Page 15 of Bound to the Orc Guardian

The muscles in his chest ripple as he lifts the waterskin closer. He’s so healthy he almost gleams. There’s no way he’s been drinking bad water.

Besides, being dehydrated sucks, so I let my worries go and drink. I expect it to taste funny from the leather, but it’s the sweetest water I’ve ever had.

When I stop and try to give it to him so he can drink, too, he pushes my hand back, urging me to take more. Then he breaks off a piece of something that looks like a cookieand gives it to me. He crunches into the other half, his tusks tearing through the food without problem.

I try to take a bite, but it’s hard, so I nibble on the edge. It’s more like a hard biscuit than a cookie, and it tastes like a nutty cracker instead of being sweet, but I like it.

And what I like even more is the way he watches me so carefully, trying to anticipate what I might want or need. I’ve spent the past few years with my nose to the grindstone, and even when I’ve had the time to date, none of the young guys were ever this focused on me, on taking care of me. I should be worried about being in this new world, unable to speak the languages and stuck out in nature where I don’t know how to survive.

But I’m not. Sturrm makes me feel safe, as if I can depend on him in the way I haven’t been able to depend on anyone in a while. A strain of tension woven into my back loosens for the first time in ages. I didn’t even realize I carried it until now. The relief of letting it go rushes through me, and I grin at him.

“You’d probably laugh if you could understand me, but berries, crackers, and water make for the best meal I’ve had in ages,” I say. It’s not that it tastes the very best—I had some kick-ass empanadas for lunch yesterday—but it’s the first I haven’t needed to cook or buy, counting pennies as I do.

His eyes flick to me, and I could swear the ghost of a smile hovers at the corners of his lips.

When he finishes his portion, he fills the small pouch the biscuit came out of with more blackberries while I continue to gnaw on the hard cracker. Then he points first to me and then to the ground in a clear “stay here.”

I nod.

He says something to the unicorn.

It lifts its head from grazing, answers him, and turns so it can watch me.

Sturrm takes the waterskin and heads into the trees.

With him gone, the butterfly faeries fly toward me, each carrying one of the blackberries they sprinkled with magic. The unicorn gives a loud whinny, and they shriek at it for several seconds before dropping the treats to the ground.

“Guess you lost that argument,” I say, offering them a wry grin and wondering once again what they did to those berries.

When they hear my voice, their mercurial little faces flip from frowns to smiles. They surround me, several landing on my head and shoulders. Tiny hands tug on my hair, pat my cheeks, and tickle the tops of my ears until I laugh.

Their miniscule ears are just as pointed as Sturrm’s, so rounded ones like mine must fascinate them. All my studies have taught me that biology always has a reason for things. I bet the elongated, pointed ears give them a better range of hearing than a human-shaped ear does.

While they clamber over me, calling out to each other in whistles, I crunch through the last of my biscuit, the nutty flavor satisfying, though I wouldn’t say no to being able to dip it in a little aji sauce. Do they even have chili peppers in Faerie?

Sturrm stalks out of the woods, and the tiny fae lift from me in unison like a flock of startled birds. He comes straight over to me, those dark eyes searching my entire body as if expecting something to be wrong.

“Coño! I’m a grown woman, and you were only gone ten minutes.” But I say it with a smile in my voice, secretly thrilled he cares.

Those big hands wrap around my waist as he lifts me onto the unicorn’s back. This time, he pauses to steady me before mounting behind me. It’s a little thing, but it’s telling. Sturrm has this solid maturity about him, a way of looking beyond himself to see me and what I need.

It’s sexy as hell.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sturrm

Dash thunders on, the landscape swirling past. Hours pass, and he shows no signs of flagging, even as the light around us dims, heralding evening.

Selena slumps back against me, her head lolling on my shoulder, fast asleep. She’s exhausted, and if she’s anything like the other humans, she’s not used to riding. The need to take care of her fills me, and my arms tighten around her.

“We must stop for the night,” I say.

“I can keep going,” Dashsays. “I feel better than ever.”

“You needed frequent stops when we traveled before.” Even though he ran hard to get to the standing stone, he never galloped for this long in one go.

“Of course I did.” He snorts, half disdain, half amusement. “I didn’t have Selena constantly healing me.”

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