Page 22 of Bound to the Orc Warlord

“Shit!” Ashley’s yell cuts through me, sharper than any weapon. “No!”

I leap away from my opponent to get enough time to glance over my shoulder.

A third ogre has the end of Ashley’s tether rope wrapped in his meaty fist. He grins and pulls her down to him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ashley

A giant of a man leers up at me from a lumpy gray face with beady black eyes and a mouthful of tombstone-slab rotting teeth. He tugs at the rope, making me jerk in the air, and laughs.

How did everything go to hell so quickly? I’d finally gotten a tiny bit of control over my flying, and wham—these assholes ran out of the woods. Midnight fought off one of them while Dravarr kept the closer one at bay, his body a thing of beauty as he blocked and struck.

Then this third one snuck out and grabbed my rope.

I double over, reaching for the cuff around my ankle. If I can get free…

Another sharp jerk snaps my leg forward, wrenching my hip joint. I yelp as I move in a sickening lurch.

Dravarr races toward me, but the ogre he’s been fighting is hot on his heels.

The one holding my rope grabs my foot and pulls me to him.

Drake shrieks, his piercing cry so high it shivers along my nerves. Diving from above, he kicks at the ogre’s face with his rear feet, his talons raking long gashes that weep black.

The giant bellows, letting go of me to swipe at the dragon, but Drake’s too agile. His leather wings cup the air, pivoting to change his angle with a precision I wish I had. His tail whips out as a counterbalance, aiding each movement even more.

I grasp my crystal and reach for my magic, adrenaline making all of the morning’s lessons bounce around my head.

“Feel the magic as it courses through you,” Drake explained over an hour ago. “If you can’t feel it, you can’t control it.”

I’d always thought dragons could fly because they have wings, but he said no, their bodies are too heavy for wings—they use magic for lift and wings for direction and control.

I tapped into that feeling of control for precious seconds before the ogres attacked. If I don’t want to be a liability to Dravarr, I must find it again. But panic makes the magic dance through me like a wild thing, flowing and sliding and ever more elusive the more I try to grasp it.

Dravarr comes to a stop under me, and the ogre he’s been fighting catches up and raises his battleaxe.

Every bit of concentration I have snaps as worry for him overwhelms me. I scream, “Behind you!”

In one fluid movement, Dravarr ducks, his sword coming up to protect his head in a clanging block. He’s not evenlookingat the ogre. It’s like he can sense his opponent. He spins out from underneath the locked weapons, and the loss of something to push against makes the ogre tip forward, his axe burying in the ground.

Dravarr continues to spin, the turn of his whole body channeling through his arms and into his sword. In a whistling flash of silver, it slices the air, barely slowing as it hits the ogre’s neck.

The giant’s startled croak cuts off as his head goes flying. The big body topples to the ground.

Dravarr comes to a perfect halt, only his braid continuing to move until it wraps around his front. His arms still extend forward, the sword held in perfect position.

He just killed a guy.

I shake my head and swallow convulsively a couple of times as my stomach gives a sick tumble. I don’t know how I feel about that. The ogres attacked us, but…

The ogre with the clawed-up face launches from the ground and swings a bat tipped with a ball of metal spikes at Dravarr.

I’m still fighting not to be sick, and my warning cry comes out as more of a gargling noise. He looks up, but at me, not the ogre. Fear stops my heart.

As if he can suddenly sense the weapon, Dravarr spins toward the ogre at the last second. The spikes bite into his shoulder instead of the center of his back.

He grunts, that arm falling to hang limp by his side. Red stains the edges of the holes punched in his shirt.

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