Page 1 of The Orc Outcast's Mate

Chapter

One

MIRANDA

Violent heat strangled her throat and lodged in her chest. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t squirm. Metal caged around her, and in a frenzy, she squealed and panicked.

The metal cage held her down. Her shoulders, her back, her neck. Everything burned. She fought hard, twisting her arms, but they were caught against her sides. Her legs twitched and cramped.

She was wedged, muscles straining, bones cracking under the pressure. Her fingernails scraped against the metal, snapping, and tearing. The blood only made her scrambling more desperate.

She was stuck. In the vent.

The blinding prick of daylight a few dozen yards away burned her retinas. It was so bright.

But she couldn’t get out. She couldn’t break free.

The air vent caught her in its grip.

She would die here, agonizingly, slowly. She wailed and snapped and fought until her body felt broken. Her toes were curled, calves blistering, and mind racing.

She couldn’t get out!She couldn’t get out!

“Miranda!”

Someone screamed her name. She froze. She looked toward the light. The escape that was so close but impossibly far. Her lips were chapped, and her tongue swelled.

“Miranda, come?—”

An earth-shattering roar cut the words off.

The blistering agony of her eardrums rupturing slammed her. The quaking of the ground shook her out of her sanity. Dragged her back to Earth again.

She was in the vault. In the black. Reliving those terrifying moments, she’d spent locked up behind Blackridge Bank’s thick security door. Surrounded by the clanging of deposit boxes and the stink of metal. The rumbling shook, and the ceiling rained dust onto her face, into her eyes. She breathed in rubble and hacked for air.

The bombing went on for so long. Hourstrapped underground, just waiting for her boss to come back. Just wondering if he was even still alive.

She’d pleaded for any gods from any of the hundreds of religions to make the horrible boom’s stop.

Then it did, and she was alone in the silence. It rang around her, trembled in her guts. She’d screamed until her throat was tattered, just to hear something outside that agony of brutalsilence.

She’d fumbled along the wall in the dark. Skating her hands around the boxes to find some means of escape. And she’d found it. A tiny vent near the bottom of one corner. Its grate had flung open, broken loose from the shaking of the ground. She could feel cool air coming through and saw an impossibly dim glimmer of light at the end.

She’d grappled with the horror of it. With the terror of what she must do. She’d paced and shivered and tried not to even look at it. It was too small. She’d never make it through that tiny pipe.

And it mocked her. Jeered at her. Wailed that it was the only escape.

Her desperation grew too high.

“Miranda! Come back!”

She couldn’t. She couldn’t getout.

Burning and panicking, she’d crawled inside the vent. Shoved her body where it couldn’t fit. The metal that was supposed to make it easy for her to slide only made it impossible to gain traction.

Her clothes caught on a jutting screw. It tore into her side and her blood dripped.

She was stuck. Trapped. The walls were pressing down. Down.

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