Page 12 of Bound to the Orc Warrior

“Watch it, cat.” The orc steps around me with a growl. “And put on some clothes.”

“Oh, right. You bipeds and your nudity taboos.” The pale man looks down. Then he grins, wider than should be possible and throws his arms out. “I had a nice fur coat only a few moments ago, but alas, I own no clothes.”

The orc takes a menacing step forward and—

A reverberating noise slams across my senses, felt more than heard, making my whole body jerk. The world tips sideways as pressure builds around me in a suffocating wave and everything goes black.

When I come to only a few seconds later, I’m safe in the orc’s arms. I totter away from him, dizzy, the echoes of the weird not-noise still bouncing around inside me.

A great feeling of loss wells in my chest.

“No.” I dart over and slap my palms to the standing stone. “Home, home,home!” I was just there, safe in my bookshop, about to tell my best friend the wildest story of my life!

I push and strain until a burning ache fills my body, like my nerves are on fire. But no matter how hard I try, nothing happens. My crystal necklace remains dark.

The orc’s deep voice rumbles behind me, no longer speaking any language I know.

A loud meow answers him, followed by a neigh.

I turn around slowly.

The woman’s gone, replaced by a white unicorn!

And the man… the man’s a smoke-gray and black panther with hair far longer than that of any of the big cats of Earth.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck.”

They all start talking at once, three voices making very different sounds that blur into a chorus of noise.

I don’t speak the language.

I can’t get home.

And the only thing the tiniest bit familiar is the orc.

CHAPTER SIX

Wranth

The familiar magic of Alarria wraps around me, so welcoming I can almost forget how we appeared in the air, flying toward an injurious impact if not for my bride’s magic. The way she made us arrive safely on the ground was amazing—almost as amazing as feeling her on top of me for those first stunned seconds of our arrival.

My hands itch even now, eager to gather her to me once again, to feel her soft curves pressed against me.

Yet my bride stares at me with a lost look in her eyes, shaken.

“Thank the goddess I’m me again! I didn’t like that.” Zephyr snorts and shakes her head, settling her mane back into place. Her blue eyes cross as she stares upward, straining to see her horn. “No, I didn’t like that one bit! Why do all the old stories say it’s so grand to take on the elfin form?”

“Oh, I didn’t think it was so bad.” The cat sith grins, showing off an impressive amount of teeth. He licks a paw and smooths it over his face and neck, making his mane fluff wide. “Then again, I always look stunning.”

Although I’d previously discounted the feline fae as nothing but pranksters, being around Mist in Moon Blade Village has shown me that they are strong fighters, their teeth and claws sharp, their spirits as ferocious as any of the Wild Fae. But I cannot forgive the way this one paraded his body in front of my bride. Normally, I have no issues with nudity—I gather regularly with other orcs in the communal baths—but with her, I can’t stand it.

“The bipedal form allows one to blend in, to travel the realms more freely. Though none of the stories say elves have fangs, so why did my elfin form have fangs?”

“I don’t know,” Zephyr says. “Mine did, too.”

His green eyes land on my bride. “What did she do? Did she open the doors of Faerie?”

“I don’t know. We went… somewhere else, and I don’t think it was Faerie.” The lack of magic in that strange world still echoes emptily through me.

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