Page 70 of Her Manticore Master
“No,” I said, my voice steady. “But I’m not afraid.”
Though terrified, my anger overshadowed my fear. The orcs' taunts and their dismissal of me as a mere prize had eradicated the last remnants of the pampered harem girl. While Valdris sought to break me and Ronan to forge me, it was their sneering contempt that finally galvanized my soul. I would not be their victim or the weeping princess they mocked.
“Good,” Ronan grunted as we walked toward the gate. “Anger is a weapon. Use it.”
“Oh, I plan to,” I whispered, my hand instinctively going to my thigh, where the cold, hard weight of Zephyr’s dagger was a comforting presence. “I plan to.” As we stepped out into the blinding light of the arena, the deafening roar of the crowd was just a distant noise. All I could see were the two hulking shapes waiting for us on the sand. All I could feel was the cold, clean rage singing in my veins.
The moment the horn blew, two orcs charged, their axes raised. My instinct was to get behind Ronan, but his words, "Anger is a weapon. Use it," echoed. The larger orc swiped at Ronan; he met the blow, his focus on the first brother. The second orc veered, heading straight for me. He grinned, seeing an easy kill, a princess. He didn't see the rage.
I didn’t draw my blade. Not yet. I remembered Ronan’s endless drills, the painful repetition of stances, of blocks. As the orc’s axe came swinging down in a clumsy, overhand arc, I didn’t retreat. I stepped in, just as Ronan had taught me, getting inside the reach of his weapon. I slammed the heel of my hand up under his chin, a jarring blow that snapped his head back with a grunt of surprise.
He hadn’t expected me to attack. He’d expected me to scream.
Before he could recover, I brought the heavy, leather-wrapped hilt of my hidden dagger down on his exposed wrist. There was a sickening crunch of bone, and he howled in pain, his axe falling from his suddenly nerveless fingers.
His surprise turned to fury. He swiped at me with his good hand, a backhand blow that caught me across the face and sent me stumbling back, my ears ringing. But I had hurt him. I had drawn a sliver of blood, tasted the intoxicating power of fighting back. And I was still standing.
My small success had enraged him. He roared, a sound of pure, wounded fury, and lunged for me, his massive hands reaching for my throat.
I was too slow to evade him completely. He tackled me, his momentum carrying us both to the ground in a tangle of limbs. I landed hard on my back, the impact knocking the wind from my lungs.
He was on top of me in an instant, a suffocating weight of muscle and rage.
His foul, meaty breath washed over my face, hot and stinking of stale ale. “I’m going to enjoy breaking you, little pet,” he snarled, one hand pinning my arms above my head while the other went for my throat.
Panic, cold and absolute, seized me. I was pinned. Helpless. All my training, all my newfound resolve, was useless against his brute strength. I could hear Ronan’s bellow of rage from somewhere behind the orc, but it sounded a world away. He was still engaged with the other brother. He couldn’t get to me in time.
This was it. This was how I was going to die. Not as a warrior, but as a victim, crushed beneath the weight of a beast who saw me as nothing more than a thing to be broken for his pleasure.
No.
The word was a silent scream in my mind. The rage I had felt earlier came roaring back, a cleansing fire that burned away the fear. I would not die like this. I would not.
My hand, pinned beneath his massive body, scrabbled at my thigh, my fingers fumbling for the hilt of my dagger. He was focused on my throat, his thick fingers tightening, squeezing the air from my lungs. My vision started to swim with black spots. My fingers closed around the familiar leather-wrapped hilt.
With the last of my strength, fueled by pure, desperate instinct, I drew the blade. There was no room for a proper strike,no time for technique. I just drove the dagger upwards, with all the force I could muster, into the soft flesh of his side, just under his ribs.
The orc’s body went rigid. A look of stunned, almost comical surprise crossed his face. He looked down at the hilt of the dagger protruding from his side, then back at me.
A low, wet gurgle escaped his lips, and then his entire massive weight collapsed on top of me, his lifeblood pouring out in a hot, sticky torrent over my chest and stomach.
I was trapped beneath him, his dead weight a crushing, suffocating blanket. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.
“Corrina!”
Ronan’s voice was a raw, guttural roar of pure fury and terror. I heard the sickening sound of his blade cleaving through bone, and a heavy thud as the second orc’s body hit the sand. Then he was there, a whirlwind of panicked motion.
He grabbed the dead orc by the shoulders and yanked the massive body off me with a single, desperate heave. His face was a mask of sheer, animalistic panic, his steel-blue eyes wide with a terror that mirrored my own. He saw the blood. The vast, spreading sea of it that covered my entire front.
“No,” he breathed, the word a broken, ragged sound. “No, no, no…”
He dropped to his knees beside me, his large hands hovering over my body, frantic and shaking, as if he were afraid to touch me, afraid to confirm what his eyes were telling him. “Where?” he choked out, his voice cracking. “Where did he get you?”
He frantically searched for a wound, his hands patting down my arms, my legs, his gaze wild and desperate.
“Ronan,” I gasped, finally able to draw a breath. “It’s… it’s not mine.”
He froze, his hands still on me. He looked from my face, to the corpse beside us, and back to the blood covering mytunic. The wild panic in his eyes slowly receded, replaced by a dawning, disbelieving understanding. And then, something else. Something raw and overwhelming and fierce.
