Page 114 of The Orc's Captive Bride
“You needed rest more.”
She sat up and stretched. The movement pulled her shirt tight across her small breasts and he forced himself to look away. He needed to focus on survival and not how much he wanted her.
“Khorrek?”
He looked back and found her watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.
“How does it feel?” she asked.
“How does what feel?”
“To be free.”
Free. Was he free? He’d escaped Lasseran’s direct control and broken the chains of loyalty and duty that had bound him since childhood. But free?
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve never been free before. Don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like.”
“Scary?”
“Terrifying.”
“Good.” She smiled, then reached up to touch his face. “If it wasn’t scary, you wouldn’t be doing it right.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Doesn’t it? The best things in life are usually the most frightening because they matter the most.”
“Spoken like an academic who’s never had to fight for survival.”
“Spoken like someone who spent her entire life afraid of taking risks and finally decided to try.” She traced the line of his jaw. “You’re worth the risk, Khorrek.”
His Beast surged. Demanding. Insistent.
Claim. Take. Make her ours.
He caught her wrist. Stilled her movement. “Thea?—”
“Do you want me?”
The question was direct. Unadorned. Completely her.
“Yes.” There was no point in lying. “More than anything.”
“Last night—you were still holding back, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I didn’t give you my knot.”
Her eyes widened. “Your knot? Is that why it felt as if you were growing bigger?”
“Yes, but I pulled out before it locked us together,” he explained, searching her face for any sigh of horror, but she looked more intrigued than appalled. “If I’d given you my knot, my Beast would never have let you go. It would never accept anyone else. You’d be bound to me in ways I can’t fully explain.”
“All right,” she said so easily that he lost the ability to speak. “Then don’t hold back this time.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Don’t I?” Her grey eyes were fierce. Fearless. “I’m asking you to let go. To stop being what Lasseran made you and start being what you are.”
“And what am I?”
