Page 82 of The Orc Outcast's Mate

It didn’t. When the pull to dredge was birthed by the Fades, it was like a compulsion.

But he couldn’t let her. He couldn’t.

He would lose her.

“Govek?” Miranda’s voice felt distant. Distorted. He bowed his head and took heaving breaths as everything pounded into his mind at once.

How dare Karthoc try to force his hand? How dare the seer touch his woman and birth this madness? How dare the Fades push his woman to do something that may kill her?

His anger was growing, flaming, alive. The Fades light was raging, swallowing him up. Threatening to burst.

His fingertips tingled with the force of his withheld magic.

He needed to leave. To get out of here and away from Miranda before he lost control and hurt her.

He couldn’t control it.

Hands slipped up his cheeks and into his hair.

His breath caught in his throat as she swirled gentle circles around the base of his skull, massaged the hinge of his jaw.

He met her gaze and was unsettled to find her expression tight. “Govek... if you don’t want to help me with this, you don’t have to.”

What?

“I can do it on my own,” Miranda said softly, and she may as well have screamed it into his ear. Burst apart his eardrums with it.

“This is something I have to do, but you aren’t obligated to help me, Govek. You’ve helped me more than enough already. I’ll never be able to repay you for everything you’ve done for me. So, it’s okay. I won’t blame you for bowing out entirely.”

Bow out entirely.

She meant leave him.

She would leave him over this.

And all the anger evaporated out of his chest to make room for terror. The magic snuffed out, and he reached to grip her sides, wrapping his fingers around her middle, as if that might stop her from going without him.

He couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t.

“Govek?” Her voice held concern. Concern for him. Fuck, he did not deserve her gentle kindness.

“I’ll help you,” he managed past the lump in his throat. “I will, just... fuck.”

But she’d passed out. Even the seer felt it was wrong.

Govek gulped hard. “The seer asked you to leave him alone.”

“He... what? No, that doesn’t make sense.” Her brows knitted in confusion. Her hands left his face so she could rub the middle of her chest again.

What he would give to read her mind in this moment, to feel what she was feeling.

“Can you help me find him so I can ask? It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that... that...” She chewed her lip.

He gulped hard, mouth so dry it felt like sun baked sand. “The seer asked to be left alone and his orders are higher than the Warlord’s. Going against them could get us banished from his presence permanently.”

“Then... then what do I do? What do I do now?”

His eyes fixed on her chest, and he gulped hard. “We... must wait for him to make the first move.”

---