Page 42 of Orc's Pride

I hate that relief floods through me because whatever happened to the people in that house is something straight out of a horrid nightmare. Orcs gather around with pails in their hands, a line formed outside while they quickly throw water onto the fire in order to put it out.

I’ve never been more proud of the people living in this base. A true community having come together.

It’s a short lived feeling though because once I climb the stairs up to my porch, I see that my door has been busted open.

Dana…

Quickly heading inside, I call for her.

“Dana!”

But only silence greets me.

Fuck. Where could she have gone? Who would bust down my door looking for her?

My feet carry me to her bedroom where her door is halfway off its hinges. I trial my fingers over the splintered surface,spotting the open window on the other side of the room. Ducking over to it, I squint out of the dirty pan to see if she’s somehow hiding under it.

Only the empty alley between my and my neighbor’s house greets me.

“Fuck!”

I stand back up again.

Not wanting to give up so easily, I move throughout the rest of my house calling for her. I check my closet, under both of our beds, anything while hoping that she’s somehow still in the house and not halfway to somewhere else that I would have no hopes in tracking her down.

Would she leave the base?

I shake the thought from my head. She could, but it wouldn’t make any sense for her to do that. If people had come to take her away—going so far as to break down my front door—then she had every right to run as far and as fast as she could away from here. But heading out of the base, among all the chaos didn’t make sense.

Plus, it would leave her vulnerable out there like that, with no protection and whoever it was that had been chasing her down.

So, where would she go? If someone had been after her, she would go to the only place she feels safe enough to hide. A place that she could easily lose someone if they were following after her.

Where would that—

A thought occurs to me suddenly.

The forest.

I turn and run out my front door.

It’s the only logical place she would feel comfortable going to that isn’t inside the base. If she were truly terrified of someone finding her within these walls, the forest gave her enoughcoverage to stay relatively close but not enough to get picked up in the chaos.

Fuck, I hope I’m right.

The fires, the yelling and screaming, and the fighting grow softer and softer until I hear nothing but my own panting breath and the sounds of the unkept grounds crunching under my feet.

Finding Dana in this place is going to be close to impossible. But I don’t care how long it takes. I’m going to find whoever the fuck is after her and take them down with a smile on my face and my axe sinking deep into their chest.

They’re going to wish they picked someone else to run into because my face being the last thing they see before the God of War claims them will only help satisfy my own bloodlust—something that I haven’t felt boil up to the surface in a long while.

But now, it courses through my veins, singing its siren song to me. With the only thing on my mind being those that were after my human dead at my feet.

Dana. The human I’m meant to protect.

Or else I’ll die trying.

No one is going to touch a hair on her head.