Page 77 of Bound to the Orc Guardian

Dash rounds a wide bush covered in pink flowers and wide, waxy leaves, and steps into an empty clearing. His head immediately tips backward, horn pointed to the sky as he scans overhead. “Ha! I did it! I beat her!” Then he yells. “Do you hear that, dragon? I won!”

As Sturrm dismounts, I look upward too, expecting Bella’s voice to call out that she’s here and they’re tied again.

But as Sturrm lifts me down, it’s not Bella’s voice I hear.

Guttural growls fill the air as five ogres step out of the trees to surround us. The one in front is the same one who found me on the standing stone, the dark gray scab on his shoulder showing where Sturrm cut him. He holds his axe at the ready, his beady black eyes latched onto me. “There you are, little witch. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Sturrm’s body thrums with tension, and a horrible expression comes over his face, one full of decades-old rage and terror.

“Let’s get back on Dash!” I tug at his arm. “He can blur us past these pendejos!”

“I can’t,” the unicorn says. “I need enough space to get up to speed before my pooka travel magic can work.”

Carajo!

Sturrm doesn’t speak, his lips pulled away from his tusks in a snarl so deep, I feel it in my chest more than hear it.

After everything he told me about Bruna… this isn’t a regular fight.

This is his greatest fear.

And I’m not a fighter like her. I won’t be any help.

My heart breaks for Sturrm. I want him to get over the past, not be forced to relive it!

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Sturrm

Ice water replaces the blood in my veins, filling me with a crystal-cold certainty.

I will die before I allow these ogres to lay a single finger upon my bride. Rage fills me at the thought of how the one directly in front of me already dared touch her, back at the standing stone.

My gaze arrows in on him. He is the cause of this ambush—I can feel it in my bones. And coward that he is, he dare not confrontme alone.

Echoes of the past ricochet through me as I face a full war party of my greatest foe, yet I am not the youngling of all those years ago, easily defeated.

My sword sings through the air as I lunge forward, a war cry stretching my lips.

The ogre from the standing stone leaps backward, wearing a taunting smile.

I’m going to cut it off his face.

Two of his companions surge in from the sides, blocking me.

My sword hits one of their maces in a clang of metal. Then I spin, blocking the other’s strike.

Dash gives an angry whinny behind me, and I know without looking he’s entered the fight, a true friend. If we’d left him behind and taken the dragon ride, we would have avoided this fight, but only for today. I know in my bones this ogre will never let my bride go. He will plot and scheme and attack until he has her.

That’s never going to happen. For I will end him here and now.

The ogres surround us, and there’s nowhere safe for Selena to stand. I need to draw them away from her before the circle tightens, and the unicorn and I are forced so close together we could accidentally trample her.

“Selena, is any part of your magic defensive?” I yell.

“I don’t think so!” she says. “Unless…”

In a blink, the crude animal-pelt clothing of the ogres around us disappears, leaving them with nothing but their axes and maces. Their cocks and breasts don’t phase me, butunfortunately, being stripped naked does nothing to slow down the ogres, either.

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