Page 76 of Bound to the Orc Warlord

Dravarr

Fool.

The word echoes through my mind as my moon bound bride disappears into the sky. It’s not until she’s gone that I glance at the ground and realize Ashley didn’t even take her broom.

Now she’s not only emotionally hurt, she’s also in danger.

And it’s all my fucking fault.

There’s no dragon this time to help her back to the ground. By the goddess, I have to find a way to get to her!

I run for my cottage. I called a meeting to discuss using the new sluagh nets. Anyone who could help should already be there. I burst through the door.

“Dravarr, what—” Mother stands, her hand going to her sword hilt, as Rovann and Krivoth leap to their feet as well.

“Ashley found out she’s my bride. She flew away,” I say, her name tasting of copper on my tongue. Fear’s never been a close companion, and I don’t fucking love it now. I thrust her broom forward. “She needs this. Without it, she can’t control her flight. She can’t come back.”

To me.

To the fool who proved he doesn’t deserve her.

To the fool who drove a blade into her oldest hurts.

The pain twisting her pretty face, choking her voice, breaking up her breathing into little choked sobs…

I caused all of it. My heart feels like stone, weighing my chest until it’s hard to breathe. Even if I get her back, will she ever forgive me?

No. I can’t think of that right now. I have to focus on saving her.

Rovann steps forward. “What can we—”

The door slams open, a panting warrior shadowed against the sunshine at her back. “The sluagh! Ogres attacked the guard at the standing stone and freed them!”

No!

Just no.

The soul stealers can’t be loose right when my bride’s flying through the sky without any means of control.

“There are more coming. The lookout reported a whole cloud of them.”

Ice freezes my muscles, runs skeletal fingers over my ribs and along my spine. Two sluagh are enough to contend with. A cloud of them?

My bride!

I rush outside and to the village green, my feet thumping against the ground in time with my pounding heart. The others race after me.

“Sound the alarm!” I bellow, and the bell rings from the pub in deep brassy notes.

“Reta!” I yell.

“Here.” She appears in the doorway of the weavers cottage.

“We need cloth sacks we can tie closed. We also need all the sluagh nets you’ve made and every bit of loose netting, and we need themnow.”

She nods and spins back inside, shouting instructions.

I dash over to the well, scooping up the nets I’d dropped earlier and spreading them among the warriors, while keeping one for myself.

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