I crossed the line to pay my brother's debt. The orc who collects in blood decided I was the payment.
I'm a bookkeeper. I can do the math. Forty-one thousand dollars in a gym bag covers a tenth of what my brother stole from the orc clan across Port Carrow's yellow line. The rest gets paid in blood.
Then the Warlord's Enforcer stepped down onto the judgment sand behind me and said one word in front of two hundred orcs.
Mine.
Blade breaks arms and takes fingers on the Warlord's order, and he has never once been angry doing it. He has never claimed anything in his life. Now every male in the Yards can smell a human who belongs to no one, and the only thing standing between me and all of them is an executioner who swears he won't take me until I ask.
I'd rather die than ask. My body didn't get the memo.
Someone inside the clan taught my brother to steal, and they're still in the ledgers. The deeper I dig, the more it's going to cost the monster who claimed me.