Page 69 of The Shadow Orc's Bride

He waited. And he healed.

He would be strong again—strong enough to tear down the brother who had betrayed him. Strong enough to end Kardoc’s false claim.

And when that day came, he would have his queen.

Chapter

Thirty-Two

Eliza returned to her chambers with her mind heavy, turning again and again to Rakhal. To the way he had fought, the way he had stood against his own, the way he had defendedherpeople. Watching from the walls, she had believed in him utterly.

And at the same time… he had been terrifying. A single orc, taking on a horde—hispeople.

He’d fought with such ferocity against a band led by his very own brother.

How had it come to this?

What had made him turn so viciously, so ruthlessly?

The soldiers escorted her through the torchlit corridors. She would have bid them leave her—she was queen, she needed no guardians to walk her own halls—but it would be strange, even foolish, for her to wander the castle alone at night. Especially now, dressed as she was in velvet that was not of Maidan cut, her hair braided in the style of an orc bride.

The servants would gossip.

No… they will gossip,she corrected herself grimly. Word would spread faster than fire through straw. Through the town,through the garrisons, through the mages in their tower and the lords in their seats of power.

That she had been returned by a band of orcs.

That an orc prince now lay bound in the dungeons beneath their feet.

Already she could feel it: her power fraying at the edges. She could almost hear her cousins whispering behind the council doors, waiting for their chance to strike at her crown.

She drew a steadying breath. She must keep it together. She could not falter. Not now.

She dismissed the guards with a single sharp command, her tone brooking no argument. They hesitated, but she fixed them with the kind of look that had sent grown men stammering since her coronation. Reluctantly, they bowed and withdrew.

Inside, her chambers were silent. The maidservants had long since retired, their lamps extinguished, the air faint with lavender from the earlier linens.

Her gaze fell to the window. It was still slightly ajar, swaying gently in the night wind. The same window through which Rakhal had come for her—through which he had stolen her away.

Now, he lay below. Her captive.

She should have felt relief. Triumph. Instead, her chest tightened with something else. Something unsettled.

Something has changed,she thought, fingers curling in her skirts.Shifted.Why did she feel uneasy?

It was good, wasn’t it? A relief that someone—something—as dangerous as him was in chains, tethered, no longer a threat.

And yet… war was coming. She could feel it pressing closer, like the air before a storm. It would be bloody. And there would be no peace.

With a sigh, she dropped onto the edge of her bed, the velvet pooling around her legs. Her body sagged under the weight of exhaustion, but her mind would not still.

She would wait. She had to. Until the castle quieted, until the commotion died down, until the soldiers had returned to their posts and the mages drifted back to their tower.

Then—then she would go to him.

Just as her eyes drifted closed, as stillness at last began to wrap around her—for the first time since she had left that sun-drenched courtyard in Rakhal’s chambers—there came a sharp rap on the door.

Her eyes snapped open. She sat upright, every muscle tensed, alarm prickling at her spine.