Page 36 of Bound to the Orc Guardian

“Run!” I yell, lowering my sword to a regular stance.

Selena leaps to her feet and darts toward Dash, me pounding alongside her.

My tusks snap at the air. We won’t make it. The first birds are already on him.

A shadow races across the ground, the roar of a dragon filling the air.

The sluagh halts its dive, wings beating hard as the flock fights to change direction, to escape. It rises into the sky. Soon it will be too high for me to reach, even with my sword. If it gets away, it keeps the pieces of Selena’s and Dash’s soul it’s already stolen.

The thought of her losing even the tiniest bit of her life and joy is horrific.

If I can trap a single bird, it will subdue the entire flock and return the stolen bits of soul to my friends. To Selena.

I call my magic to me, pulling on more of it than I’ve ever used. The effort burns along my nerves, but I don’t care. My free hand presses to the thigh of my pants, the only leather I have easy access to. With a pulse of power, they slide from my legs, making a huge bag more quickly than I’ve ever been able to get leather to move in my entire life.

Cock bobbing free for all to see, I leap, scooping a bird from the sky.

The entire flock goes still, hanging above us in a thundercloud of barely contained menace. If the bird I trapped gets free or dies, it will free the rest of the birds to be able to attack us again.

My feet hit the ground, making my cock leap again. I don’t even care as I meet Selena’s startled gaze. She’s safe. That’s all that matters.

A fireball whooshes through the air, incinerating the flock hanging overhead.

The leather of the bag I hold stretches to thinness as the final bird inside morphs into the sluagh’s true form. Skeletal hands burst through, splitting the surface, followed by a gray face filled with blank, white eyes and a gaping mouth, empty of the razor-sharp teeth it would have when strengthened by victims. But the dragon released all the stolen souls from its grasp when it ended the other birds, freeing them to find peace, leaving the soul stealer weakened.

A triumphant laugh bursts from me as I use my magic to make the leather wrap around it in tight bonds. Then Iplunge my sword straight into its heart, bloodlust riding me hard.

The sluagh gives one final angry screech, then crumbles to gray ash, carried away by the wind.

“That was amazing!”

I turn to find Selena beaming at me. Then her eyes drop down, the heat in them spurring my erection to life. She licks her plump lips, and a million reasons thunder through my head about how I shouldn’t want her.

I take a step forward, ready to ignore them all.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Selena

My brain stutters to a halt, locked onto one thought, which whirls around and around.

Sturrm’s nakedagain.

And the view’s just as good this time. No, I lie. It’s even better, because he’s not just some hot green man I like the look of as eye candy.

He’s Sturrm, the big-hearted orc who makes me jackets and cooks for me and sings away my nightmares until my heart melts. He’s Sturrm, who fights like a beast to protect me.

He’s Sturrm, the man I’mfalling for.

The look in his eyes burns into me, setting me on fire. My nipples tighten as he takes a step forward, his whole body moving with wicked promise.

I offer him my sultriest smile, more than ready to—

“You can thank me now,” a girl’s voice says. A whomp thumps through the air as a gust of wind hits my back.

I spin around.

A dragon stands behind me, only about six-feet tall,farsmaller than Sheevora. She lifts her wings and bobs her head, a feeling of triumph rolling off her. Her scales gleam in the sunlight, a purple that tints to pink on her wings and crest.

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