Page 43 of The Orc's Bonded Bride

“You knew all their names.”

“I made most of them up,” he admitted with a soft chuckle.

She smiled despite herself. “I believed every word.”

The silence between them felt fragile, weighted with unspoken truths. She traced patterns in the dirt with a stick, gathering courage.

“I thought about you,” she finally said. “After you left. I’d see something beautiful or strange and think, ‘I need to tell Egon about this.’” She swallowed hard. “It took me years to break that habit.”

He remained still, his massive form silhouetted against the flames.

“We were just children,” she continued, “but what I felt for you wasn’t childish. It was…” She struggled to find the words. “It was the first real thing in my life.”

The stick snapped between her fingers, and she tossed it into the fire, watching sparks spiral upward.

“I used to imagine you’d come back. That you’d appear one day with that crooked smile, and everything would make sense again.” Her voice grew steadier as the words finally escaped. “When you didn’t, I convinced myself I’d imagined what was between us. That it had meant nothing to you.”

She finally looked up, meeting his golden gaze across the flames. The vulnerability in her own voice surprised her.

“But it wasn’t nothing, was it? Not to me, and I don’t think it was to you either.”

She held her breath, watching his expression shift in the firelight. His massive shoulders hunched forward, as if bearing an invisible weight. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with emotion.

“I didn’t leave because I wanted to.” He stared into the flames, refusing to meet her eyes. “I left because I had to.”

Her heart hammered against her ribs. She’d imagined this conversation a thousand times over the years, but now that itwas happening, she found herself terrified of what might come next.

“I don’t know if you remember what it was like in Kel’Vara at that time. Lasseran’s lies had started to take hold. Orcs were treated with suspicion, fear, even hatred.”

“I remember,” she said softly. He’d tried to shield her from it but she’d heard some of the hatred flung at him and seen the nights he’s come back hurt and bleeding.

“The night before I disappeared,” he continued, “I was arrested—not because of any of the things I had actually done, but simply because I was an orc. They threw me in a cell under the Black Keep. I was terrified, not so much for myself but because I knew you were alone, unprotected. A nobleman came to see me. He offered to arrange for my freedom—as long as I fought for him.”

“That’s why you became a fighter?” she asked slowly.

He shrugged, looking back into the flames.

“I agreed, on one condition—that he provide for you. That you were fed and clothed and educated.”

The pieces suddenly fell into place, and a small, wounded sound escaped her throat. All these years, she’d believed herself abandoned, unwanted.

“It was Lord Sarnak, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You never said goodbye,” she whispered.

“He wouldn’t permit it. And once he knew I cared about you, he had a weapon to hold at my throat.” He gave her a tortured look. “But he didn’t keep his word, did he? I finally earned enoughcoin to buy my freedom but when I went to his house to find you, no one even knew who you were.”

“Oh, they knew who I was,” she said bitterly. “He did keep his word—I became a servant in his household but I was also fed and clothed and educated.”

“I don’t understand. Why did no one admit that they knew you?”

“Because Lord Sarnak had a son—a very charming, handsome son—and I was lonely.” And she’d wanted so desperately to be loved.

His growl reverberated through the glade, and she gave him a startled look. His eyes had turned black again.

“He wasn’t unkind to me,” she said quickly. “He may have even loved me a little, but that only made it worse as far as his mother was concerned. She wasn’t about to let her precious son become involved with a nameless servant. She sent me away—that’s how I ended up in the old Kingdom.”

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