Page 9 of The Orc's Bonded Bride

Eventually she’d returned to Lord Sarnak’s household, knowing that it was safer than remaining on the street. Eventually she’dstopped thinking about him, stopped dreaming about him. But she’d never forgotten the pain of his betrayal.

“I didn’t know you were here,” he said finally, his deep voice stirring memories she’d tried to bury. “I was passing through.”

“Passing through,” she echoed, the words bitter on her tongue. “Like you passed through my life before?”

He flinched almost imperceptibly. Good. Let him hurt too.

“You left me,” she continued, unable to stop now that the words had started flowing. “I thought you cared about me, but you just vanished. Do you have any idea what happened after? What I had to endure?”

The years of struggle flashed through her mind—the work, the struggle, but most of all the crushing loneliness of having no one to trust, no one to turn to.

Despite her anger—despite the years of abandonment and the bitter taste of betrayal on her tongue—she found herself missing the security of his arms around her. The warmth. The strange sense of rightness that had washed over her, even in her confused state.

She hated that feeling. Hated how easily her body remembered what her mind had fought so hard to forget.

“I should go,” she said, turning toward her cottage. Her sanctuary. The place where no one could hurt her.

But her legs felt unsteady, and she stumbled slightly. He steadied her, then immediately stepped back, respecting the distance she’d created between them. The restraint in his movement made something in her chest ache.

“Lyric,” he said, her name sounding different in his deep voice than it ever had from anyone else’s lips.

How many nights had she lain awake, imagining hearing him say her name again? How many times had she convinced herself that he must be dead—because surely nothing else would have kept him from returning?

Yet here he stood, very much alive, looking at her with those intense amber eyes that seemed to see straight through to her soul.

“Why are you here?” she asked again, softer this time, hating the vulnerability in her voice.

The wind picked up, carrying the sweet scent of her apple trees towards him. Her bees hummed in the distance, going about their work, oblivious to how her carefully constructed world had just been shattered. The life she’d built—her garden, her bees, her quiet existence—suddenly felt like a fragile illusion.

She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, trying to reclaim the sense of security she’d felt in his embrace. It was foolish. Dangerous. She’d learned long ago not to depend on anyone but herself, but she couldn’t deny the treacherous longing that spread through her chest like honey—warm, sweet, and impossible to contain.

“What happened to you?” she demanded. “You disappeared without a word. I…I looked for you.”

The admission cost her, each word like a shard of glass in her throat.

His massive shoulders sagged slightly, and his tusks caught the late afternoon light as he sighed

“It’s a long story.”

“A long story?” She gave a humorless laugh. “Years of my life wondering if you were dead or alive, and all you can offer is ‘it’s a long story’?”

She turned away, unable to bear the sight of him standing there—so solid, so real—when she’d convinced herself he was lost to her forever. Her cottage beckoned, a sanctuary she’d built with her own hands. She could retreat there, shut the door, pretend this encounter had never happened.

But she couldn’t make her feet move.

“How did you end up here?” he asked quietly. “It’s so far from Kel’Vara.”

The question caught her off guard. How could she possibly explain the journey that had brought her here? The slow, painful process of building a life from nothing, not just after he left, but after Lady Sarnak had sent her away. Of eventually finding a home in this village and learning to trust—or at least to coexist—with the villagers. She turned back to face him, suddenly aware of the irony.

“It’s a long story,” she echoed, the fight draining from her voice.

Their eyes met, and something unspoken passed between them. A shared understanding that neither of their paths had been easy, that the years had changed them both in ways that couldn’t be explained in a few simple sentences.

The realization didn’t erase her anger or heal the wound of his abandonment, but it created a small crack in the wall she’d built around herself—just enough to make her wonder what forceshad kept him away, and what twist of fate had brought him back into her life now.

Every instinct honed from years of self-preservation told her to send him away, to protect the fragile peace she’d built here. Yet beneath the hurt and anger, a more primal feeling stirred—a memory of trust, of safety in his presence.

“You should go,” she said, but the words lacked conviction.

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