Page 1 of Orc Chained
ONE
Da’s deathdrug me back to this town; nothing else could’ve. There’s nothing here for me but the people who made my pain a sport, chief among them the one male who should have protected me.
Who would have, if I was anyone but a crazy old Orc’s half-Human motherless daughter.
I’m older now, I can defend myself a bit. I’ll make sure Da’s final affairs are in order then I’ll decide next steps. I won’t make a decision out of fear.
“Do you think there’s something better out there, Ky’a?”
My tormenter’s harsh voice, his harsher hands around my arms. Hands that taught me to fish and hunt when Da couldn’t, then taught me to fear fists, then taught me to crave a male’s touch.
“Gaithea will make meat of a little girl like you. Slavers, Fae, radiated monsters?—”
I try to pull away, but he’s gotten big over the last two years and I’ve stayed small, a runt. His grip only tightens, more from warning than necessity.
“What would be different?” I demand. “You let the others?—”
His expression twists with a snarl, tusks too close to my throat. “I protect you.”
“You liar! I don’t want to listen to this again. Let me go.”
Dark, cold eyes stare down at my face. “Did you forget our oath? I’ll let you go when you can gut me and get away with it. You don’t know what’s waiting out there for you.”
I know now. He. . .hadn’t been wrong. But I’d gotten stronger, which he hadn’t anticipated.
I’d also gutted him, and gotten away with it.
Satisfaction wells, then dies. Until he finds out I’m back, at least.
“What do you want, Ky’a? What would it take for you to stop fighting me?”
I gape at him. “When have I ever fought you?”
He snorts. “All the damn time. In front of my parents. You make things worse.”
“You’re blamingme?”
“You know I don’t have the support to challenge them yet.” He shakes me. “Fiuthen needs more time. You know I have to?—”
“Hurt me. Humiliate me.” A tear trails down my cheek and he watches it, expression stony. “That excuse worked when we were young. Not anymore.”
“Just words, Ky’a.”
“Actions break bones, but words scar souls.” I fling thewords at him.
My younger self hears the Uthilsen adage, but my adult self is more pragmatic; broken bones hurt like all the hells. As long as neither he nor my former bullies put their hands on me, they canhurl verbal stones all they want. Life traveling the Outlands taught me there are worse hurts.
Arriving too late to save a hemorrhaging mother.
A sudden fever that steals a newborn’s life fast, or the milkless breasts that steal it slow.
He releases me, eyes no longer cold, but feral. “You run, Ky’a, and I’ll catch you. I will hamstring you. One day you’ll thank me for saving your life.”
“You can’t?—”
He turns and walks away, ignoring my delusion. Of course he can. He can do anything he wants to me. The strong always can.
Town is bustling as I walk through. More people than I remember, more animals. The buildings are wood, that’s all they ever are around here, weathered and in better repair than last time I was home. There’s not a lot to do around here growing up, and Orclings need danger to thrive the way plants need water and soil.
