Someone pats my cheek, and I groan, turning my face away from the contact.
I want to tell them to go away, but my mouth isn’t working. My head hurts. I’m cold. I don’t want to open my eyes because something is wrong, something happened, and I’d rather stay in the darkness.
“Come now, human,” a rumbling voice says. “Look at me.”
No.
My brain instinctively rebels against the sound. The voice is deeper than any I’ve ever heard, and my mind isn’t ready to face what is happening. I squeeze my eyes shut and curl into a ball on my side, even though it’s uncomfortable. There’s a rock poking me in my hip—but my face is buried in something soft.
Someone put a piece of fur under my head.
Despite my unwillingness to process the events of this evening, images of the fire flash through my head. The fire…and the two orcs who caught me stealing.
I stifle a whimper by pressing my lips together and tighten my muscles to make myself smaller. Maybe they’ll leave me be if I play dead?
But a warm, calloused palm brushes over my cheek once more.
“Hey, you need to wake up.”
I don’t want to, but it looks like the decision might not be up to me. A blunt finger presses at the side of my eye, and one of the orcs pulls up my right eyelid. I find myself squinting up at his green face half cast in shadow. His black eyes are open wide, inquisitive—and worried?
I scramble away from him, unable to pretend I’m unconscious anymore. “Let me go!”
The big orc crouching in front of me lifts his hands. “It’s all right.”
All right? He thinks this is all right?
“Don’t come any closer,” I warn. “I’ll—”
I try to think of a proper threat, but even if I could reach the small pocketknife tucked in my shoulder bag, I doubt I could do much damage to this brute. Not before he reached for one of the wicked blades stuck in his weapons belt and gutted me like a fish.
I could stick him with my sewing needles.
At that idea, a bubble of hysterical laughter rises inside me, expanding, but I swallow it, trying to keep a cool head. But it’s hard, because my thoughts are sluggish, and I shiver, my fingers trembling uncontrollably.
Then I realize he’s not moving to attack, and neither is the other orc, who’s sitting on the other side of the fire. Nor are my hands or feet bound, like I half expected them to be.
And I’m not dead. If they wanted to kill me and roast me on a spit, as the orcs in the stories I heard always seemed to do, they would have killed me already.
So maybe they don’t mean me any harm?
But there are other ways they could hurt me without resorting to eating me. Maybe they’re saving me for another meal since they already have something roasting on the fire.
Oh gods, is that piece of meat even an animal?
I crawl back farther, scraping my palms on tree roots. “Please, don’t hurt me. I didn’t mean to steal from you. I saw the fire and thought I could get warm.”
That’s a lie—I absolutely meant to steal from them, and they saw me stuff their provisions in my bag.
Which reminds me…
I look around for my shoulder bag. It contains my lifeline. The letter to Steagor, my father’s friend. Not that I expect these brutes to acknowledge the fact that someone is expecting me. I’ve heard enough rumors about the orcs back in the south to know they’re uncouth and dangerous, especially to women.
I spot my shoulder bag in the smaller orc’s lap. It’s open, the food I stashed inside neatly stacked on a fur next to him. I wince—those were supposed to be my travel rations, either for the remainder of my journey to find the man I’m searching for or to last me on my way back to civilization if I fail in my quest.
“Hey, leave that,” I say, my voice quavering just slightly. “It’s mine.”
The orc smirks at me, one black eyebrow raised. “Is it? Or did you steal it like you stole our food, little thief?”
The scarred orc growls. It’s a terrifying sound, and I freeze, thinking his anger is directed at me. But he’s looking at his companion, who shrugs as if this is completely normal.
“All I’m doing is making sure you’re not a spy.” He rummages through the leather bag. “We can’t have spies in our territory.”
“I’m not a spy,” I protest immediately. “I’m on my way to meet a friend.”
Then his words register, and my insides squeeze in apprehension.
“Wait, your territory? What are you talking about?”
Have I veered so far off course that I stumbled into lawless orc lands? But everyone I asked about the way to King Gorvor’s lands told me to follow the road into the mountains.
The bigger orc shifts his weight and finally settles in a cross-legged position, still facing me. “You’re in Black Bear Clan lands. King Gorvor’s lands. You probably crossed the border sometime yesterday if you walked at a human pace.”
I want to snap at him that of course I walked at a human pace, but my mind snags on the other part of his statement first.
King Gorvor is an orc?
This is bad.
Or maybe it’s not as horrible as it seems.
“So…you’re in King Gorvor’s service?” I venture. “Does he employ many orcs?”
The two males exchange an amused glance. Then the one across the fire says, “He is our king, aye, and he is also an orc. Whatever made you think otherwise?”
I look down at my hands, unable to answer. Why did I think I was headed to another human kingdom?
Because your father never hinted otherwise.
I rake my memory for any sort of proof that he mentioned orcs, and I’d been too distracted to listen. But not one story that involved his rescue from prison by his friend Steagor—or any plan he’d made to find the man and move his shop to King Gorvor’s lands—included the fact that they were all orcs.
Not good.
The smaller orc goes back to searching my bag, but the one who poked me earlier continues to stare at me. I shiver, half from the cold and half from the weight of his unnerving attention. Is he deciding which part of me he wants to eat first or does he find me as curious as I find him?
Because he is interesting. So I stare right back, deciding that if he can be rude, so can I.
His long black hair is plaited in a thick braid that hangs down his back, and his tunic is well made. As a tailor’s daughter, I have an eye for clothes, and this is no rough-spun cloth but good linen, fitted to his broad shoulders, even if it strains somewhat now that he’s hunched over like that. His dark woolen cloak, pinned at his throat with a silver clasp and embroidered with an emblem of a black bear, is lined with fur, and my fingers itch to touch it. It would be so warm and soft around me.
The orc’s arms are brawny, the muscles bulging with each move he makes, and those large hands, now clenched into fists, look like they’re made for killing.
But he touched me so gently earlier.
I snap my gaze back to his black eyes, and my stomach squeezes at the intensity lurking there. I don’t know what he wants from me, but he seems like a male who always gets what he desires.
“Hey,” the younger orc says, interrupting our staring match. “There’s a letter addressed to you.”
