“Yourbride?”I repeated, wishing with all my heart that I misheard him.
“Mywife, to be precise,” he corrected. “The noble Princess Khala of Avilet Kingdom, the second in line to the royal throne as King Belin’s niece, is my lawfully wedded wife. We were on our way to my palace after our wedding, looking forward to our new life together, when the attack happened and I lost her. I’m praying to all the gods of Helfallow that she is well and alive and that I will find her soon.”
A princess?
A fucking princess!
Blood rushed from my extremities, leaving my body cold and my brain on fire.
What did it all mean?
Khala said she ran away. She confessed she might’ve killed a man who attacked her. But she said that her husband was long dead. Yet there he was, safe and sound, and very much alive.
“Did you happen to see her or hear of her in your travels, noble Grat?” the duke inquired somberly. “It breaks my heart to think she may be lost in the woods somewhere hungry, cold, and alone.”
…or naked and moaning in my bathtub, with her nipple trapped between my teeth and my finger pumping her hot, willing pussy.
Fuck. This couldn’t be true.
“Please, can you help me find my beloved?” the duke implored.
Bile rose to my throat, making me sick.
Prug shoved a hand in my shoulder. “Hey, Grat, did you actually meet a girl in the woods? Who did you buy a whole bunch of dainty little dresses for at the market last week?”
Fucking Prug and his big mouth.
The duke perked up, gazing at me with hope.
Agor settled his stare on me but kept quiet, waiting for my reply.
I sucked at lying. I hated it. But I figured I had to talk to Khala first, before spilling her secret to this “husband” of hers.
I cleared my throat. “I bought them for an orc woman from the keep in the Cranberry Marsh. She was a lot of fun on her last visit here, and I’m seeing her again next week.”
The clothes I bought for Khala’s petite frame wouldn’t fit an orc woman. Thankfully, Prug had enough brains to shut up and not question it.
The duke released a breath in disappointment. “Well, I’ll keep searching for my princess for as long as it takes. My heart’s deepest desire is to be reunited with her because this world is not worth living for me without her.”
“Does she love you?” I blurted out.
The question was out of place, I fully realized that. Prug’s jaw fell open and even Agor stared at me like I’d just swallowed a life frog on a dare. But I had to know the answer.
“She does. Princess Khala loves me passionately,” the duke said confidently. “We fell in love before we even became adults, and our love has only grown since. Nothing and no one can keep us apart. I'd do anything to get her back.”
I was no expert on male attractiveness, but the duke seemed to be everything a human woman and a princess would want in a man. He had the good looks and the manners that the fineladies of high standing appreciated, I imagined, especially when compared to a bog orc…
My left eye twitched. My muscles cramped, and my chest felt sore.
“Well…” I rubbed my neck. “Can’t be of any assistance here. Lots of luck, Lord… or Duke, or whatever…”
I turned around and left, leaving Agor to sort out all the diplomatic stuff. As the Head Chief of all bog orcs, it was his job, and he was better at it than I could ever be. Especially now, when I could barely put two words together with my mind reeling from all these new discoveries.
Khala was a princess.
My free-spirited wild thing whom I thought I found homeless and friendless—the woman I’d grown to think of as my own—was a fucking princess with abelovedhusband and probably with some fancy crown to wear and a cushy throne to sit on in her kingdom.
And what could I offer her instead? A barrel bathtub over a stove and a pile of blood sausages for dinner.
