe my kind, and all sentinels, must be eradicated. Should they see me, they will slaughter me on sight. Or worse, torture me for information about my clan. I will be flayed alive and cooked on a spit.”

His forehead broke into a sweat as he fought back foul memories. Gruesome sights that had torn through him.

Of what remained of his brother in the Clairton town square.

Of the blood and the stench and the battle rage.

Of the madness and destructive magic he’d been unable to control.

Gentle fingers smoothed over his arm, and he flinched, reeling from her sudden touch.

Miranda stood with her brown eyes beseeching and her voice warbling. “Please take me with you.”

He took harsh, gulping breaths. “Move west, follow the sun, and you will encounter humans.”

“Please, Govek.”

He closed his eyes against the driving urge to obey.

“I just... I can’t be alone right now. I won’t slow you down, I promise.”

Her pleading was nearly his undoing. He barely rasped. “I am going towar, Miranda.”

She flinched as if he had slapped her and the terror rendering her expression to pieces gripped like a vise in his chest. “War?”

“Yes.”

“You’re at war?”

He could only nod.

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