She held her breath, fists clenched in her skirts to keep them from falling back down.
And the cat turned and bolted back into the woods.
Had she not been strung up in a tree, she would have collapsed in relief.
But her relief was short-lived. Now it was her and the huge, powerful orc.
She scrambled to keep her skirt up, and it only made her spin again. She yipped in horror as her body helplessly swayed around to display her ass to the stranger who’d just saved her.
She wasnevergoing to recover from this. She may as well stay strung up and let the next predator eat her.
Warmth encircled her legs, and she let out a yip of surprise. She’d not even heard the orc approaching.
Suddenly the tension around her ankles loosened and her body dropped like a ton of bricks.
She squeezed her eyes shut, prepared for a stinging impact against the cold, hard ground.
Instead, she was swung up intowarmth.
Mercy help her, it wassowarm! She hadn’t realized just how icy cold she was until now. Now that she was... she was...
Her eyes widened as she looked up at the orc, who held her in a tight embrace.
The male looked just as tense as she did. His dark green eyes were glittering in the dappled autumn light. They were pretty really, a deep green hue that contrasted with the red and yellow leaves reflected in them.
Histeeth, on the other hand... she gulped hard.
His tusks were enormous. Almost as long as the saber cats. They went all the way up past the bridge of his nose. His fangs poking into his bottom lip were so sharp it was a wonder they didn’t cut him. His face was riddled with as many scars as the rest of him, old light green lines that marred his features along his cheek, brow, his nose. There was even one on his full bottom lip.
Orcs of Rove Wood Clan didn’t display their teeth like that. They tucked their jaws up to hide them away. Kept them concealed so the villagers of Oakwall didn’t become frightened. She’d spent her whole life trading with those orcs every fifteen days. She knew each and every one of them personally.
She didn’t know whothisorc was.
He was acompletestranger.
The male quickly put her down on her feet and her legs collapsed beneath her.
Pins and needles crawled up her calves and her muscles refused to obey. She’d been hung upside down for far too long.
And then something landed at her feet.
A knife.
And not just any knife. A good quality one. The kind of metal workmanship that the blacksmiths in her village could only dream of producing. It was twice as long as her hand, perfectly sharp, with no rust or divots in sight.
She snatched it up quickly even as the orc began to back off, his hands raised, his body hunched.
He looked about as threatening as a puppy and the oddity of that struck her a little dumb.
“W-what are you doing?” she asked breathlessly, as he continued to move away. He waslitteredwith scars. The white lines and pock marks were stark against his dark skin.
She tried to find her voice, but her head was still foggy and scrambling to decide what to ask first.
Who was he?
Why had he given her a knife?
Hadhebeen the one to set this snare trap?
