He continued to walk away from her until he heard her call after him.

“She killed him! She killed my brother! She should have been with him!" Her attempts at seduction crumbled into a pained cry of outrage.

He stopped and turned to look at her. She stood naked and alone; her eyes gleaming with tears that she wouldn't let fall. The facade had slipped. Her expression doused the rage burning in his heart, and he felt a swell of pity for her

“Iam Algra's. She is mine." He spoke without anger, but instead offering the cold truth of the matter.

“You are a great fighter, Ulla. It would be an honour to fight beside you, but your anger drives you too far."

“My anger will one day lead to your mate‘s death pyre!" she hissed.

“No, it won't." He said simply.

“You're dangerous, Ulla. But you're not dishonourable enough to knife her in the back, or poison her. You want to kill her out in the open for what she did. You want your people to know that you're better than her. Except you're not better than her. I've fought Algra. I've fought you. You're not even in her class. Maybe you will be one day, but not until you get past this. Christ, just Look at you. Out here trying to seduce a Lowly, unproven human just to try and make yourself feel that you're better than her. I don't know what the hell happened between her and your brother, and it's not my business to get in the middle of it. You want to be my mate? No. You want to rejoin us? Fine. Just show up prepared to work and take orders. I'm done here."

He turned away from her then; half expecting her to scream and curse at him. It wouldn't have been beyond her to try and attack him with all that fury she kept boiling inside her. Yet he only heard silence in the glade behind him, and no attack ever came.

Ok, that's two ultimatums delivered, he thought to himself. Why don't you go for the hat-trick and march up to the north and tell the demon hordes to piss off back to the dark realms whilst you're at it?

Just as he was letting out a breath to relieve some pent-up frustration, he walked in amongst the trees and almost crashed head-first into ULf.

“What the fuck!?" Gregory yelled when he found the orc stood directly in his path. "ULf? Shit, sorry. I was off in my own Little world there for a minute. What the hell are you doing here?"

“I came to find you when you did not return as soon as you said you would. The slaves of your camp prepared a small feast, but we didn't want to begin without you." The alpha's tone was dangerously cool.

“Right, well you found me. Let's go." He tried to walk past ULf only to find himself getting shoved back in front of the orc.

“What? What is it now?" Gregory was rapidly becoming irritated with the seemingly semi-professional road block in front of him.

“You were with ULLa. I saw you there."

Gregory let out a dry Laugh.

“Hah! Yeah. There was another dose of crazy and-"

The punch was so unexpected that Gregory didn't move in the slightest to defend himself. It connected squarely on his jaw with all the force ULf could seemingly muster. Hurtling backward, he fell squarely on his back and tried to make sense of the world as it had started spinning and wouldn't stop. Eventually, after a lot of spluttering and spitting forest Leaves out of his mouth, he managed to find his voice.

“What in the hell do you think you're playing at!?" He yelled, but when he looked up to face Ulf, and quite possibly to attempt to beat the living shit out of him, he saw only an empty path.

“Shit," Gregory muttered to himself.

“That is all I fucking need.“

He returned to the encampment to the sound of Nullik's cheer.

“He's here! Fucking finally!" the orc yelled with glee on seeing Gregory; lifting a tankard of his beer up to salute the returnee.

“Yeah, I don't suppose ULf is around, is he?"