Page 8 of Claimed By the Wild Orc
Two could play at that game.
I sat opposite him, my back against the wall, and spooned the stew into my mouth with deliberate enjoyment. It wasn’t good, not really, but I made a show of savoring it anyway, letting my lips linger on the spoon.
When I looked up, his gaze was fixed on me. Not my face. My mouth.
A slow, infuriating heat coiled low in my belly.
“Careful,” I said lightly, tilting my head. “Staring like that might give me ideas.”
Why did I even say that just now?
Do you want to provoke the damn orc?
The low sound that came from deep inside his chest wasn’t laughter. It was a growl—rumbling and quiet, vibrating through the air like distant thunder.
I froze, the spoon halfway to my lips.
Then I smirked, hiding this strange, disquieting heat. “Oh, that’s charming. Is that your version of ‘thank you for dinner’?”
His jaw flexed, but he didn’t answer. He just went back to eating, his movements precise and unhurried, as if my words meant nothing.
But I’d seen the way his eyes had darkened.
The silence stretched between us, taut and strangely alive. It wasn’t hostile, not anymore, but itwascharged, like the moment before a summer storm when the air tastes of rain and lightning.
I finished eating and set the bowl aside, wrapping my arms around my knees. He sat across the fire, watching the flames. The muscles in his forearms rippled as he rested his elbows on his knees, the firelight turning his skin to burnished metal. I wanted to hate him for being so solid, so unshaken, but some traitorous part of me admired it.
The hours slipped by in silence. The rain outside softened to a whisper, tapping against the rocks. Eventually, exhaustion won, dragging me down into sleep.
GORRAN
The storm outside had dulled to a wet whisper, but the fire still spat every so often, throwing sparks like tiny suns. I sat with my back against the stone, blade across my knees, and watched her sleep.
Humans were strange creatures. Small. Fragile. Too easily broken. I had carried enough of their corpses through battlefields to know how quickly their lives could be snuffed out, and yet this one—this Mira—burned brighter than any I’d seen.
She shifted in her sleep, a quiet sound escaping her throat, and a lock of hair slipped over her face. Rich-brown strands, messy and damp, catching the firelight like copper threads. It was a wild, stubborn kind of hair. Stubborn like her.
I told myself I was only watching to be sure she didn’t wake screaming. That I needed to gauge how quickly she’d recover. But the truth was less practical.
Her skin was pale against the dark pelt she’d curled into, a soft contrast to the harsh lines of the cave. Even in sleep, her face held a defiance I’d never seen in a human woman before. She didn’t simper, she didn’t show fear—not exactly, even though she let slip traces of it from time to time. It was to be expected. I was orc, she was human.
She was braver than most humans I’d encountered.
She’d glared at me earlier, all spit and fire, and for the first time in a long while, I’d felt something other than bloodlust stir in my chest.
Beautiful.
She simply was. I couldn’t deny it.
I’d seen plenty of beauty—jewels, trophies, women dressed in silks for warlords—but this was different. Hers was not the kind that begged to be admired; it demanded it, whether she wanted me to see it or not.
I found myself studying the curve of her cheek, the stubborn line of her jaw, the way her lips parted slightly as she breathed. Those lips. I remembered how they’d wrapped around the spoon, slow and deliberate, as though she was testing me.
The memory did something strange to my chest.
I ran a hand down my face, muttering a curse under my breath. I had no use for this softness. No space for it.
But still, I watched her.
