Page 2 of Bound By Blood (Orc Warrior Romances #1)

EIRIAN

T he soldier's fever burns through my palms like molten copper, his skin slick with sweat that reeks of infection. I press my hands harder against his chest, feeling for the rhythm beneath—weak, erratic, fading.

"Lady Eirian." Ser Mael, my assistant, hovers at my shoulder. "His pulse is?—"

"I know what his pulse is doing." The words snap out sharper than intended. Three days this boy has lingered between worlds, and conventional remedies have failed. Willowbark tea. Honey poultices. Sacred oils blessed by the temple priests.

Nothing.

My mother's voice whispers from memory, soft as silk and twice as dangerous: Sometimes mercy requires choices that others cannot stomach, little dove.

The orc remedy. Hidden in my private stores, wrapped in black cloth like a shameful secret. Crushed moonbell root and fermented giant's bane, ingredients that would see me stripped of my healer's pendant if discovered. The temple calls such knowledge heretical. Barbaric.

But this boy will die without it.

"Fetch the—" I stop. Ser Mael watches me with those eager young eyes, ready to follow any order. If I ask him to retrieve my hidden stores, I make him complicit. Guilty by association.

"Fetch more water," I finish. "And clean bandages."

He nods and hurries away. The tent flap closes behind him with a whisper of canvas, leaving me alone with my dying patient and my mother's forbidden wisdom.

The Stoneborn know the mountain's secrets , she had said, fingers grazing the burn scar on my wrist, the mark of my first failed attempt at conventional healing. Their remedies work where ours falter. Remember that, should you ever need to choose between pride and life.

I stand, legs unsteady from hours of kneeling beside cots. The field hospital stretches around me in organized chaos, thirty beds filled with border guards, merchants, refugees from the contested valleys. All bearing wounds from increased Orc aggression along the frontier.

My private stores rest hidden beneath a loose floorboard near my sleeping roll. Three steps. Four at most.

"Lady?" The boy's voice rasps like autumn leaves. His eyes flutter open, blue as the summer sky and far too young for dying. "Am I going to see my mother again?"

I sink back to my knees beside his cot, taking his fevered hand in mine.

"What's your mother's name?"

"Sarah. Sarah Millbrook. She makes the best apple tarts in three counties." A weak smile crosses his cracked lips. "Always saved me the biggest piece."

Choose , my mother's voice demands. Pride or life.

The floorboard creaks under my weight as I retrieve the wrapped bundle. Black cloth falls away to reveal two small vials of liquid amber catching the lamplight like trapped sunfire. The Orc remedy my mother died protecting.

"This might taste terrible," I warn him, uncorking the first vial. The scent hits immediately—earthy, sharp, alive in ways that temple-blessed medicines never are.

He drinks without question, trusting in my judgment completely. The fever breaks within minutes. Color returns to his cheeks. His breathing deepens, steadies.

Heretical. Barbaric.

The words feel hollow now.

A horn blast shatters the tent's quiet, three sharp notes followed by two long ones. Raiders. Close enough to threaten the outpost.

Ser Mael bursts through the tent flap, water pitcher forgotten. "Lady Eirian! Captain's calling all hands to?—"

The second horn blast cuts him off. Different pattern this time. Five short bursts.

Attack imminent.

"Get everyone who can walk to the inner compound," I order, already moving toward my supplies. Battlefield wounds require different preparations than sickbed tending. "Those who can't walk, move them away from the walls."

"But Lady, you should come with?—"

"I'm going to the fighting." I stuff rolls of bandages into the satchel, add vials of numbing oil, bone needles for emergency suturing. "Someone needs to bring in the wounded."

Ser Mael pales. "That's not—women don't?—"

"Women don't what?" I meet his stare directly. "Women don't serve? Don't heal? Don't make choices that others find uncomfortable?"

The third horn blast answers before he can. Battle cry of the Stoneborn.

I've heard that sound twice before, once as a child when raiders tested our borders, once during the Harvest Moon skirmish three years past. It raises every hair on my arms, primal and terrifying as a mountain cat's scream.

"Stay with the patients," I tell Ser Mael. "Keep them calm."

Outside, chaos reigns. Guards sprint along the wooden walkways, arrows already nocked. Servants rush toward the inner keep, carrying what supplies they can manage. Someone screams orders about barricading the gates.

I push against the flow, heading for the main wall where the fighting will be thickest. My healer's robes mark me clearly, earth-toned layers that announce my purpose to anyone with eyes. Protected by law and custom in most circumstances.

