Page 44 of The Orc's Stolen Shepherdess

“Justice for Susara!”

“We demand retribution!”

“He should be put to death for defiling her.”

The cries of the villagers sobered me in an instant.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,shut up!”

The rage-laced scream sent a sudden chill down my spine, like a deep dark cloud had passed over the sun.

Susara stepped forward with her eyes blazing, her arms crossed, and her father looking wide-eyed with shock as sheshook her hand out of his grip.

“You lot are going to listen to me and end this stupidity now, or Fades help me, youwilllive to regret it.”

Chapter Nineteen

Susara

The sunny day was far too pretty to deal with all this nonsense.

I stood to face the madness of my villagers, and my hand was gripped tight. Father refused to let me go. “Susara,please. Stay out of this. Let Headman Gerald handle it.”

He was scared. I could see that written all over his face. He was scared and in pain and thought he was about to lose the only person he had left.

“Father, I can’t stay out of this,” I said firmly. “You know I can’t. I’m directly in the center of it.”

My father’s face went stricken, brows pinched, mouth tight, eyes misty.

And then. . . he released me.

“Thank you.” I exhaled a sigh of relief and turned to face the crowd. Into the faces of the nearly fifteen villagers, most of whom were men armed with pitchforks and scythes. Another chunk was the town gossip and Waston’s closest friends. The ones who loved to stir up the most trouble and who everyone knew exaggerated the truth to spin a better tale.

After all the lies they’d told in the past, how had they convinced so many to believe them now?

“Absolutelynothingof this has been done against my will,” I announced to them, raising my voice as a rumble of disbelief rolled through them. “And, of course, I wasn’t taken from my room! Why would you think it had? I’ve been out at night with my sheep a thousand times before. You all know this.”

Roerra, a round, old woman who owned a very profitable candle shop and spent most of her free time with Waston, stepped forward. “If you were not taken by force, how do you explain the state of your room?”

“What exactly do you mean by the state of my room?” I looked around them in confusion, then back at myfather, who was pale.

Jovi, one of the town whittlers, spoke up from the back of the group. “Your father said there was overturned furniture.”

Overturned? “Do you mean the lamp that I knocked over? I did that by accident.”

“Then explain yourdress,” Waston cried. “The one that was torn to shreds on your floor.”

“Torn to shreds?” I shook my head. “I popped a few buttons out of my dress in my haste to change. I was angry that Father was giving the flock to Jophel. I took it out on the dress. That’s all.”

There was a rumble of disquiet through the crowd, but not every tone was laced with disbelief.

“What about the boot print, then?” Glennd, one of the burly woodsmen, cried. “That massive, disgusting print that took up half of your bed?”

Oh, that stung. “That footprint is mine.”

“There’s no way! It was far too huge and ghastly!”

Wool and wails. “My. . . feet aren’tthatbig, are they?”

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