Page 2 of Bound to the Orc King

A shiver runs through me with the electric prickle of potential, and I suck in a startled breath. Ferndale Falls really does feel different, my small hometown made wonderful and strange.

I leap to my feet. What is it? And why does it feel so right?

A song weaves in and out of the splash of the water, teasing my hearing at first but growing gradually louder. It starts as the tune my mother sang all those years ago, the one I’ve never heard anyone else sing. Then it grows, extending past the small smattering of notes I remember into a full song.

The moonlight grows brighter, sparkling off the moving water and turning it into a cascade of diamonds.

My head falls back, gaze pulled skyward. My heart skips in shock. The moon—thefuckingmoon—drops down from the sky!

“What. The. Actual. Fuck?”

It gets closer and closer until it hovers right overhead, a whirling ball of white slashed by flickering light-blue lightning.

The music swells, with strings and bells adding to the chorus. But at the heart of it all sings a voice so sweet and clear tears prickle my eyes.

“Mom?” A choked sob hiccups from my chest, which aches with longing. I reach upward. If anyone could visit from theafterlife, my amazing, daring mother would be the one to do it! “Mom, is that you?”

“May, I need you.” I don’t hear it as words, not exactly, but I understand it all the same.

“Of course, Mom!” I’m on tiptoe now, both arms straining overhead. A vision of my laughing, sunny mother, her face wreathed by wild blonde curls, fills my mind. She’s the one person who always understood me, always believed in me, no matter what scrapes I got into. “I want to help.”

The music grows louder, the voice singing of need and purpose.

The moon dives, swallowing me in light.

CHAPTER TWO

Aldronn

The sounds of celebration fade behind me as I leave Moon Blade Village to follow the forest trail back to my campsite. Dravarr offered me an empty heart tree cottage to stay in, but I turned him down. Normally, I reside in each village with my guard whenever we visit.

Yet this is no normal visit.

This village has become the meeting point of the orc alliance with the dragons, unicorns, cat sith, and cu sith. I remain in the area to hold council with all of them.

And to guard the door to Avalon.

I step out of the pine trees and into the open space the dragons have cleared next to the village’s magical standing stone. The dark purple sky spreads moonless overhead, our goddess nowhere to be seen.

Tan leather tents wait in a familiar circle around a central campfire. Most of the guards are back in the village, eating and drinking with the others.

Grugg jumps to his feet as soon as he spots me and bows his head ingratiatingly. “King Aldronn.”

If Grugg were as courteous to others, he’d be one of the best of my guard. But he’s not, and his repeated slights of my cousin Wranth have put Grugg on shit duty for the foreseeable future.

“Has there been any change?” I eye the hazy shimmer that hangs over the crystal resting on the ground. It might not look like much, but it’s actually a door of Faerie, one that leads to a dangerous realm.

“No, My King.”

“You’re dismissed. Go get something to eat in the village.”

He bows his head and disappears into the trees, trotting along the path I just took.

I stare at the door, wondering for the millionth time what waits on the other side. Avalon was once the shining jewel of Faerie, the premier realm ruled by elves and orcs and populated with numerous other types of fae. But a lot can change in three-hundred years, and from everything Wranth told me, Avalon’s done nothing but change for the worse.

I adjust the sword at my hip and settle onto a log, then leap right back up to standing. My magic tingles along my nerves. Most orcs have nature magic, but an elf ancestor gifted me with the power of premonition.

My sword slides from the scabbard with the ring of pure metal, the moon steel of its blade the finest in all the land.

---