Page 36 of Fated to the Orc

“You won’t be able to keep this a secret. People on Earth will find out,” I say. “My sister will come looking for me. Do you really think people on Earth are going to support this program, built on forced breeding and torture?”

“You are forgetting something elementary, Dr. Carter. Earth is light-years away. All communication is monitored, and those in power arefullyonboard with this program. And your sister? A mere nuisance. We’ll tell her you died. She will be sad. She will move on. The end.”

I ball my fists, ready to land another punch, when the door behind me hisses open and two armed soldiers step into the room.

“Take her to her cell,” Dr. Kelly says. “And be gentle. We don’t want to harm the unborn child, do we?”

Varkul

It has beendays since I last saw my mate.

Long, terrible, silent days. I miss the jungle and all its life. I miss the chirping, the rustling, the squawking.

In here? In my sterile cell? There’s only the hum of the overhead lights and the soft hiss of the air systems.

More than the sounds of the jungle, I miss mymate. I miss her laughs, her sighs, her moans. Without her, I am broken.

Evelyn ran away with tears streaming down her face, leaving me utterly confused. I was so distraught, I barely reacted when the soldiers charged into the med-bay and shot me with their blasted sedatives.

I woke up back in my cell, with heavy chains around my wrists and ankles. The humans think they’ve tamed me. That sedatives and steel can hold back a warlord.

They arefools.

I close my eyes and think of Evelyn. I picture the way her hands felt on my skin. The way her voice trembled when she said she was mine. The way her body took mine soperfectly.

She is my everything.

I will burn this place to the ground for her.

Then — a sound.

Distant. Muffled.

My eyes snap open.

There it is again.

Louder.

A dull thud. Followed by another.

Then acrack, like metal being torn.

Shouting. Boots pounding in the hall.

I rise to my feet, the chains clinking, my heart pounding harder than it has since the day I was captured. Because I know those sounds. I know that chaos, that rhythm, thatfury.

My orcs have come for me!

Another explosion, this one closer.

Dust rains down from the ceiling. The overhead lights flicker. A grin spreads across my face.

“Blackfang,” I growl.

The ground rumbles beneath my feet like a beast stirring in its sleep. And then I hear it, loud and clear:

A war horn.

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