Page 98 of Bound to the Orc King

Selena still grips me, and she’s the only thing keeping me standing in the face of the Dark God’s constant mental assault. Dude is beyond pissed, yelling over and over that I must do his will.

Wranth stands over Severin, his sword pressed to the dark fae’s neck, a trickle of red blood already running down the pale skin. Rune and Shadow flank him, both with moon steel daggers held at the ready. Naomi teleported her husband in the second Aldronn went down.

I didn’t have eyes for anything but Aldronn. I’m still pretty amazed I remembered about the unicorn-healing thingy, screaming my head off for Starfall to save him.

And she did. Thank fuck, she did.

“May,” Aldronn whispers, his eyes so full of love my heart clinches.

God, I love him so much! I can’t believe I almost lost him. I press a kiss to his mouth, one quick touch to feel him alive and warm against me.

“Enough of this bullshit.” I turn and wave at the dragon. “Luke, tell me how to say the word ‘release’ in the celestial tongue.”

“No one knows the language of the gods. None of us can understand it but you.”

Fuck. I stand and march toward the goddess.

“Back away, mortal!”the Dark God booms, rattling my skull.

Ignoring him, I crouch by the only imperfection I’ve found in the shell, the tiny arch shaped like a mouse hole from a kid’s cartoon.

“Okay, goddess,”I blast at her with my telepathy.“Tell me how to say ‘release’ in the language of the gods.”

“Must touch,”she whispers in my mind.

I try to shove my hand into the hole again, but it still doesn’t fit. I’d have to chop off my pinkie and my thumb to have any hope of it. If only I could drink a potion like Alice and shrink down to pixie size.

Ahhh, light bulb moment! “Pixies!” I yell. “I need you.”

They flutter over, whistling in their high, fast voices. The leader hovers in front of my face. “How may we help, Almost Pizza?”

“I need you to do something that’s probably dangerous and might not work,” I say, unwilling to sugarcoat things. “But it’s the only thing I can think of to free the goddess.”

He thumps his little chest, his bright-blue wings fluttering more quickly. “Pixies are as strong and brave as any Wild Fae.”

“I know you are.” It takes extra courage to survive when you’re small, as I know from personal experience. “Okay, here’s what I need you to do…”

In only a few minutes, the pixies stand on the floor beside me, their hands linked one to the other to form a chain.

Luke scowls down at all of us. “This is highly irregular.”

I wave off his doubt.

Above him, the Dark God rails, shooting lightning bolts at Severin, who jerks and jumps, trying to fight his way upward. But he can’t get past Wranth, Rune, and Shadow, who slice up his shadow tendrils as soon as they form.

And the god, it seems, can’t do anything to us directly. When his threats fail to move me, he makes one last try.“Little witch, what do you most desire? Name it, and it will be yours.”

Need aches in my chest as I consider my fondest wish for my mother to be brought back to life. But that would turn me into someone like Severin, doing the god’s bidding instead of what I want. Would I even get to see Mom if the Dark God had his hooks in me? Would I be forced to leave Aldronn? Would I have to do a bunch of evil shit?

That’s the last thing my mother would ever want for me.

“Fuck, no. I won’t be one of your puppets.” I jab a thumb toward my chest. “This girl doesn’t do orders.” Unless they’re from Aldronn, and we’re in bed.

I look down at the pixies and extend my finger until the one on the end of the chain latches on. “Okay, just like we practiced.”

“For pizza!” the leader cries out and darts into the hole.

The line of pixies disappears after him and doesn’t come to a halt until my finger is extended into the hole as far as it can go. The shell’s thicker than I thought.

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