Page 35 of Bound to the Orc Guardian

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sturrm

Selena, amazing and brilliant Selena, pulls me from the deathsleep coma, her magic sizzling through me with warmth and life.

Her gasped instructions spur me up and across the ground, the orange cloud of deathsleep thinning with every step.

We’re going to make it!

Yet as soon as I start to feel hope, it crumbles to ashes, her gasp of pain the loudest sound in the world. Along with it comes the leaden heaviness of deathsleep,seeping back into suddenly floundering muscles, painting the edges of my vision black.

I hold her to me as my knees hit the ground, and she makes another choked cry of pain. The sluagh ignores me to attack her, her beautiful soul shining like a beacon to its dark hunger.

No. Fuck no!

I won’t let her become its next victim. Ican’t! Losing Selena will break me. There’ll be nothing left. And if I’m to be a dead man, then I’ll die saving her.

Fighting off the lethargy stealing through my muscles by force of will alone, I cradle Selena to my chest with one arm and lurch back up to standing. Three more staggering steps, and I’m free of the sickeningly sweet smell of the deathsleep herb.

Selena stirs, her magic rushing through me in a wave of energy.

I lay her down on the mossy ground and stand over her, unsheathing my sword so quickly it seems to leap into my hand.

Lifting my sword overhead, I point the tip toward the ground and whirl it around my body in a move meant to block attacks from all sides, the sharp moon steel blade flashing in the sun.

The sluagh shrieks as a flock, individual birds diving in slaps of beating wings. None get through.

None fall to my blade, either. This defensive move is protective, but its very nature means I can’t target the birds. We’re stuck in a stalemate, and unless Dash wakes and joins the fight, it’s a stalemate I could lose. Orcs have amazingendurance, and years of warrior training have made mine better than most, but even I have limits, especially since the lingering effects of the deathsleep coma still plague me.

“Sturrm,” Selena says, and never have I been so glad to hear a sound in my life!

“Stay down,” I blurt. “The sluagh wants you for your magical power, and you’ve already been hit. Or are you able to heal what they’re doing to you?”

“I don’t think so,” she says. “I mean, I can make the cuts go away, but the other thing they’re doing to me is something I can’t fix.”

Fuck. I hoped she’d be immune to their soul sucking, just as she’s immune to the deathsleep.

“What can I do to help?” she asks.

“Can you heal me so that I can fight for longer?”

Her small hand presses to my calf, a jolt of healing energy racing through me, cutting away the sluggishness from the deathsleep.

Now that she uses her power, the flock goes into even more of a frenzy, filling the air around me with a tornado of flapping wings and flashing red beaks.

I need to capture one, but I have nothing to make a bag or net from.

But it’s only a matter of time before they turn to the far easier feast waiting for them. Dash remains still, caught in the net of the deathsleep coma. We need to move over there so she can wake him, but I don’t know how to tell her without calling the soul stealer’s attention to him.

My teeth grind. The unicorn may be a pain in my ass, and that mischievous pooka mouth of his is a constant threatdue to the tales he can spin for Selena about being my moon bound bride. But he’s also carried us well and true. I cannot—will not—abandon him.

I shift, my calf bumping into Selena’s side. She jolts and frowns up at me, and I tip my head toward Dash and press my leg more firmly to her.

Understanding brightens her face, and she scoots across the ground a few inches. A burst of pride goes through me. She’s so fucking smart!

So slowly it feels like creeping, we inch toward the downed unicorn. But all our attempts at subtlety are for naught.

Even as the last of the deathsleep blows away on the wind, the sluagh turns its attentions to Dash, a black cloud of menace, diving for him.

---