Page 76 of The Orc's Captive Bride
They’d never been different. Lasseran had lied about everything. The protection. The training. The promise that loyalty would be rewarded.
All lies.
They were weapons. And when a weapon became less useful than its raw materials, you melted it down and forged something new.
I believed him.
That was the worst part. He had believed. He had trusted. He’d given everything—his childhood, his identity, his soul—because Lasseran had promised it meant something.
But it didn’t, and it never had.
He slumped against the wall, his ruined hand throbbing. His Beast had retreated, satisfied by the violence even if it was directed at stone instead of the real enemy. His mind was unnervingly clear.
He couldn’t kill Lasseran. Even if he stood a chance against Lasseran’s magic, thirty-five years of conditioning made it impossible. Even thinking about it too directly made his thoughts skitter away.
He couldn’t refuse the order to select sacrifices. It would only mean his death, probably after punishments designed to break him completely, and it wouldn’t change anything.
He couldn’t warn his brothers. Lasseran had been explicit about that. He couldn’t do anything.
I’m completely helpless.
Just like he’d been as a child—beaten and starved and broken until he forgot there was ever anything else.
What I made you.
He rose slowly to his feet, his hand dripping blood onto the courtyard stones. He should bandage it and return to his post, maintaining the discipline that had kept him alive this long.
Instead, he found himself walking through corridors and past guards who averted their eyes until he came to a familiar door. He stopped outside Thea’s chambers.
Why am I here?
He shouldn’t be. He should be standing guard in the hallway like a proper warrior, and protecting himself from the dangerous softness she inspired.
But he was already knocking.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thea had been about to blow out the lamp when the knock came, soft and almost hesitant.
It wasn’t a servant. They knocked quietly but briskly, already moving on to the next task before she’d fully answered. And it certainly was not Lasseran. He wouldn’t bother to knock
She set the lamp down and crossed to the door, her bare feet silent on the cold stone.
“Just a moment!”
Khorrek had never returned to the library and Vorlag had finally insisted on accompanying her back to her rooms. She’d promised to sleep and obediently changed into her nightgown, but her attempt to sleep had failed. Her mind kept circling back to the library and the ancient text with its infuriating half-meanings and deliberately obscured truths. Someone wanted the knowledge preserved but hidden. The question was why, and from whom.
She opened the door.
Khorrek stood in the hallway, his massive frame filling the doorway.
“Khorrek? I thought you were?—”
The words died.
Oh my God.
His hand was ruined. Blood dripped onto the floor in slow, steady drops, but it was his eyes that stopped her breath. He looked devastated, lost and broken in a way she’d never seen before.
