“This is what it shall be, lass,” came Natt’s voice, hard and menacing against her ear. “Should you yet wish to stay. You shall be used, taken, marked, lain bare. You shall reek all over of my scent. You shall please me, and obey me, and seek to honour me before my brothers. You shall bemine.”
A reflexive shiver chased down Ella’s spine, and she could feel Natt’s watching eyes, prickling against her skin in the dark. Not forcing, not kidnapping, but making her choose. Wanting her voice.
“Inprivate, for — a week,” Ella said, finally, shakily. “And then I’ll go back. I’ll tell everyone I was only here for a visit, to make sure you healed properly. And no one outside the mountain will ever know the truth.EspeciallyAlfred and his men. Right?”
There was an unmistakable tension in that body against her, its weight gone hard and still. “Ach,” he said, his voice distant, careful. “You shall speak as you wish, and I shall not seek to stop you.”
Well. And lying here in the close quiet darkness, with an orc’s hand gripping at her breast, Ella only seemed able to breathe, and nod. It trulywasthe best solution, wasn’t it? They could take vengeance on Alfred together, with this. Ella would please Natt, enjoy Natt, have the surreal, shocking experience of knowing what it was trulylike, to be fully caught in an orc’s thrall, bent to his will.
And when she went back to Alfred, surely it would be easier to face him, after this. Easier to smile at him, and even take him to bed, and think of how appalled he would be, to know what his innocent new wife truly was. To know she’d been used and exposed and ravaged by an orc. To know that she’d done far worse, far more to Alfred, than he could ever do to her.
It would be true vengeance, and it would be shockingly sweet. Especially if Ella could keep meeting Natt in secret, afterward, and taking this for her own. A little like a pet, perhaps, but Natt would soon understand that it wouldn’t be the worst thing, would it?
“And you wouldn’t hurt me, or betray me, in this,” Ella said, quiet, into the darkness. “Would you, Natt?”
There was another instant’s stillness, and then his exhale, harsh against her ear. “I should never wish,” he whispered, “to harm one such as you, lass.”
It was all Ella needed, in that moment, and she felt herself sink closer into him, into this warm quiet safety. They would have their vengeance. And it would bewonderful.
“Then I want to stay, Nattfarr of Clan Grisk,” Ella whispered. “For these next days, I’m yours. Do with me as you will.”
18
Ella slept deep and content that night, held close in Natt’s strong arms, her face buried against his chest. Inhaling his delicious, musky scent with every breath, and knowing, with an odd, fundamental certainty, that she was safe.
At least, until her eyes snapped open, blinking at darkness — and behind them was a vision ofByrne. Byrne’s face, as he’d watched Natt drag Ella into the mountain, and his dog had charged straight toward them.
Shit. Ella winced into the pitch-darkness, and rubbed hard at her eyes. Good gods, how that must have looked. Almost as though Natt hadforcedher to go into the mountain. And Ella should have thought to at least tell Byrne what she was doing, she should have donesomething, right?
Natt had still been lying close beside Ella, their legs intertwined, his arm slung heavy around her. But as her panic kept rising, she could feel him shifting, his hand coming up to slide gentle against her face.
“You are vexed, lass,” he said, gravelly, in her ear. “What is it?”
“Themen,” Ella replied, without hesitation. “Theysawus, Natt. Theyknewyou brought me inside, and I didn’t tell them why. And what if they go back, and say you — youkidnappedme? That’s grounds forwar, Natt!”
And gods, the more Ella considered it, the more she realized just how foolish she’d been. It had been pure madness, last night, stupidity beyond belief. What in the gods’ names had brought on the delusion that one could just decide on a whim to visitOrc Mountain, while one’s betrothed’s men werewatching?
“Do not fear,” Natt’s voice said, harsh in her ear. “I have had news of this, whilst you slept. Our Captain has already met with these men this night, and addressed this, for now.”
Oh. The relief shuddered Ella all over, even as she opened her mouth to ask how such a blatant provocation could possibly beaddressed, and whatfor nowmeant — but Natt’s big hand suddenly pressed heavy over her mouth, while his other hand stroked down her front. To where — Ella winced — her naked body was now covered with a dried, hard-feeling film. Of hisorc-seed.
“You swore to please me, and bemine, whilst you stay,” he murmured, sliding his brazen hand against it. “And thus, you shall no more speak of this, until it must needs be spoken of. I shall not yet have this day’s joy tainted by this man. Do you understand?”
Ella’s urge to ask more questions was almost overpowering, and she took a breath to speak — until she felt the shocking, blaring truth of Natt’steeth. Hovering close against her neck, about to sink deep.Threateningher.
But the chill down Ella’s back wasn’t all fear — not even close — and she felt herself nodding, quick and forceful, against the scrape of his teeth. Earning a grunt of satisfaction from Natt’s mouth, a soft kiss of his mouth to her skin.
“Good,” he said. “Now, feel all this seed upon you, my filthy little lass. You are in much need of a bath.”
Ella blinked, reorienting herself around that, and then tried for an elbow to his stomach. “You devious orc,” she heard herself say. “That wasyourdoing, Nattfarr. Not mine.”
“No?” he asked, the challenge too clear in his voice, as his warm hand went straight for her groin, nudging gentle between her still-parted legs. Spreading her wider open, from where she had somehow seemed to bestuck together, and — Ella gave a low, humiliated gasp — releasing yet another bubbling surge of thick, hot orc-seed from deep inside her, spurting out strong against his too-close hand.
“You again speak false to me, lass,” he murmured, as he again stroked his wet hand up, coating her even more with his mess. “Your hungry womb seeks to spew my seed all over, for all who wish to see.”
Ella gave a hard, betraying shudder against him, and Natt only chuckled, close and satisfied in her ear — and then he eased himself up, drawing her with him. And then — there was light.
He’d lit a lamp, Ella realized, through her squinting eyes. An actual, human-made oil lamp, now burning with a steady flame, lighting up the walls of the room all around them.
