Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
I nod. “Like a goat.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “This is a nightmare.”
“Agreed.”
We lapse into silence. I should be afraid of him, but I’m not. Somehow, his presence eases my loneliness. Eases something inside me.
Brannock shifts, glancing toward the window. “So… no stairs?”
I shake my head. “No stairs. No door. Just the window. Dame Gothel brings supplies every week—clothes and food—but she never stays. And she never gives me enough of anything to make a rope out of.”
“Dame Gothel?” he echoes, eyebrows lifting.
“She’s the witch who raised me. She said I’m here for protection. From what, I have no idea.”
His expression softens slightly. “You’ve been alone all your life?”
I nod. “Except for the forest animals and the occasional hallucination.”
Something flickers in his eyes—understanding, maybe. Or sympathy. The fierce lines on his face ease, and for a moment, he doesn’t look quite so terrifying.
I pause, wanting to apologize again, but I’m not sorry. This man is special. I know it in my soul.
“Can I touch you?” I blurt.
His frown deepens. “What?”
“I-I need to make sure I’m not hallucinating. Again.”
He hesitates, then offers me his massive hand.
I place my fingers gently against his palm. It’s warm, solid, and callused. Not another dream or illusion spun by the tower, but real and vital.
“You’re real,” I whisper.
His fingers curl around mine, and everything falls away—the roots, the tower, the silence—as I gaze into his eyes. There’s only my heartbeat. And his. My stomach quivers.
“I don’t know why the forest brought you here,” I say, staring at our joined hands. They’re so different—he’s big, green, and unyielding, and I’m soft, pale, and trembling—yet we feel so alike. “But I think… I think maybe it was supposed to.” I move closer, touching his jaw with my free hand. “Perhaps you need somewhere safe too?”
His eyes flutter shut as if the contact is too much. As if he hasn’t been touched with tenderness in years. “You think I need safety?”
I nod, my fingertips brushing the edge of his jaw and tracing the faint line of a scar. “I think you’ve been running for a long time,” I murmur, knowing my words are true somehow. “And not just from danger.”
His lips twitch, like he might smile. As if the idea of safety is so foreign, it borders on a joke. When he opens his eyes again, they’re softer. Guarded but curious.
“I don’t run,” he says eventually. “I fight. I burn bridges. I break things and walk away. I’m not a good person.”
I shrug. “That’s okay. I’m not sure I am either.”
That earns me a deep chuckle that does wondrous things to my nether regions. My breath catches. I don’t dare move. Don’t dare blink.
Because if this is another dream, if he’s a dream, I never want to wake up.
“Nothing in this forest happens by accident,” I murmur. “And you… You don’t feel like an accident.”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, his thumb brushes over my knuckles. Tentative. Testing.
A hush falls over the room. The kind of hush that only comes right before something important.
And then it hits me.
Not just a thought—a vision, blinding and sharp.
Brannock, standing over me, bloody and snarling. Protecting me. Fighting something—someone—I can’t see.
In the vision, he’s mine. And I’m his.
My breath hitches. My fingers twitch in his.
He stares at me, confused. “Are you okay?”
For the first time in forever, the tower feels… different. Not safe. Not free. But shared.
And I know beyond a doubt that this orc has changed everything because...
I beam at him. “You’re here to rescue me.”
Chapter 4
Brannock
Mine.
The second her fingers graze my jaw, the thought detonates in my head like a war drum. It carves itself into the marrow of my bones and rips down my spine like a lightning strike, hardening my cock. It’s not a sweet, romantic sensation—it’s primal. Gut-deep. No one has ever touched me or looked at me like this, not even when I was a boy.
I thought she was beautiful when I saw her from the window, glowing in the moonlight like a siren carved from ivory and gold.
But up close? She’s ruinous.
She’s no simpering female too fragile for reality. She has fire in her eyes and steel in her bones. Most women scream when they see me. Orc. Beast. Scarred and unwanted. They run. But Rapunzel looks at me like I’m a promise, not a threat.
The knowledge causes a knot to form in my chest. My fingers twitch with the urge to touch her. Claim her. Possess her. Burn the world down to keep my female safe.
My female?
No. She can’t be mine. That’s not how this works. I don’t get soft things. My life is fighting—hard edges and tough choices, not maidens with golden hair and amethyst eyes.
Rapunzel freezes, and for a second, I think maybe she feels it too. That same sharp crackle in the air between us. Then her eyes glaze over and become unfocused. Her lips part like she’s about to speak, but no sound comes. A little furrow forms between her eyebrows, and I swear I see a flicker of pain cross her face as if she’s seeing something I can’t.