Page 18 of Bound to the Orc Warlord

The dragon hops off and lands about a foot away. His wings extend partway, hit several twigs, and snap shut. “I can’t fly in here.”

“Sorry.” He’s only stuck in the tree because of me.

“Ashley?” Dravarr calls from below.

“I’m here!”

“By the goddess, how can I understand you?”

“I brought her a crystal enspelled with the power of the speaking stone,” the dragon says.

“Impossible! No one in our history has been able to channel the power of that standing stone.”

“No orcs, you mean.” The dragon laughs. “Dragons are superior beings. The goddess granted the power to one of us several centuries ago.”

“Damn, it would have been good to know that,” Dravarr says, his voice a deep growl.

“Well, now you do.”

I shove the special crystal into a pocket and inch along the branch toward the trunk. The smaller twigs clear out the closer I get, making it easier to move. But even so, by the time I reach it, Dravarr’s only a few feet below, climbing the tree with an effortless speed.

He comes to a halt only a foot away. “Are you all right?” The words are harsh and guttural but threaded with a note of worry.

I nod. “Yes.”

“I helped her down,” the dragon adds from behind me.

“You should never have flown off to begin with.” Dravarr’s dark eyes spear through me, and his scowl makes me want to skitter backward.

“About that…” I have no idea how to admit I have zero control. He’s so competent in everything.

The dragon says, “She doesn’t know how to fly.”

I squeeze my eyes closed for a moment, stifling a groan.

When I open them, Dravarr’s studying me. “Is this true?”

“Yeah.”

His mouth compresses into a thin line. Dravarr doesn’t say anything more—he doesn’t need to. He’s clearly disappointed.

My shoulders hunch inward, and I want to curl into a ball and disappear. Ihatedisappointing people. It’s one of my things, being a people pleaser, but even knowing that doesn’t change the way I feel.

“Come.” His huge hand engulfs my shoulder and pulls me forward, his touch as gentle as his voice is gruff. “We need to get moving before the sluagh finds us.”

“Sluagh?” I ask as he steers me toward his back. My arms and legs wrap around him as if coming home.

“The fae who attacked you yesterday.”

“Nasty thing,” the dragon adds.

A shiver goes through me at the memory of the bird licking my blood from its red beak and how the sluagh’s busy mouth hadallthe beak-teeth, ready to chew me up.

I cling to Dravarr, pressing closer to his warmth and solid strength as he descends to the ground, his body moving effortlessly.

The dragon follows us down, hopping from one branch to the next lower one, using little extensions of his wings to turn each drop into a controlled fall.

God, I wish I had that kind of control. When—or more importantly,how—am I going to learn to fly?

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