Page 2 of Claimed By the Mountain Man Orc
My boot hits ice concealed beneath a dusting of fresh snow. My foot slides, ankle twisting. My arms windmill, grasping for balance that's already lost, and suddenly I'm not running, I'm falling.
Cold explodes around me as I plunge into the river.
The shock steals my breath, my lungs seizing as water floods over my head. The current grabs me immediately, stronger than I expected, dragging me downstream like I weigh nothing. Icechunks slam into my shoulders, my back, spinning me until I don't know which way is up. I fight to surface, arms flailing in movements made clumsy by cold and panic, and break through gasping.
My camera drags at my neck. My boots fill with water, turning into anchors. The cold is beyond anything I've ever felt. Not just cold… but a force that wraps around my chest and squeezes until black spots dance at the edges of my vision.
Then something breaks through the water beside me—massive, powerful, moving through the current like it's nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
Hands—huge, warm even in the freezing cold—wrap around my waist.
I'm lifted like I weigh nothing, hauled up against a solid chest, pressed against wet fabric and heat that feels impossible. Water streams off both of us as he stands, the river only waist-deep on him, and carries me toward the bank.
My vision blurs, but I see him through the haze.
Not a myth. Not a hallucination.
He’s real…
An orc.
Broad chest rising and falling with steady breaths. Tusks glinting faintly in the dying light, curving up from a strong jaw. Eyes the color of amber fire, fixed on my face with an intensity that should frighten me but doesn't. His skin is green—true green, the color of pine needles in shadow—and water runs in rivulets down the planes of his face, dripping from dark hair that hangs past his shoulders.
I open my mouth to speak, to thank him or question him or maybe just scream, but all that comes out is a shuddering gasp as my body tries to remember how to breathe.
He looks down at me, breath steaming in the cold air, and his expression is fierce, protective and angry and something else Ican't name. His voice is low, gravelly, threaded with something that sounds almost like anger but not quite.
"You shouldn't be here."
The words rumble through his chest into mine. I try to respond, try to form words, but the cold has stolen my voice. My teeth chatter so hard I'm afraid I'll bite my tongue.
Then everything goes dark.
Chapter 2
Varn
Thesoundofherscream still echoes through the trees when I reach the riverbank.
Humans don't come this high in winter.
Not unless they're lost. Or stupid.
This one's both, apparently.
I've been tracking her since dawn, watching her neat, deliberate prints wander up the mountain like she's chasing ghosts. Too small for deep snow, those boots—city-made, probably, designed for sidewalks rather than wilderness. The cold has already reddened her cheeks by the time I first spot her through the trees, turning her nose pink and her lips pale. I thought she'd turn back hours ago, when the temperature started dropping and the light began to fail.
But she doesn't.
Every step she takes pulls her deeper into my territory, farther from safety. And every step makes the ache in my chest grow sharper, more insistent. The Thurok'hai bond hums just beneathmy skin, alive for the first time in my life, resonating like a plucked string.
It can't be.
I’ve been alone too long to believe in stories. Too practical to trust in bonds and fates, and the old magic the elders used to whisper about when I was young. Two of my brothers have found their human mates. But I stopped believing my turn would come long ago.
Still... I can smell her. Sweet and sharp, like apples frozen on the branch. I hear the quick rhythm of her heart even before I see her, the sound drawing me forward through the trees like a summons I can't ignore.
And when she falls into the river, instinct takes over.