But Orcs don't always honor such traditions.

The first clash of steel on steel echoes from beyond the walls, followed by something between a roar and war chant. The Stoneborn have reached our outer defenses.

"Lady Eirian!" Captain Brennan waves me back as I approach the watchtower stairs. "Get to the keep! This is no place for?—"

An arrow sprouts from his shoulder. He stumbles, swears, looks down at the black-fletched shaft in surprise.

"No place for healers?" I catch him as he sways, already assessing the wound. Clean entry missed the major vessels. Painful but not fatal. "Hold still."

I snap the arrow shaft, leaving enough protruding for later removal, then tear a strip from my outer robe to bind the wound tight. The captain grimaces but doesn't cry out.

"Stubborn as your mother," he mutters.

Another roar from outside, closer now. The outer gates splinter with sounds like breaking bones.

"How many?" I ask, finishing the binding.

"Two dozen, maybe three. Raiding party, not a war host." He tests his injured arm gingerly. "But they're Stoneborn. That makes them worth twice their number."

The gates give way entirely. Through the breach pour warriors unlike any I've seen in diplomatic visits or peace negotiations. These are Orcs stripped of civilization's veneer, painted for war, bearing weapons that gleam with more than oil, moving with a predatory grace of lives spent in violence.

Their leader stands head and shoulders above the rest. Even at a distance, his presence dominates the battlefield like a lodestone drawing iron. Copper-bright topknot catches the afternoon sun. Armor of black leather and darker metal. Eyes find mine across the chaos.

"Chief Drokhan," Captain Brennan breathes. "What's he doing this far south?"

I don't answer. Can't answer. Those amber eyes hold mine for heartbeats that stretch like hours, and recognition, perhaps, or challenge passes between us. His gaze drops to the healer's pendant at my throat, then returns to my face.

He inclines his head slightly. Acknowledgment.

Then the moment breaks as his warriors surge forward and battle truly begins.

I sprint down the stairs, satchel bouncing against my hip. The courtyard has become a killing ground. Our guards fall back toward the keep in a fighting retreat, leaving wounded scattered across bloodstained earth.

The nearest is barely more than a boy, clutching a belly wound that seeps between his fingers. I drop beside him, hands already moving to assess damage.

"Easy," I murmur, pulling away his hands to see clearly. Deep but not fatal if treated quickly. "You're going to live to see your sweetheart again."

He tries to speak, but manages only a whisper of air. Behind us, steel rings against steel as someone fights for their life.

I work quickly, applying pressure to stop the bleeding, numbing oil to ease his pain, bandages tight enough to hold until proper surgery. The sounds of battle wash over us like ocean waves, but I force myself to focus on what I can control.

Another wounded guard crawls toward us, arrow through his thigh. Then a merchant clutching a gashed forearm. Then a servant girl with a blow to the head that's left her eyes unfocused and wandering.

This is what I was trained for , I remind myself. This is why I carry my mother's knowledge.

A war cry erupts directly behind me. I turn to see a Stoneborn warrior bearing down on us, axe raised high, face painted in designs that turn his features demonic.

I throw myself across the wounded boy, shielding him with my body. The pendant at my throat catches the light, healer's mark, symbol of protected status.

The axe stops inches from my skull.

I look up into eyes black as mountain pools, framed by ritual scars and war paint. The warrior studies my pendant, then my face, then the wounded.

He says something in the Orc tongue, harsh syllables that could be curse or prayer. Then he steps back, lowering his weapon.

But another figure approaches from my left. Sir Edmund Fairfax, one of our best knights, sword already blood-streaked from earlier fighting. His armor bears the deep gouges from Orc weapons, but he moves with deadly purpose.

"Get away from her!" he shouts, charging the warrior who spared us.

Steel meets steel in a shower of sparks. Sir Edmund is skilled, trained since childhood in sword work and tactics. But his opponent fights with the fluid brutality of someone born to war.

The knight stumbles. Goes down hard on one knee.

The Orc raises his axe for the killing blow.

I move without thinking, flinging myself between them. Sir Edmund's eyes widen in shock as I spread my arms, shielding him as I had shielded the wounded boy.

"Please," I say in the few words of Orcish my mother taught me. Badly pronounced, probably wrong, but spoken with desperate sincerity. "Mercy."

The warrior freezes. Behind him, I notice, the sounds of battle have quieted. Others have stopped to watch this strange tableau of a human healer protecting human knight from Orc justice.