Page 84 of Bound to the Orc Hunter

Then I sprint up the hill and climb the front leg Sheevora cocks for me. Her green scales are surprisingly warm and smooth, and I settle into a natural dip right above where her neck meets her shoulders. I tug the spare shirt over Grace’s head and clasp her to me, my thighs clenching to hold my seat.

This will be fine. It’s just like riding a unicorn.

The dragon’s muscles bunch below me, and she springs into the air with a pulse of magic and a snap of her wide wings.

The ground falls away in a dizzying rush that makes my stomach drop.

By the goddess, this isnothinglike riding a unicorn.

By the level of the sun in the sky, it must only be an hour or so later that we reach Moon Blade Village.

It feels as if a millennium has passed. Thank the goddess that Ashley gave me the shirt for Grace. It wasn’t cold high in the air—it was freezing. I tucked my bride’s hands between us and kept her face pressed into the warmth of my chest. Doing so froze the hand I had to keep on the back of her head, but I would experience the hardship a million times to save her even the slightest discomfort.

Even now that we drop to lower altitudes, the air rushes past so quickly it steals the breath from my nose.

Sheevora tips to one side to circle, and my thighs ache as I hold my seat. Thank god orcs are built strong. Dragons clearly need saddles.

The village that’s been my home for six-and-twenty years looks so different from above. Rings of heart trees appear in the middle of the pine and birch forest, themselves circling the open space of the village green. The other large clearing around the standing stone waits on the far side of the village.

“Land on the green!” I shout, the wind tearing the words from my mouth.

Yet the dragon seems to hear. Her long neck curves, and she studies me with one huge eye. “Are you certain? It will destroy the small structure in the center.”

“I’m certain.” I will rebuild a million well houses, if it gets my bride the care she needs faster.

Sheevora swoops over the green once, her large shadow darkening the moss-covered ground. “Make way below!”

In the middle of the day, most people are working, so only a few people are on the green. They call out and point to thesky. Then as Sheevora gets closer, they dart into the doors of the nearest heart tree.

The dragon lands right in the center, her wings almost touching the pub on one side and the tanner on the other. The well house gives a loud crunch that I ignore.

“Thank you, Sheevora the Magnificent!” I gather my moon bound closer to me and slide down the dragon’s shoulder to drop to her foreleg and then to the ground.

“Good day to you, orc. May your bride be well.” A gust of wind propels me forward as her huge wings snap down.

“Gerna!” I yell.

Doors fly open, my clan mates pouring out onto the green from all the businesses around it, calling my name.

I remain focused as I run toward the apothecary, yelling as I go, “Gerna!”

She hurries around the trunk of the heart tree her apothecary is in, pulling her gardening gloves from her fingers, a basket of cut herbs dangling from one elbow. “Branikk! What?”

“It’s my bride. The sluagh dosed her with the new deathsleep just like they did Taylor.”

My friend quickly pushes open the door and waves me inside. The main room has a wooden counter with shelves behind it overflowing with glass bottles and crockery pots filled with every herb known. Some are dried, some in alcohol, some in oil, all labeled in Gerna’s precise handwriting.

A couple of beds line one wall, covered in clean, white sheets, laundered by the magic of the cleaning stone. We don’t have a full healer in the village, but my friend is one of the finest herbalists in all the clans and can handle most things. And she’s the only person in Alarria who’s ever brought a human out of the new deathsleep coma.

Gerna hurries over to the shelves, pulling out various jars with the ease of long familiarity. Gone is my friend, who likesto spend an evening with a pint or two down at the pub. In her place is a woman competent in her abilities, her green face serious. “How long has she been unconscious?”

I lay Grace on the bed and sink into the chair beside it. “Since this morning.”

“How much of the deathsleep did she breathe in?”

“I don’t know.” I brush the hair from Grace’s face. “I jumped into the cloud and pulled her out right away. She smiled at me for a split second before she passed out.”

“That’s good. It might not have been a full dose.” Gerna studies my face. “But you exposed yourself to deathsleep, so what happened to you?”

---