Page 87 of Bound to the Orc Hunter

“Father’s the best woodworker in the village. He’s the one who shapes the heart trees into cottages.” Branikk waves his hand to take in the room all around us, and I realize it’s not wood paneling—everything’s one continuous piece of wood. “You’re feeling his connection to the trees.”

Branikk shows a bit of this same feeling in his quieter moments, like when we rode the Ferris wheel together. This solidity underneath his charming exterior is one of the things I most love about him.

Gerna offers me another potion to taste, nodding when I give my answer. Branikk stays right beside me, his big hand clasping mine. After a couple more tests, she snaps her journal closed and shoves everything back into her satchel. “You’re fine!”

Branikk pulls me to him, his mouth taking mine in a searing kiss. A niggle of embarrassment goes through me that others can see us—and god, even his parents are here—but I kiss him back, meeting his intensity with my own. He feels so good, so alive, and so do I. A kind of giddy relief washes over me, as if his kiss burns away the last of the deathsleep fog.

Then a growl sounds, and my stomach gives a pang of protest.

Branikk pulls back, his eyes going from heated to worried. “My bride?”

“I guess I’m hungry.”

“You should be after three days,” Gerna says.

“Three days!”

“It’s time for you to eat something, and unless you want to tell your story twenty times, there’s only one place to go,” she says. “The pub.”

“The pub!” everyone echoes.

Branikk grins at me, his whole expression light and playful like the first time we met. It takes my breath away all over again. “I can’t wait to introduce you to everyone in the village!”

And there it is again. That pride in me that makes my heart swell. God, I love him so much!

Someone bathed me and dressed me in clean clothes, so I woke in a pretty, pink tunic top and dark-green pants made of linen. My hair’s down, but my scrunchie sits on the bedside table, so I weave it up into a messy bun. Branikk slips my pink work boots onto my feet, then scoops me up into his arms.

“I can walk!”

“Not until you’ve eaten,” he growls. But the way his hold tightens, it feels more like he can’t stand to let me go than anything else.

Old me would have hated this and been uncomfortable being carried in front of other people. New me says I’m one lucky woman to have someone who cares enough about me to do this.

Branikk strides out of the bedroom and into a combination living room and kitchen. Everything’s made out of light-golden wood with the furniture and kitchen cabinets formed out of the floor and walls instead of something added. Big burgundy cushions cover two overstuffed sofas, which frame a fireplace, and there’s a long rectangular dining table with lots of chairs.But what really catches my eye are the shelves that dot the room, each covered with little pretzels of wooden rods twisted into sculptures.

“Did you make those?” I point.

Branikk nods. “Sometimes, when I try to make an arrow, the wood tells me it wants to be something else. So I help it to become that. They’re not really good for anything. We don’t have to keep them if you don’t like them.”

“I love them. They’re cute and whimsical. They make me want to pick them up so I can feel all their twists and turns.” I touch the bracelet he made me. “You’re the one who taught me things that bring joy are just as important as something more practical.”

“Come on, you two!” Krivoth says.

Everyone bustles us out the door, and I gasp.

A huge tree stands in front of us, even bigger around than a redwood. But it’s short for its size, maybe fifty feet tall. Windows and a door decorate the wide curving trunk, branches not appearing until twenty feet up. They spread wide, each covered in large, heart-shaped leaves in deep green that shade the mossy ground underfoot.

“When you said the cottages were built into trees…”

“I meant it,” he says with a laugh. “I’ll never lie to you, my bride.”

Oh, there I go, again. Emotions all over the damned place! Safe in his arms, I let myself really feel them. There’s relief and wonder and a thread of lingering anger at the people who lied to me in the past, like Calvin. But now that I’ve admitted it, it’s like I untied a knot inside me. The anger eases a little, letting me fully feel the good things, and with Branikk, it’sallgood feelings. I whisper, “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

Taylor chatters away as we walk along, pointing out which tree belongs to which person or family. We round another ofthe wide, curving trunks, and a sun-bathed space opens up. Moss covers the ground here, too, and more of the heart trees surround it in a ring. “This is the village green, and all the trees here are the different businesses of the village.”

“But this is the most important one. The pub.” With a laugh, Branikk carries me into a large wooden room filled with tables and chairs. A long bar runs across the back, and there’s a massive stone fireplace set into one of the wooden walls. There are already a few orcs scattered across the room, and they call out greetings.

“This iswaybigger on the inside than should be possible,” I say. “The heart trees are big, but not this big.”

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