Page 25 of Wed to the Orc Captive

A shadow fell across the glen. A sound, a caterwaul, like a man screaming, raised the hairs on my arms, and a shape with smoke-like fur, dark as soot, moved silent from the trees, its long, blunt snout scenting the air, lips pulled back to snarl. The biggest creature I’d ever seen.

I sent up a last prayer, in case anyone was listening, and it dove.

It dove past me, fur whispering past my face, speed sending Vrathgar into the leaves, as it cracked a bird-creature’s neck in one snap.

They were fleeing, and the beast it had killed still flipped, flailing, limbs jerking as the creature feasted. Blood stained its snout, its shoulders, its face.

Someone was speaking, too far away, indistinct, as if through water.

“Annora.” They were saying my name. “Annora!”

A hand grabbed my shoulder, like a vise, and I threw my arms over my face⁠—

Vrathgar stared down at me, scarlet spattered over his face. “—run,” he shouted. “We have to run!”

He took my arm. We lurched into the trees, back towards the hollow where we’d camped. Behind us, in a snuffle and wet smack, the bird creature stopped screaming.

Pure luck. A monster for a monster, and we were alive by luck.

He was bleeding.

We ran. Vrathgar was moving unevenly, wrong, a lunging, rocking gait. The hollow spread in front of us, and he slid onto one knee, started grabbing up supplies.

I was being useless. I had to move.

I dropped onto the ground beside him, grabbing, rolling up the bedroll and his blanket. We were running? No. He was sitting still.

He was bleeding.

I ripped open the pack, fumbled through it for bandaging.

“The leg is deeper,” he gritted out, and I found his knife, slit up his trouser leg to reveal a deep slice into the muscle. “I have a needle. And thread,” he said. “Can you do it?” His eyes closed.

“I can do it. But this has to be cleaned.”

“Splash water on it. I can’t lose…more blood than this.” He already looked nauseous. “We need to run. The blood…will bring more.” His hand held his other shoulder, staunching another flow.

One at a time.

I poured some of our precious water over the wound and squeezed the edges together with one hand while he directed me to the sewing kit. His needle was straight, not curved like the ones chosen for sewing flesh, but it wasn’t like this was going to hurt much less.

“You’re lucky I’ve threaded so many needles,” I said, reaching for something to say, anything. “Can you talk to me? You need to stay awake.”

“I know the routine.” His jaw clenched, his eyes still studiously away from me. “This is not my first bloodletting.”

“Can you tell me what those were? The creatures?”

“Wizards.” He said it like a curse, closed his eyes as I drew the needle through. “They play at power and lord it over the hordes, while their experiments three hundred years past still terrorize these lands.”

“I've never seen them before.”

“Our people bear the brunt of their containment. They're drawn to the old places and any wells of power, like the fae beasts are”

“What's the difference?”

“Damned if I know.”

These were not my best stitches. I was moving too fast to make them neat or pretty, and the blood made it hard to see. There was so much. “That sounds difficult.”