Page 83 of Bound to the Orc Warlord

“And we didn’t start it.” I jab a finger at the sluagh. “You did. You attacked me that first day, just like you attacked this village. You’re the one starting shit.”

Dravarr pivots to look at me, a muscle jumping in his jaw. His voice comes out a harsh rasp. “This is the one who attacked you?”

“Yeah. I recognize the voice.”

“You’remyprize.” The sluagh lunges toward me, its red-clawed fingers wrapping around my wrist to yank me forward. Its horrible eyes begin to glow a brighter red immediately. “Your power will be mine.”

A wash of dizziness sets the world spinning, and a jolt of panic only makes it worse. It’s feeding from me!

Dravarr moves in a blur, scooping an armful of netting off the ground and leaping forward. He drives his shoulder into the sluagh, knocking it away from me.

His extended arms slam the net down over the creature. His weight pile drives it into the ground, and he snaps the netting closed around the soul eater.

Standing again, Dravarr twists the extra material, gathering handfuls of it. When the sluagh tries to explode into a flock of birds, it bellows outward for only a few inches, then collapses into its more solid form. Over and over it tries, each time less successful as Dravarr pulls and pulls until the net wraps the humanoid form with no extra room.

“You dare,” Dravarr roars. “You dare to touch her! To hurt her! To want to kill her!”

His sword slides from the scabbard with a metallic ring. The first stab slides perfectly through a hole in the net, skewering the sluagh through its chest where its heart should be.

Dravarr pulls back the blade, bringing with it an impaled a dead bird. It catches on the net as the sword slides free, then disappears.

The sluagh laughs. “You tickle, orc. You do not wound.”

Dravarr’s snarl echoes through the village green, and he stabs again, then again. Over and over, his arm moves like a jackhammer, plunging into the center of the sluagh with such precision he slices not a single strand of net.

The vile creature’s taunts halt. Then it shrieks with each strike, the body growing a little thinner with each bird that disappears.

The fingers of Dravarr’s other hand scoop in the extra net, keeping it tight to hold the shrinking sluagh in place.

I stand, my hands pressed over my open mouth as he chants, “This is forher, for mybride, myAshley,” the sword strikes landing with each emphasized word. A hundred strikes? A thousand? It goes on forever.

The soul sucker shrinks and shrinks, the flutter of wings against the surface of its face growing quieter. The red glow of its eyes dims.

Dravarr pulls his sword free so the bird he just stabbed disappears.

The sluagh stills, nothing more than skin stretched over a skeleton. It looks like a completely different creature with unmoving dark-gray skin and solid white eyes. It opens its mouth, and all of its red beak teeth are gone, leaving only gray gums.

“This is who you truly are. This is you without stealing the life of others,” Dravarr growls. “I have freed all your many victims. Now I will make certain you claim no more.”

His voice drops to an even deeper rasp, quieting until only I’m close enough to hear it. “You will never harm my bride, ever again.”

With one last thrust, Dravarr drives his sword into the sluagh’s chest until the hilt thumps against bone.

Its mouth opens on a silent scream as it crumbles into dust in slow motion. The breeze picks up the first of the powdery substance to slip from the surface, creating little gray wisps that flow like a stream across the air. Then a gust of wind hurls the rest of the dust away in a violent blast that quickly dissipates into nothing.

After several pregnant moments where the entire world seems to hold its breath, people move into action all around us, murmuring to each other and leaning over to help those on the ground.

My hands finally drop from my mouth. I can’t believe it’s over.

Drake presses his head against the side of my leg, and I reach down to give him a good scratch. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Not that there could be any doubt we’d win,” he said. “Not with my mother here to help. She’s a superior dragon.”

I look up to where she hangs in the air above us. Even though she’s above the treetops, I feel her presence as a weight, heavy with power. I wave, hoping the gesture means something good to her.

“I’ll take her somewhere she can land. She wants to meet your king and speak of the sluagh.”

“The standing stone clearing,” Dravarr says, without turning around. “It’s the only place.”

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