Page 70 of Bound to the Orc Warrior

“Explain.” The word emerges as a choked growl as I set her on her feet.

“I searched within you for a connection to your original home.” My bride spreads a hand across the center of my chest and looks up at me with shining eyes. “I wasn’t sure if I coulddo it, but I was damned well going to freaking try. I know it bothered you a lot, and I wanted you to have answers.”

“Thank you for bringing him home,” Tumbletoad says.

I whip around to stare at the brownie, who somehow already has a fire burning in the hearth.

Walls flicker into being, and a ceiling appears overhead. Tumbletoad bustles through the room, gathering food that appears within suddenly whole cupboards. His magic curls around him, suffusing outward to fill the fully functional kitchen.

“This isn’t actually a ruin, is it?” I narrow my eyes. “You’ve cast an illusion over it.”

“Sadly, the hunting lodgewasreduced to ruins five-and-twenty years ago. It’s taken what little magic I can manage to bring it back to this state, and only the kitchen is fully repaired.”

“Wranth, look.” Naomi points to the back wall of the room, where a little nook set into the wall contains a brownie-sized bed. Folded clothes and belongings line a wooden shelf, and an open curtain hangs to one side, ready to be pulled across for a bit of privacy. “He lives here, in the kitchen.”

“I havealwayslived in the kitchen.” He stops in front of her and waves a wooden spoon. “Where else would a brownie live?”

Her lips twitch with suppressed amusement, but she makes a pretty apology. “Sorry, I don’t know anything about brownies.”

“Sit, sit.” He shoos us toward the table and chairs rising from the floor. The cowering creature we found in the forest is gone. In his place stands a fae fully confident in his place in the world, even if that place is a kitchen. “The stew’s almost ready.”

Plates and bowls appear on top of the table as we take our seats, and the smell of fresh bread makes my stomach rumble. All the tales say there’s nothing quite like brownie bread in all the realms.

Yet nothing is as important as answers.

“How long do we have here?” I ask Naomi. “Did you open the door to Avalon permanently, or will we be snapped back to whence we came like we were pulled back from your world?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes grow troubled, her fingers brushing over the crystals on her necklace. Then her expression brightens. “Maybe the red crystals will help us stay longer? I mean, we already have, right? We weren’t on Earth for this long.”

While I appreciate her enthusiasm, I do not like maybes. Especially not with so much at stake. I turn to the brownie and growl, “Who are my parents? Where are they?”

I cannot make myself voice the question that truly haunts me: why did they abandon me?

“They were good people, some of the last left in the realm.” He places pillowy rolls on our plates. “I was proud to be in their employ.”

My teeth grind together. He’s told me so much without saying anything of substance. A growl rumbles in my chest as the old, familiar anger fills me.

A soft hand on my forearm startles me out of my daze. Naomi shakes her head at me.

I subside back in my chair as the brownie ladles stew into our bowls, chunks of mushrooms and fiddleheads showing on top.

“It’s not much. Things don’t grow like they should these days. The darkness covers the land.”

Naomi makes a distressed noise and tugs on my shoulder. When I lean over, she breathes in my ear, “Should we eat? What if this is all the food he has?”

He lets out an indignant squawk, and I explain. “Brownies take great pride in their hospitality. You will do him more injury by refusing.”

To put proof to my words, I bite into the roll. The lightest, fluffiest bread I’ve ever eaten melts like butter on my tongue. Igrunt in surprise. “The tales did not do your skills justice. This is truly fine bread.”

Naomi takes her own bite and moans, “So freaking good.”

Tumbletoad beams with delight.

I set down the roll. Spearing Tumbletoad with my most serious stare, the one that always gets new recruits to step up their training, I say, “Now talk. We might not have much time.”

“It started three-hundred years ago, when the doors of Faerie slammed shut and Titania and Oberon disappeared.” He hops up onto a special chair that raises him to the height of the table. “Numerous regular fae disappeared, and a darkness began to spread across the land.”

“Titania and Oberon are the Queen and King of Faerie?” Naomi asks. “I’ve read stories about them.”

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