Page 39 of Halfling
“Healthy. Big tits. Nice hair. She’ll fetch a fine price,” the man told Orek.
Orek drew Sorcha further behind him, further away from that leering, assessing gaze. “She’s a person. She’s not for sale.”
“Look, we didn’t follow you all this way to leave with nothing. Bits like her don’t come around often. The women ’round here are harder than boiled leather and a worse fuck. Someone will pay real nice for a soft one like her.”
“You won’t touch her,” he spat.Rip off any hand that tries.
“Orek…” He felt her hand clasp his upper arm. The other men were closing in, tightening the noose of their trap. Holding her behind him would do nothing if two of them attacked his back.
“We don’t wanna fight you, orc. I’ll buy her off you. Real fair price. Save you the trouble of selling her yourself.”
His rage ran viscous through his veins, scorching him from the inside. It burned at what these men would do to Sorcha, what men like them had already done. His hatred immolated, for them and for himself, too.
They assumed an orc like him would only be selling her on. That he’d treat her…like Krul would.
Orek had always resented, even sometimes hated, his human half. In that moment, he hated the orc half, too.
But mostly he hated this human male standing not thirty feet away, his hands up as if he meant no harm, as if they could befriends.Their vileness had bile burning the back of his throat, and he bared his fangs again, lip peeling back in a horrid snarl. The ugly rage inside him shivered in pleasure when the slaver paled.
This slaver thought him a brute, anorc?
That’s what he’d get.
“If you want her, come get her,” he growled, the raging beast inside sliding over his vision in a veil of red.
Orek lurched forward, swinging—the man opened his mouth—
The hatchet cracked open the man’s skull, blood spraying across the forest floor, and Orek let the beast reign.
Everything seemed to happen at once.
Despite being surrounded and burdened with his heavy pack, Orek moved faster than she could see, hurling the hatchet at the lead slaver. He died before he knew what struck him, blood exploding from the devastating wound in a horrific crescent. His corpse crumpled.
Dagger gripped in his other hand, Orek slashed at the nearest man as the other slavers converged, their shouts ringing through the trees. His pack pushed her to his back, and she felt more than saw his arms moving, a flurry of blocks and jabs.
Hands grasped at Sorcha and her pack, pulling her away from Orek before she could call out. Her companion roared, but three slavers were there to meet him when he pivoted, two swords and an axe flashing in his face.
Sorcha squirmed out of the straps, letting her pack drop as dead weight.
Gripping her dagger, she spun around before the slaver could snatch her. She danced back, giving herself room, and brought up the dagger, letting it shine and the man see it.
While he’d been absent much of her life, her father was a knight and had taught her what he could. She wouldn’t be taken. Not again, not like this.
The slaver advanced, one hand splayed wide and the other holding thick rope. A black hood draped from his belt, and Sorcha gritted her teeth against a wave of sick, remembering the days of hot, stale darkness inside a hood just like that.
Not again. Never.
The slaver tried to maneuver her further from Orek. Grunts and shouts filled the grove, but Sorcha kept her gaze on the slaver. Her heart thundered in her chest and her hands shook, but she held her ground.
“Never give an enemy your back. Stand your ground and keep him in your sights,”her father had drilled her and two oldest brothers, Connor and Niall.
When he saw she wouldn’t retreat or give him an opening, the slaver snarled and whipped the rope above his head. He brought it down with acrackon the ground in front of her, the sound snapping against her ears and sending dirt flying in stinging pinpricks.
She yelped but kept her stance.
In a blur, he swung the rope like a whip, catching her in the arm she brought up to block. She couldn’t help her yip of pain, the sting lingering as the slaver pulled the rope back.
Orek roared to her left, followed by a resounding, sickeningcrack.
