Page 54 of Claimed By the Orc Lord

Koth leaned in close to me, his eyes narrowing as he looked me up and down. When he spoke, I didn’t recognize what he was saying—of course I didn’t. He had my collar gripped in his hand… and fuck, I felt really,reallyweird without it on.

Ididhear him say the wordNashat least three times before I finally cut him off.

“Fuck, you really are obsessed, aren’t you?” I snarled the words, knowing he could understandmewhile he held the collar. There wasn’t really a point in trying to struggle—not when my arms were bound and there was an orc at my back with a knife pressed against my skin.

It didn’t stop me from letting out a low grunt and head-butting Koth when he leaned in closer.

The spatter of blue blood that spilled from his busted nose was almost worth it when he flipped the blade he held and hit me hard enough that my vision blacked out.

By the time I realized what was going on, I was being dragged through the trees in a direction I didn’t know… not really a shocker, though.

I could finally, maybe…maybeadmit that I was pretty directionally challenged.

Just a little.

The orc behind me had my arms in a tight grip, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I only had to look up a little to meet his eyes.

Hm.

There was every possibility that I could do this, if I was careful. Or quick. Or reckless.

I knew which option I was going to choose before I’d even finished thinking of them.

“You probably can’t understand me, can you?” I said, and in response, the asshole behind me jerked my arms. “Cool. See, the thing is… I really need to get loose, because I’m pretty sure Nash is going to kill you and then me if he thinks I tried to run off again.” Another sharp tug to my arms and a frustrated growl let me know that he’d at least picked up a few of the words that time.

Probably the name Nash.

Maybe the wordkill.

Good.

“You could just let me go.” I threw a smile over my shoulder and was rewarded with a punch to my side. As much as it hurt for the asshole to try to kidney shot me, it was what I’d been waiting for.

After all, if you wanted to hit someone, you had to let go of their arms.

And when he let go of my arms, I threw myself back as hard as I could and felt my head collide with his mouth and nose.

I guess he hadn’t been paying attention when I’d done it to Koth just a few minutes ago, because the low snarl of pain that escaped him came from the ground instead of from above me, and I whirled around before he had a chance to get up.

The smart thing to do at that point would have been to run, but my admission that I really had zero sense of direction in tandem with my need to make sure that there was one less person out there who wanted to hurt Nash seemed to war with thesmartidea.

Since I didn’t have my hands untied, I kicked him as hard as I could in the side. He rolled over, trying to get to his feet with a low gasp of pain—it left him with his face at the perfect level for me to kick him again.

This time when he hit the ground, he did it with his eyes rolled back in his head and blood slowly oozing from the side of his mouth. His chest was still rising and falling, so I hadn’t accidentally killed him.

Which was probably good.

Even though that left me in a pretty precarious situation when I had to lean down and carefully grab the knife from his belt. It took me longer than I wanted to get my restraints cut, and by the time I did and had repurposed them to tie him up, he was already starting to squirm.

Thankfully, I wasn’t trying to get him anywhere. I used his knife to cut strips from his shirt and tied his legs together too. Then I stuffed a piece in his mouth for good measure.

I’d probably be able to figure out where I left him.

Probably.

That whole sense of direction or the lack thereof might come into play later… but…

Well, that was his own fault for capturing me, now wasn’t it?

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