Page 7 of Bound to the Orc Hunter

His eyes flick to the “bed” and then back to me. He smirks, slow and wicked. “I like the gesture, but if you wanted me to take you to bed, my bride, you had only to ask.”

“Gesture! Gesture? There was no gesture. I was trying to keep you away.”

His lips press into a flat line but still tremble. Is he laughing at me? Oh, hell no.

I tug against his grip, and he holds on just long enough to make it clear that he’s strong enough to not need to let me go. But he does.

I make a production of rubbing at my wrists as if he hurt me, and the smile falls from his face for the first time since we met.

“I’m sorry. Orcs are stronger than humans. I’ll be more careful touching you in the future.”

Orcs? Sothat’swhat his costume is. Then my brain processes the rest of his words.

“Hey now.” I raise my hands palms out and back away. “There’s not going to be any touching.”

“Of course there will be. There’ll be a great deal oftouching.” His deep voice makes the word sound like a caress, and he flashes me that wicked, wicked smile again.

So many flutters—my tummy’s throwing a whole damned party for him.

“You’re my moon bound bride.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Branikk

The Moon Goddess’ summons pulls me ever forward over the coming days as I leave Moon Blade Village far behind, riding my unicorn mount, Aurora. We passed off the edge of the known map a couple of days ago, heading south into the true unknown.

Heavy old-growth forest surrounds us, full of evergreens and the brighter blue birch. Aurora splashes across a burbling creek, sending a flutter of golden larks darting ahead, their songs high and sweet.

The tug in my chest grows ever more insistent as we race between the trees.

“We’re getting closer,” I say.

Aurora snorts and tosses her head, her long spiraled horn flashing in the sunlight. “You keep saying that.”

“It keeps being true.” Joy rises in me. I’ll meet my bride soon. The moon shone down last night, a brief, bright spotlight somewhere ahead where the goddess appeared and left my sky gift. “We are getting closer.”

“Thanks to me, you mean.” She leaps over a log, and I grip her sides with my knees and rise up out of the saddle to keep from hitting hard when her hooves thump into the ground.

“All thanks to you,” I agree. My unicorn friend has ridden hard for me for days on end, which is only possible because of the self-healing magic all unicorns have. “Think of this as practice for our new adventures.”

We’d signed up to be one of the orc-unicorn partnerships to act as super rangers—teams sent out on special quests to unknown parts of Alarria. Right after all the doors of Faerie slammed closed three-hundred years ago, the Moon Goddess brought the orcs here, to this forgotten realm. Over the years, she’s plucked more and more different types of fae from various realms of Faerie. But there still so much of this world we don’t know yet.

And our enemies have banded together, the soul-sucking sluagh and the kelpies joining our long-standing foe, the ogres, to work against us. They especially want our new sky gifts, the moon bound brides the goddess brings for the orcs. These human women are witches full of magical powers we lack in Alarria.

What power will my bride have? It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is will be wonderful, just as she’ll be wonderful.

I lean forward, my hands tightening on Aurora’s silky mane. She reads my eagerness and takes another bounding leap, clearing a large patch of ferns.

Then a noise cuts through the air, the raucous caws of a sluagh in its bird-flock form. No! The soul stealers have gotten to my bride first.

“Aurora!”

“I hear them,” she snaps. “I’m not deaf.” But for all her grumpy words, she puts on another burst of speed.

Aurora knows as well as I do how horrible the soul suckers are. She fought beside me a few weeks ago, when a huge mass of sluagh attacked Moon Blade Village. Each peck of their beaks steals a piece of your soul until they take it all, and you become yet another bird in the sluagh’s flock, doomed to live under the evil fae’s command for eternity.

She slides to a quick stop right at the edge of a clearing, and I leap from her back.

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