Page 81 of Bound to the Orc Hunter

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Branikk

My sword whirls, clearing the air above me. Aurora whinnies, slashing with her horn, but as I feared, my friend is hampered by all the trapped birds strapped to her. Mist leaps, batting birds away from the unicorn with vicious swipes of knife-like claws. Rune runs over to help her. Grace and Ashley catch birds in nets. Several feet away, Dravarr still shoots deathsleep gourds from the sky, surrounded by a protective barrier of leaping cu sith led by Riselda.

We’re all fighting damned hard. We’re amazing.

We’re not enough.

I slice another bird out of the air, only to have it replaced by two.

Grace gasps her pain gasp, the very opposite of the sounds I love to coax from her in the furs. Claws grip my heart when I spin back toward her.

She’s dropped to her knees, swaying. The soul suckers are feeding on her!

“No!” I leap to stand over her right as she topples. I will fight until my dying breath to save her. Nothing else matters.

Music blares, music such as I’ve only heard one time before, at the Ferris wheel my bride created.

I glance up. The cloud of sluagh I expect are there, only they’re high above now instead of attacking. Because a giant, brightly coloredthingspins in the middle of the clearing, lashing the air with straps and metal chains and creating a barrier the soul stealers can’t fly through.

My beautiful, amazing bride has done it again!

Then one of the sluagh who dove into the clearing right before the new creation appeared flies in our direction and releases the gourd clasped in its claws. It’s much lower than the others, and by the time Dravarr could lose an arrow, he’d be aiming straight at me.

The bird dies by my sword, but it’s too late. The gourd hits the ground, and an orange cloud laced with deep-red speckles billows into the air, surrounding my moon bound. By the goddess, no! It’s the new kind of deathsleep. The one that affects humans as well as fae. The one we don’t have an antidote to for humans.

The one that will put Grace into a coma.

Holding my breath, I leap for her, scooping her up and running out into fresh air.

“Grace, my love.” My voice is frantic as I pat the side of her face. “Grace, can you hear me?”

The ghost of a smile curls her lips as her beautiful blue eyes flutter open for a moment to meet mine.

Then they shut, her whole body going limp.

“No!” I shake her. I can’t lose her, not to this! I drop to my knees, dizzy, my heart pounding. The cloyingly sweet scent of deathsleep herb lingers in my nose. Cradling her to me with the last of my strength, I press a kiss to my bride’s forehead. “Come back to me.”

Then my entire world goes dark.

The medicinal taste of bitter herbs fills my mouth, and I make a face and smack my lips. Bleh. Why did I ever drink such a thing?

“Wake up, Branikk,” Dravarr says, his deep voice carrying the command of a warlord.

Aurora adds, “You do your moon bound bride no good sprawled on your back.”

My bride! My heart leaps, racing, as I jolt upright. “Grace!”

She’s stretched by my side on the moss of the clearing, still unconscious. By the goddess, if only she’d wake up and scowl at me! My bride doesn’t even need to smile. I would live with nothing but her scowls for the rest of my life, if I had to, because it would mean she’s all right.

A whirling noise comes from overhead, only heard because the tinny human music has stopped. But the chains still fly through the air, blurred against the bright blue sky, which is wonderfully clear of sluagh.

“The soul stealers?” I ask.

“We trapped the last of the ones down here with us, and the rest gave up and flew off not long afterthatappeared.” He jabs a finger toward my bride’s creation.

“It’s another of those infernal contraptions that makes a horrible noise,” Aurora says.

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