Page 78 of Bound to the Orc Warlord

Wiping at my face, I smear tears into a thin film that dries quickly in the wind. Ireallyneed to blow my nose. Thank god Olivia thought to give me a handkerchief when I got my new clothes.

I need to think. Drake always talked about flying as something innate to himself, as if it should come naturally. I use the broom for control, but it doesn’t hold any of my actual power.

So do I really need it now that I know what it feels like to fly with control? Can I start Supermaning this shit?

I guess I’d better, because I’m floating up here, buffeted by the wind, and if I want to have any kind of say over where I go, I need to get started.

It’s up to me now.

No Drake to help me to the ground.

No Dravarr to pluck me from a tree.

I’m alone, just like always.

Another sob rips through my throat, tearing at my insides. My body instinctively curls inward, and the movement sends me into a front flip that makes my stomach leap like I’m on a rollercoaster. The sky and ground wheel around, flicking from light sky to darker ground to light and back again. Shit! The shock of it snaps me out of my crying jag. I straighten up and concentrate on stilling myself, finally coming to a stop with my feet pointed toward the ground.

Right as I let out a relieved sigh, two dark splotches rise into the air above the treetops ahead. More black birds wing inward from the right, a huge cloud of them, their movements too synchronized to be real birds.

No.

Ice freezes the blood in my veins as several things become clear.

It’s the sluagh.

There arefarmore than two.

They’re all headed right for me and the village.

And I can’t freaking fly!

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Dravarr

A war party of ogres thunders into the village in a storm of flailing hooves. They slide from the backs of kelpies, the huge equines covered in yellow-green scales, their manes and tails snarls of kelp. Midnight, Hurtle, and the rest of our unicorn allies race over, their horns striking as they fight to avoid the kelpies’ numerous shark-like teeth.

The ogres roar, meaty gray hands waving maces and battleaxes high over their misshapen heads.

I shout hurried instructions, reforming our ranks with the strongest warriors in front, letting others take over the sluagh nets.

“I guess that answers if they’re working with the sluagh.” Mother grips her weapon, an eager bloodlust written on her face.She’s right. The sluagh could have bartered deathsleep to buy the attack at the standing stone that freed the trapped birds, but this many ogres speaks more of an alliance.

I pull out my sword, the silver moon steel blade singing as it slides from the sheath. “At least with the ogres here, the sluagh won’t drop deathsleep on us.”

“You hope,” Rovann says from my other side. “Just because ogres and sluagh have allied, doesn’t mean they’ll do right by each other.”

“All the better for us,” Krivoth snarls.

I grunt my agreement and steal one last glance at the sky, worry eating at me. Where is my Ashley? Where is my bride?

Then the ogres fall on us like a landslide rumbling down a mountain, battering against the front line of warriors with the furious clangs of colliding weapons.

Eight feet of solid muscle slams a mace down toward my head. My block vibrates through both my arms in a burn of exertion. I shove him up and off me, then slash downward. A line a black blood slices across his thick gray hide.

“Orc scum!” he yells. “I’ll kill you for that!”

“You’ll try.” A feral grin pulls my teeth away from my tusks.

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