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“What?”
“Considered abominations, you are. Many are born lacking in the head, others have deformities. You may be an ugly wench, but at least you have the right number of arms and legs. In fact, you told me of your loneliness growing up. How no other brats would play with you, how you were jeered at. It’s why we protect you, keep you from the public’s eye. After all, I don’t want my mate sobbing in my arms each night.”
As if.
Obviously, it’s not the right reaction he expected because he goes on. “Mayhap you would have had brothers and sisters if your mother wasn’t killed. She went gladly, though. Refused to bear another ugly one like you, and tied her legs together, even while in labor. The orc king choked her for denying him his rights.”
He eyes my crotch like he expects me to spread my legs.
“Looks like she died a noble death,” I say coldly, grabbing the ladle in a death grip before turning abruptly to stir the stew.
Chapter Five
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BAKOG:
I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I’m seeing. A beautiful wench bathing in the creek—one as light-skinned as Shally.
For a moment—when I first came upon her—my heart had thundered in my chest as hard as Tobias’s hooves pound the hard earth in the dead of summer. I wanted so much to believe it’s her, but it can’t be.
This female is waif-like. Probably ten, even a dozen pounds thinner than Shalia. Her hair is darker, though oddly, barely any shades of green for an orc. When she first arrived, I watched her from the trees—curious to see if she was the one others had mentioned traveled with the band of misfits.
I watched her strip her clothing, definitely Blackheart gear.
The more skin that was revealed, the more my heart pounded. I could see the same grace that I used to see in Shally in this female—even with being far away in the trees—but maybe I saw what I wanted. Maybe because her skin was so light, I confuse her with the one I’m pining for. If I could do it all over again, I might have admitted to Shalia that she was mine. That she was my mate and has been our entire lives. I’d tell her why I kept my distance.
The visions.
A female orc captured and subjected to brutality—should she be found by the time she’s ravaged and with child—will sever her hold on reality and destroy the very village she comes from. The female is the mate to the son of the prince.
And yet, throughout her life, Shally craved freedom, as if her soul knew one day she’d be caged. I was determined to prevent her capture. I wouldn’t mate her. I wouldn’t allow her to go anywhere on her own. I would protect her.
And yet, I failed.
I continue to watch the bathing Blackheart wash the filth from her body and my lungs seize, making me inhale a ragged breath.
