Page 48 of Bound to the Orc Renegade

None of my practice prepared me for this. It’s like playing one of those poorly thought out games where you’re thrown into situations you haven’t been prepared for, the kind where the designers think they’re being edgy and “hard,” but really they’ve created a game that’s unfair. Those games might make an initial splash, but they never last. Gamers don’t want things to be easy—that’s boring—but they do want the ability to level up so each challenge is difficult but doable after a reasonable number of tries.

Too bad I’m not writing the ogres into the game of my life—I’d have them attack in a week or two when the timing would be perfect instead of now.

Because no matter how hard I strain, every time I almost make the connection to Alarria’s magic, something jolts me out of it. Krivoth growls. An ogre yells. Storm snorts. Mist yowls. Weapons clang. Fists crunch against flesh. The noise of battle is continuous, and every single sound sends icy shivers of worry racing through me about my friends.

About Krivoth.

I should be the most powerful person here, and instead, I’m a liability.

It grates, and not just my pride—our lives are on the line.

Two more kelpies slip around the edge of the main fight. Mist leaps for one, but the other races straight at me, shark teeth flashing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Krivoth

The blinding joy of battle fills my chest, pounds through my blood like the strongest of drums. I fight, using a move my mother taught me as a child, when I begged her for lessons. She’d grin and lead me outside our heart tree cottage, where we cracked practice sticks together.

I miss her every day, and today I battle for both her and my bride. But unlike my mother, I do not fight alone.

Even outnumbered, there would be no issue or doubt who would win… if not for the kelpies.

An ogre swings his battleaxe at my head in a deadly chop.

I raise my sword in a sharp uppercut that knocks the weapon aside. Then I spin, sweeping my eyes over the terrifying sight of a kelpie stalking toward Taylor. She’s never looked tinier thannow, confronted by the huge beast, her human size no match for the vile water horses.

“No!” The word tears my throat, ripping straight from my heart.

The cat sith appears and fights valiantly for my bride, and I’m sorry I ever doubted Mist’s declarations of friendship. She’s as true a battle mate as one could wish for.

As is Storm.

The unicorn stomps another ogre into the ground, his hooves striking with all the force of his thousand-pound weight. Even an eight-foot ogre becomes a paltry thing in the face of such might.

Then I face my opponents again. Lucky me, to have two. I bare my tusks at them and whip my warrior braid back out of my way. “Come at me, ogre filth! I’ll gut you like I did your friend.”

A mace whistles toward my left side just as the other ogre’s axe chops at my right.

I dance back out of the way.

By the goddess, why did they have to coordinate for the very first time? Usually, they fight with no discipline and even less concern for their fellow ogres. But these two have fixed on me from the start—the one because of how I injured him at the standing stone, the other… Well, her eyes continually flash back toward the first ogre I defeated, so it’s personal. That’s fine.

This damned battle is personal for me as well.

“It must be true that ogres are stupid,” I say to the one bearing my scar. “Didn’t you learn your lesson last time?”

“Your pretty human seems to have lost her magic,” he sneers. “It’ll be nothing to capture her today.”

“You think you’ll get your grubby paws on my moon bound?” I taunt, snapping my tusks at the male who’s come back for her a second time. “You will not touch a hair on her head.”

His eyes flick over my shoulder even as I block the other ogre’s attack. Then he laughs, and the cruelty in the sound wraps my heart in the icy grip of fear. Taylor!

I spin right in time to see three kelpies surround her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Taylor

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