Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 24908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
Starting back up the stairs, I reach the top and head through to the bedroom where she was working before I persuaded her to come to the pool. The door is smashed off its hinges, and I have to shake my head to stop myself thinking of her in here, terrified as enemies tore at her only defence.
Not much furniture in here, but crouching down her scent is stronger closer to the floor. An old rug, clean but threadbare, covers the center of the room, but it’s been recently moved and hastily tugged back into place: the corners aren’t quite square with the walls and some threads have torn on a loose nail.
I pull it back, my mind working in overdrive, needing to know, needing to find something. Some clue, some scrap of evidence that tells me where they’ve gone.
“Emmie, who were they?” I ask as I crouch again on the bare floorboards, pressing my fingers against each one.
There.
One of the floorboards creaks under my hands, and I desperately push my massive fingers into the gap around it. They don’t fit so I clench my fist and drive my knuckles through the board but I manage to get and see the white paper nestled in the space beneath.
A note. Bearing my name.
They’re here for me. But I need to know the truth.
Before I came here, Dominic and I lived together in a foster home. Only it wasn’t a foster home, not really. The woman who ran it was just grooming girls to be taken by her “friend”. I ran, Dominic helped me, and we thought we’d escaped.
Only, he won’t let us escape. It was his money that we stole that bought this house. The deed to the house had to have my official name, and he tracked me down. He’s here. With Judicial Enforcement and that big orc from the street the other night. He has the money to pay them all off. He’s at the door, they already have Darrell. I’m sorry, I have to do what I can to save him now, whatever that is.
You’re my mate, the only one I’ve ever loved, but I have to protect them. They’re the family that found me and they need me.
Goodbye, my Tigor. They’re about to break through the door. I have to go or they’ll find this note and you’ll never know. I take care of our baby, if they let me life. If I can get away…
I grind my teeth, a low roar starting in my chest. That big orc. No prizes for guessing who that’s referring to. Clan Lakktra has no shortage of enemies, but I should have guessed Yarek would be involved. If he’s hurt her. If he’s touched a hair on her head, he’ll wish I was just going to kill him.
In a blind rush, I stomp down the stairs and outside. I need to get to the rest of the clan. I need my family. I’d face our enemies alone and save her life, but I can’t guarantee I won’t get killed before I can save all three of them.
Fuck.
Laughter cuts through my thoughts, and I snarl as I look up to see three Neo-human coalition assholes sauntering down the street. For a moment I almost ignore them, then one of them speaks.
“Serves her fucking right, dirty little orc loving bitch.” He laughs. “Maybe next time you won’t provoke people by cutting their hands off.”
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Fucking jackpot.
With a roar, I bear down on the trio. At first they laugh, but they haven’t seen an orc in a mating fury. The first one flies ten feet as I punch him in the face, landing unconscious in the grass verge, but the second comes at me with a knife. It’s big, but I’m bigger. I grab the blade flat between my hands and twist, tearing it from his grip, then slam my knee into his stomach as pain flares in my thigh.
The third has a makeshift club made of a tire iron, and it hurts like a motherfucker, but right now I have more important things to deal with than pain. I grab him by the stupid orc-appropriator hair and lift, swinging him like a sling and slamming him into number two. Both of them grunt, but I’m not done, I’m not leaving them here and I’m not killing them either. Not yet, not even if they beg.
Shoving my fingers into their nostrils, I drag them off their feet and toward my ranch house. They’re screaming, flailing to get some sort of grip and stop our forward momentum, but they don’t even know what pain is if they think this is it. As I pass the first one, unconscious from my punch, I slam my foot into his chest, rolling him along as I go.
Once I’m inside, they’re going to tell me everything. Or things are going to get bad fast.