Page 160 of Halfling
He caught the eye of Fulk, who’d taken a defensive stance with two other orcs, guarding each other’s backs. Fulk’s dark eyes dropped to the motionless figure of his brother before he looked grimly at Orek and nodded.
Elbowing the other males, Fulk led them in setting down their weapons.
The only other orc left standing was Kaldar, his face tight with rage. The left side was mangled by Orek’s blade, the eye unsalvageable.
“Put it down, boy,” Fulk growled. “You want to lose more than an eye?”
Kaldar’s nostrils flared, and it was with a baleful glare at Orek that he finally dropped his remaining knife.
Something warm brushed his arm, and Orek looked up to find Fiora beside him and his mate glaring down at him—less hatefully than Kaldar but just as fierce.
“You bastard,” she growled.
And then she was sliding out of the saddle into his arms.
Orek caught her, took her, held her close. Didn’t matter that his arms trembled with the effort, nor that he almost immediately sank to his knees with exhausted relief. Didn’t matter that she smacked him without much force with her fists.
His body shook with the aftermath, all his wounds crying for attention, but all he could do was fill his lungs with the scent of his mate. She surrounded him with her, and when she pushed him to his back in the dirt, he let her.
She climbed over him, planting her hands on either side of his face. Her curls curtained them in a dark, fragrant canopy, and even as she glared down at him, his smile cracked so wide, his cheeks ached with it.
He lifted a hand to cup her face, and she didn’t cringe away from the gore there. Orek wished he could be clean of all this and shuddered to touch his mate with the proof of so much violence, but he needed to touch her, feel her.Right now.
Orek still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t a dream as he took an hour of sleep, alone in the cold woods.
Sorcha sniffed, and then a hot tear splashed onto Orek’s face. It seared his skin, soaking into his heart that already ached beyond pain.
“My mate,” he murmured.
More tears came, cleaning away the blood spatter on his face.
“You bastard,” she said again. “Youleft me.”
Orek groaned, and he filled his fists with her hips to draw her closer. But Sorcha remained rigid, arms locked to hold herself above him.
“I know. I had to, my heart.”
“No.You didn’t. You could’ve told me.”
He winced, knowing that was true. “It was my mistake to amend. I allowed danger close to you, to your family. And…” A fond smile tugged at his lips, and he dared to brush a lock of curls behind her ear. “I knew you would have insisted on coming with me. I couldn’t put you in more danger.”
“And yet here I am.”
“Here you are.” He smiled again, heart swelling with awe and love for this beautiful female.
She came for me. She fought for me.
“You were fearsome,” he marveled.
“Nobody else gets to threaten your life. Only me.”
“Only you.” Orek held her face between his trembling hands. “Only ever you.”
Sorcha’s face crumpled, and she fell into him, her tears wetting his throat. Orek wrapped her up in his arms and buried his face in her hair, his aching love for her numbing him to his pain.
“My mate, my mate,” he crooned as she wept.
“Never again,” she cried. “You won’t ever leave me again.”
