Page 18 of The Orc's Captive Bride
Mine to protect. Mine to guard. Mine.
Brennik’s head whipped around, and his eyes widening as he saw him. Good. Let him be afraid. Let him understand what happened to those who touched his female.
Brennik started backing away, his hands raised as he babbled excuses—something about washing, about making sure she was safe.
Lies. All lies.
His hand shot out, his claws digging into the human’s throat, and the satisfaction of that contact sang through his bones. He lifted Brennik off the ground, and the male choked, kicking and clawing ineffectually at Khorrek’s arm.
Make an example of him, his Beast demanded. Let his death serve as a warning to anyone who touched what was his.
No.
His battered control finally reasserted itself. Killing Brennik would create problems. There would be questions from Lasseran, and the High King was already suspicious about his loyalties and had been ever since Queen Jessamin escaped.
With a frustrated snarl, he threw the male away. Brennik hit a tree with a satisfying crack and crumpled to the ground, his chest still rising and falling. He wasn’t conscious but he was alive.
Good enough.
His Beast howled for blood, but he forced himself to breathe through the rage until his vision cleared and the Curse started to retreat.
I am in control. I am not?—
He caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye and whirled around to find Thea climbing to her feet, her clear grey eyes wide behind those odd glass things she wore.
This was the moment when she would see him for what he truly was—not the careful facade he usually presented to the world,but the monster lurking beneath. The Beast that lived in every orc’s blood, the Curse that haunted all of them.
She would run, or cower, or both. He’d seen it before—the fear in a human’s eyes when they witnessed an orc in the grip of the Beast Curse. He’d seen the way they would scramble away, desperate to put distance between themselves and the monster.
He stood perfectly still, waiting for her retreat, preparing himself for the inevitable moment when she?—
She took a step towards him.
What?
Another step. Then another.
She was coming towards him, moving closer instead of away. Her face was pale and her hands shaking, but she approached him with determination in every line of her small body.
She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know what I am, what I nearly did?—
She walked right up to him, and tilted her head back to meet his eyes—those solid dark eyes that marked the Beast’s presence and that should have terrified her.
Instead she threw herself against his chest.
She weighed nothing, but the gesture—her arms wrapping around his waist as far as they could reach, her face pressed against his tunic, her whole body trembling—struck him with more force than any blow he’d ever taken.
“Thank you,”she said, her voice muffled against the leather.“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The same words she had used before—she was thanking him.
Thanking him for violence, for the very thing that should have made her flee. He stood frozen, still trying to process her actions. This wasn’t how humans reacted. This wasn’t?—
She pressed closer, her small body shaking even harder now.
She’s in shock. It’s a trauma response. It doesn’t mean?—
But his hand was already stroking her back with a gentleness that he’d never been taught, that came from some place deep inside him that he hadn’t known existed.
