Page 80 of Bound to the Orc Warlord

I pause, my fingers tangling in the hem of my shirt for a split second. Aww, hell. Here I go, flashing my pink undies again!

Another needle stab of pain on my shoulder makes it really freaking clear I have no choice. Blue bleeds from the sky around me, turning it an icy gray. Listlessness grips me. It would be so easy just to float… to fall asleep…

My eyes flutter shut, and a vision comes to me. Dravarr, emerging from the pond, water pouring from his long black hair like a sheet of liquid silk, painting his muscles…

“Dravarr!” My eyes snap open, my reaching hand closing on nothing but the memory of his touch. It’s enough.

Fighting off dizziness, I yank my shirt over my head and tie the arms together, frantically catching the whole top of the shirt in the knot.

A bird plunges for my face, its vicious red beak already gleaming with my blood.

I grab the hem and wave the shirt through the air, the opening scooping up the black bird. It flaps and squawks until I crumple the shirt closed around it.

The whole flock falls silent around me but for the synchronized beat of their wings.

Energy surges back into me, the color of the sky flipping from a washed-out gray to blue like someone threw a switch. A loud shriek registers as something I’ve been hearing for a while without noticing. I spin.

A dot flaps towards me with another green shape beside it like someone launched a whale into the sky and gave it wings.

“Holy shit.” My mouth drops open.

Sure, Drake’s a teen, but I didn’tcomprehendhow big an adult dragon could be.

A dark shadow races over the trees below them, the adult dragon’s fifty-foot wings stirring up storm-tossed treetops with every mighty flap.

The other flock of sluagh threatening me wheel around and arrow up into the sky. But too slow, way too damned slow.

The adult dragon opens their mouth, and a loud rush of fire roars through the air in a twenty-foot stream of flame. It incinerates the entire flock, leaving nothing, not even ashes.

A hot wind blows over my bare skin, and I shake off my dazed wonder to cheer, “That was thebest!”

Drake comes to a stop in front of me, his head bobbing with excitement. “My mother is amazing.”

I reach out with my free hand to run my fingers over the raise feather-scales of his crest, and he leans into my touch, his eyes closing.

“A human,” a deep voice booms, yanking our attention to the larger dragon. “I had not thought to see one again.”

I gasp. “You met humans? But I thought the realms have been closed for over three-hundred years?”

“They have.” Amusement colors her tone. “Do you not know that dragons are the longest lived of the fae? We’re superior beings.”

I mouth the words along with her, nodding. It always seemed like a bit of a joke when Drake said it, but this dragon makes it all too real.

And here I am, naked from the waist up but for my hot-pink bra. Way to go for making a first impression, Ashley.

“Do you care if the trees below burn?” the dragon asks.

“Yes! Why?”

“Because I can see no other way to dispose of the sluagh.” She jabs a talon as big as my body toward the village.

A black cloud of sluagh fill the green. A few orcs fight on, but many slumped bodies lay scattered across the moss. Dazed or worse?

Dravarr still stands, each strike of his sword slower as the soul-stealing swarm drains his life peck by bloody peck.

“No!” I scream, icy fear stopping my heart.

I dive toward him, flying faster than I’ve ever flown.

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