Page 5 of Stealing the Troll’s Heart

But he didn’t. He watched them pelt me with food, then turned and left.

Well, I can’t really blame him. I did try to kill him.

After a while, the other orcs start to lose interest in me and wander away. Instead of facing the jeers of everyone in town, I’m left to hang from these ropes half-naked as the sun goes down. The air quickly becomes chilly, and the ropes are burning and biting into my wrists.

What a miserable way to die. Caught by fucking trollkin and strung up in the town square for ridicule. I wonder ifthey’ll just leave me here and let me starve, or if they’ll cut me down eventually and kill me by beheading. I’ve heard they like beheadings. If Deleran found out, he would probably make fun of me before leaving a flower on my grave.

I start to fade out of consciousness, then drift back in again, in too much pain to fall asleep properly. It feels like my hands might just come off. A little trickle of blood runs down my arm from where the rope eats into my flesh. Just great. I’ll die of a blood disease out here.

Finally, I do manage to slip away into a miserable sleep. But I’m suddenly shaken awake by the sensation of my hands moving.

“Grzzan,”I hear a familiar voice say. Up above my head, my hands are rattling around as someone cuts through the ropes. Every time one of them moves, it burns like fire down my arms, but I hold in a cry.

It’s him.

The troll has just severed one of the two ropes holding my hands in place. As my arm falls to my side, blood dribbling from my wrist, he gets to work on the other rope.

And then, suddenly both my hands are free. I fall down to the ground, my feet unable to hold themselves up.

“Argak!”The troll drops down from the posts and walks over. He’s obviously drunk as a skunk, barely able to hold himself up. He kicks me. “Argak!”

Whatever that means, I get the sense he wants me to get out of there. And it’s a good idea. I’ve been given a second chance, who knows why, and I’m not going to let it slip by.

I manage to get my legs underneath me again, and when I stand up, I find I’m looking right into his eyes—those shockingly intelligent eyes, the slim nose that flares into wide nostrils, and the broad mouth. The two tusks thatframe his face.

I reach out ever so slightly, and he leans his head away from me like I might attack him. Instead, I let my hand land on one of his tusks. He stops moving completely.

“Thank you,” I say, and then turn away and run as fast as I possibly can.

Chapter 3

Raz’jin

No one knows it was me who freed her last night. The town simply wakes up the next morning to find the ropes cut, and the human gone.

There’s a little melancholy around the assembled orcs—they were looking forward to letting her rot up there, probably until she died—but they quickly forget about it and move on.

I, on the other hand, am nursing a fierce hangover. I haven’t forgotten what I did.

Why I did it... I still can’t quite guess. I want to claim it was the alcohol. She tried to kill me first. She tricked me to get away. I should have wanted her dead, too.

But part of me admires her fearlessness, her quick thinking, even the little scar on the side of her face from some battle she barely won. Not to mention that one tantalizing breast hanging out for everyone to see. I wanted to put my hand on it. I should have, last night, when I cut her down from the post.Maybe I helped her because I couldn’t imagine anyone else seeing it but me.

After watching her sprint away into the night, I’d gone back to my room with a huge boner and spent the next thirty minutes dragging my hand from the base to the tip of my cock and back, picturing that perfectly round, petite, pale breast with the pink nipple. In my drunken haze, I wondered what it would taste like. What would she smell like? A pretty thing like that, a human, no less... She’d taste like fruit. She’d smell like flowers and perfume.

I wanted to know the answer, but I know I never will. So I fantasized and fantasized until I ejaculated all over my hand.

If Icouldhave her, would I come all over her belly like I do with the trollesses I’ve fucked? Or would I jam it deep inside her instead and fill up her tiny little hole? My cock was already hard again, so I brought my hand back down to it, and went for round two.

That morning, Blizzek is waiting impatiently for me as I finally make my way to the gate on the edge of town. His eyes are narrow and suspicious.

“Somebody let the little human go,” he says. “Ropes were sliced clean off. She couldn’t have done that herself.”

“How do you know? She was a pretty clever thing.”

But my friend isn’t that big of an idiot. He just nods and says, “Uh huh.”

Despite my raging headache, I suggest we head somewhere new, and see what else we can find. There might be a vein closer to the surface. There’s still a chance for us to strike it rich in the Sandteeth.

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