Page 86 of Bound to the Orc Renegade

“Almost Elf! Almost Elf, wake up!” a high-pitched voice demands, tiny hands patting at my face.

I open my eyes, but it’s too bright. After blinking blearily a few times, everything swims into hazy focus. Soft furs cover me, and I’m wearing one of Krivoth’s huge linen shirts like a nightgown—when I move my legs, I can feel sheets slide across the bare skin of my calves. I’m in a wooden room with sunlight pouring through an open window directly across from me.

Sprites pour through it, too, their butterfly wings filling the air above me with color.

“It was so hard to find you,” the head sprite scolds. “We had to flyforever.”

“I’m sorry.” My voice sounds raspy, my throat dry. “I don’t even know where I am.”

I crane my neck. Mist lies fast asleep on the floor to the left of the bed I’m on. To the right…

Krivoth sleeps, his large body sprawled awkwardly in a chair. His head’s tipped back at a horrible angle, his open mouth taking big deep breaths.

“Hey, that’s gonna hurt.” I try to reach out and touch his knee, but my body feels weak and distant. It’s kind of like the cotton wool feeling I got after using too much magic, but without the pain. I look up at the sprites. “Can you wake him for me?”

“Eeeee!” they scream as all of them circle his head like the alarm clock from hell.

Krivoth jerks upright, coming fully awake in an instant, his mouth snapping shut so quickly he almost bites a sprite by accident.

It flaps out of the way, scolding as it goes.

But he has eyes only for me. “My bride!”

Then he’s on the bed, his huge arms sweeping me up in the hug to end all hugs.

I cling to him with every bit of strength I can muster. God, he feels so good. I nuzzle closer, breathing in the pine and leather scent of him.

After several minutes, Mist’s amused voice says, “I’m here as well, you know.”

“Mist!” I ease away from Krivoth and turn to her.

She puts her front paws on the bed and leans in to sniff at me, then gives my cheek a scratchy kiss-lick I wouldn’t trade for the softest silk in the world. “I’ll go and tell the unicorn you’re awake.”

“Thank you.”

She pads to the door, then stops to look over her shoulder, green eyes full of mischief. “Hey, sprites! I know where the pixies sleep during the day. Want to go and bug them?”

“There are pixies here?” “They can’t have our Almost Elf!” “Take us to these pixies!”

The sprites stream after Mist in a flutter of butterfly wings, leaving me alone with Krivoth.

He presses a pewter mug of water into my hand and says, “I should get my sister, Gerna.”

“I want to meet her, but it can wait.” I take several gulps, the water sweet and cool and perfect on my parched throat.

“No, she’s the one who made the deathsleep antidote. She’ll want to examine you and make sure you’re okay. And she needs to know it worked.”

“Deathsleep…” I frown down at the furs, wracking my brain. “The last thing I remember, you killed the ogre that kept trying to capture me, and then… Then…” My hand opens and closes on the soft pelt. “God, why can’t I remember?”

“A sluagh dropped a gourd of deathsleep right on top of you. A new kind made to affect humans. You breathed it in immediately.” He scowls, looking more pained than angry. “We didn’t know if the antidote was going to work. I thought—”

“You’re awake!” A female orc bustles into the room, a leather satchel looped over her shoulder. She’s as tall as Krivoth and almost as muscular, wearing the same kind of leather pants and boots but with a light-pink linen shirt.

Krivoth turns his scowl on her, and she smacks him on the shoulder with the ease of long familiarity. “Don’t look at me like that.”

I know immediately that they’re siblings.

“We were talking,” Krivoth mutters. “It was important.”

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