Page 4 of Enchanted with the Orc (The Kingverse Orcs #4)

Tasia

I don’t know how I’m going to survive this.

I looked around at the females gathering in the main apartment we used for the coven. Gabbi was surrounded by her aunts, and my heart ached with loss.

I don’t want to leave them .

I sucked in a breath, forcing a smile on my face as they set up for the party we were holding for my daughter. She was turning four in a couple weeks and I couldn’t believe how quickly time had passed.

I’d used the excuse of her birthday being thrown early as a way to say one last farewell to them before we left. I hoped with everything in my heart that we would be able to come back soon, but I didn’t know how true that would be.

We needed to run, and we needed to run far . I couldn’t rest until I had my daughter safely away from her biological father. And that was all he’d ever be. He’d never done anything to prove he was a real father.

“Oh,” Pen laughed as Gabbi ran up to her, pressing her cheek to Pen’s heavily pregnant stomach. She peered down at her, running her fingers over my little girl’s hair. “Trying to say hello?”

Gabbi turned her face to press a kiss to her stomach, screaming “Hello in there!” and my heart ached with love for her. And loss. So much loss.

I was taking her away from the only family she’d ever known. The one that had raised her. It was such a disservice to her and my family, but I couldn’t get them involved. They’d done too much for me to get them into trouble now.

I let her flit between the people she loved, getting praise and presents as she went. She already had so many things—spoiled and adored by everyone in the coven and clan—that I knew it was going to be difficult for her to let everything go.

I’d taken out as much cash as I was able, and had packed our bags with everything I could for her. We were going to have to budget for a little bit—and the transition was going to be hard on her.

When I’d been running the first time and even afterward when I’d moved in with the coven, I was used to living off of the barest. But my Gabbi had only been given the best by her aunts and now her orc-uncles.

She raced over to the door as the tall, handsome orc who Gabbi bit in the hallway entered and my heart thrummed in my chest. I’d met many orcs in the time our coven had moved into the clan-building, but none had stood out the way he had.

I’d seen him around, of course, but yesterday when we’d met in the hallway, something had changed. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t good. Watching him smile down at my daughter had done something to my insides—melting them in a way that didn’t happen with any other male.

And I couldn’t afford for that to happen.

Not now. I needed to escape and I couldn’t have anything else tethering me here.

So when I saw my sweet girl with her teeth latched onto his ankle and him beaming down at her with pride, as if this was the best greeting in the world, I struggled to harden my heart.

His dark eyes lifted, meeting mine across the room and the jolt in my chest told me that I was in trouble.

Not now. Please not now. Why is this happening now?

As realization filled me, I sent a tight smile his way in greeting and turned away, not even bothering to pry Gabbi off of him.

The wards.

When my powers had been bound and the wards that my coven had placed around Gabbi and I had fallen, it would have allowed another kind of bond to start forming… A witch’s true mate.

Oh no. This can’t be happening.

I’d seen it with Zara and her orc, but there was no way it was happening with me. I couldn’t deal with what he was making me feel on top of the heavy emotions that were plaguing me, since I was leaving.

Everything was too much. I stepped toward the kitchen, trying to help, but Tabitha shooed me out with a well-meaning, “Go play with your beautiful daughter.” Unsure what I was supposed to do with myself, I hurried to the snack table, neatening as I went.

I was stopped for conversation one or two times, but it was easy to pass off my near-tears expression as disbelief that my little girl was so grown up already.

I moved to the cake, the letters on the frosting spelling out Gabbi’s name along with purple butterflies that were actually fluttering—her most recent obsession and most definitely a gift from her aunt and our High Priestess, Zara.

The tears clogged in my throat decided that it was time to make an appearance, and I waved a hand in front of my face, trying to stem them.

How am I supposed to get through this night without falling apart?