Page 6 of Yuletide Orc

“My name,” I clarified as I slipped the fur blanket up my shoulders with my still-bound wrists. “You can call me ‘thief mage’ if you want to. But my name is Elysia.”

Bikkar raised his chin. His uneven tusks caught the firelight, making them appear slightly orange. “Happy Yule, Elysia.”

“Happy Yule, Bikkar.”

CHAPTER 3

It took Bikkar at least an hour to feel comfortable enough to leave me alone. That came after we had trust each other enough to allow him to apply a healing salve to the wound on my side, and then again to leave me while he washed blood from his hair. After giving the salve to me in the first place, Bikkar gently pressed the ointment against what remained of the wound. Within moments, it was almost entirely healed.

Now, Bikkar had been gone for a few minutes already. He’d left out the front door, but I wasn’t sure where he’d gone or when he’d be back. Maybe I should have run already. No, Idefinitelyshould have run by now. But the truth was the longer I remained Bikkar’s prisoner, the less I was sure about running at all.

With the adrenaline gone and with it my fight, I saw things how they really were. My party had fucked up. We should’ve known the Crown’s rulings of peace in the area and not accepted this job regardless of the potential payout. A pretty hefty amount had been promised us.

We’d never see it now. I wondered if I’d ever even see my friends again. If Bikkar didn’t kill me first thing tomorrow—andI wasn’t exactly doing a good job of giving him reasonsnotto kill me—the citizens of Caiburn could prosecute. I’d be imprisoned.

Would my party come for me then, after they’d had time to recover?

I glanced over at the front door to Bikkar’s cabin. A familiar burst of energy was building in my feet. Not magic, but a desire to move. To run. To escape.

Maybe I could explain myself to Caiburn if I turned myself in. I’d never get the chance if Bikkar brought me there. If he didn’t kill me first.

My jaw set hard. My magic had returned to me in the time since Bikkar had left. It was a give-or-take sort of thing, and I’d exerted a lot of it during the fight with Bikkar and his soldiers. But after some rest, I was sure I had enough power within me to get me out of here. But these ropes…

I shuffled my bound wrists out from beneath the blanket. The bindings kept my hands pressed tightly together. Most spells required moving them if only for a way to push out the magic from within yourself.

Fire, though…

I held my bound wrists before me and spoke a spell for flame. On my next exhale, fire sparked on my lips and followed my breath to the ropes. The tiny embers began burning through the cord. Slowly, though. So much so that I kept glancing to the door, expecting Bikkar to come in at any moment and find me working magic. My heart thrummed in my chest. I forced slow breaths in and out of my lungs, focusing to stave off the panic. I was the thief mage. I could get out of this. I’d been in much stickier situations.

A loudcracksounded from outside the cabin. I nearly bolted out of my skin. The fire magic on the ropes grew larger in response to my fear, burning through the rest of the bindings but also leaping onto my skin. I yelped and patted out the flameswith my nearly free hands. Angry, red skin flared in the fire’s wake.

Crack.

It was only then that I recognized the sound. Bikkar was chopping wood for the fireplace.

My heart leapt into my throat. This was my chance. Myonlychance. He’d just started chopping wood and there wasn’t much left in the cabin. He’d be out there for another few minutes, maybe longer.

I stood and glanced around the room. I knew where I was in relation to Caiburn, but it was still more than two miles away in snow. I grabbed my nearly dry clothes from where Bikkar had hung them and quickly pulled them on. Then my shoes. I wouldn’t need anything else. I couldn’t risk the time to gather anything else.

The only thing I hadn’t quite expected when I reached the front door and window to Bikkar’s cabin was the heavy snow now falling from a white-out sky. The snowflakes fell heavier now, and snow had built up around Bikkar’s cabin at least three feet high. It’d be a pain to wander through the forest, and my tracks would be easy to follow.

Shit.

There was also one other small problem. Bikkar stood less than a hundred yards away. His focus was entirely on chopping wood, but the moment he turned this way, he’d see my path in the snow if I left. He’d roughly moved snow out of the way so he had a path to the barn and where he was now. But everything else was untouched.

I’d have to movefast. Quickly past him while he turned to grab another log to cut, and then even faster through the woods without stopping.

Bikkar brought his axe down again, his bulging muscles rippling with the action.Crack.The massive log snapped in half as though it’d been simply paper. It gave no resistance.

That’d be me next if he caught me. If he decided to say screw it to Yule and to orc tradition. If Bikkar caught me, those hands would snap me in half. But earlier… earlier they’d held me in place on his horse. Earlier, those same massive hands had gently removed my top. I could still feel his hands on me. His body against mine. The warmth of it—hell, even the security of his body being the only thing keeping me, bound, from falling off a huge horse.

As Bikkar grabbed the two pieces of the log and tossed them into a cart with others, I couldn’t stop my mind from wondering what else those hands could do to me. My eyes closed as a fantasy swept through me of Bikkar’s hands on my hips instead of my shoulders, his thumb trailing downward…

Escape, my mind screamed. Not because Bikkar was a threat in that moment, but because my traitorous body was.

Bikkar turned in that moment to grab a new log, one much bigger than the last. I steeled my resolve and slipped out the front door in his moment of distraction. If he hadn’t been watching the door before, there was little to no chance he thought I’d leave the house. I’d have a few minutes’ head start—hopefully. But not much more than that.

I was gone into the nearby treeline before Bikkar turned back.Crack.Another swing of his axe. It hid the sound of me trekking through three-foot-deep snow. By the time his second swing reverberated through the otherwise snowy-silent air, I was yards into the treeline.

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