"Play along, little one. Scream pretty for them."

┅┅━─━┅┄ ⟛ ┄┅━─━┅┅

She was supposed to be prey. Instead, she became his most dangerous secret.

Lost. Alone. Caught in an orc hunting ground.

By all rights, she should have been dead — or worse, passed around the tribe as a plaything until nothing remained.

But one orc found her first.

Grukkar is nothing like his kin. Beneath the scars and the tusks and the carefully crafted brutality hides a creature of surprising gentleness — one who has never owned a slave, never taken what wasn't offered, never stopped performing the monster his people expect.

Now she's his "property." His "toy." His alibi.

In public, he grabs her throat and calls her worthless. In private, he removes her chains, feeds her real food, and checks her wrists for bruises with hands that tremble.

The tribe watches. His cousins leer. One wrong move and they'll both be torn apart.

🩷🩷

He promised to get her out.

He just didn't promise to let her go.