Was it my imagination, or did his lips twitch before he obediently opened them?
His tusks gleamed.
I couldn’t look away, remembering the stories I’d heard of how they were used as weapons.
What did my sisters and cousin endure even now, as prisoners of these beasts? Had their husbands used these weapons on them? Poor Effie, who had endured so much pain and horror here at Tarbert…
I shuddered.
“Lillian,” he whispered, and my eyes closed.
“I am sorry.” Why was I apologizing to aprisoner? “I was thinking about my sisters.” Why was I explaining myself?
“The ones Mated to Bladesedge orcs?”
Mated. Was that their equivalent of marriage?
I shook my head, forcing myself to my task. Scooping up a spoonful of pork and vegetable pottage, I offered it to him.
“Sorcha is married to their chief,” I managed to say before his tongue snaked out toward the spoon.
Gasping, I almost spilled the spoon’s load as I jerked away from the sight, but recovered enough to shove it closer to his mouth. The orc’s tongue was a pale green, much wider than a man’s…andridged. His tongue wasridged, with concentric ribs flowing from the tip, and flexible, considering how easily he drew the pottage into his mouth.
I’d never seen anything like it.
I also hadn’t expected him to groan in what sounded like pleasure, his eyes fluttering closed as he chewed.
“More,” he croaked, opening his mouth, his eyes still closed.
I spoon-fed him the stew bit by bit, watching in astonished fascination at the way his mouth and injured jaw moved, the way that tongue lapped up the drops from his lips and tusks and the spoon itself.
The poor male must be starved.
Nay, notpoor male. He was a prisoner, aye? A violent beast.
A wounded beast, mayhap, but he has a name.
Aye. Kragorn.
His head jerked up and his eye opened. The right one was still swollen shut, angry and purple…but the other eye gazed right at me. I startled at the spark of green in the center.
“What?” I bleated stupidly.
“I thought ye said my name?”
I blinked. I’dthoughtit, but there’d been no way he might have heard my thought…could he? Was he a mind-reader as well?
Shaking my head, I dropped the spoon into the empty bowl and pressed my fingertips to my temple. His gaze followed, and I read concern there.
“Thank ye, Lillian. The stew was the best I’ve had since I left home. Ye flavored it the same way my grandmother does.”
“Really?” Despite my certainty I needed to remain aloof, I realized I was falling back on my lessons of politeness and deportment, and I forced myself to turn, to deposit the bowl and occupy my hands with pouring more tea.
“I learned that spice combination from my mother.”
“Then she must have been from Sterling.”
I whirled, eyes wide.
