And it was — surprising. Not at all like the cave they’d hunkered in, drippy and craggy and full of loose rocks. Instead, this was an actualroom, with four slightly curving walls of smooth grey stone, and a flat, high stone ceiling. The floor was smooth stone too, and set upon it were several furnishings, including a small wooden table and chair. And Ella was currently — she glanced downwards — sitting on an actualbed, a simple one, but covered over with layers of soft, silken furs.
When she blinked back at Natt, he looked almost — uneasy, as if waiting for her to run off screaming for the men, after all. But Ella felt herself give him a rueful smile, drinking in the sight of his messy braid, his flushed-looking cheeks, and — her head tilted — his wounds that now looked almost negligible, but for the still-ugly gash on his leg.
“Oh, you’re lookingsomuch better, Natt,” she said, with an impulsive brush of her hand to his arm. “Do you feel better, too?”
He gave a slow nod, still looking oddly wary, and Ella shot another quick, curious glance around the room. “Is this room yours?” she asked. “It’s lovely. Very cozy.”
Natt’s eyes blinked, once, but then he shook his head. “It is for any Grisk, who wishes for a night of peace. My own rooms are deeper in the Grisk wing.”
“Yourrooms?” Ella echoed, with another impulsive smile. “How very extravagant of you, Nattfarr.”
He twitched a smile back, but gave a rolling shrug of his shoulder. “They are my father’s rooms,” he said. “For the Speaker, so that he may meet with other Grisk in safety, and hear their words. And so he may offer refuge to any who need it, and house his guard and his mate close.”
His guard. Hismate. That word sent a strange twist through Ella’s belly, but she fought to ignore it, shove it back. “Your guard?” she made herself say instead. “As in, another orc? To protect you?”
“Ach,” Natt replied, his eyes settling on the wall beyond her. “But more than one. My father had eight orcs in his guard. I shall soon have four, should the Captain allow this.”
Ella studied him, considering that, her hand tightening against his arm. “Why only soon, and not now? And why does your — Captain — get to decide? Is this still the same horrible Captain you used to talk about?”
Because she could remember, a bit foggy now, how Natt had spoken of the orcs’ powerful, brutal Captain. Of how this Captain and Natt’s father had often been at one another’s throats, and how there had been grudges, and thefts, and vicious battles between them. How Natt’s father had held the Grisk orcs’ loyalty in his sway, and how this awful Captain had needed that, and hated it.
“No, this Captain is not the same,” Natt said, his voice clipped. “He is Kaugir’s son, and a far wiser orc than his father. But he yet does not wish to have one with power standing between him and the Grisk. He does not wish to hear our true voices, or be forced to heed them.”
Ella’s hand reflexively stroked at Natt’s arm, her eyes still caught on his face, the bitterness in his voice. “But maybe that will change soon?” she asked. “If he’s willing to grant you your guard? That would help against Al — I mean, your hunters — too, wouldn’t it?”
And gods curse her, because the displeasure flared across Natt’s form, his eyes shuttering, his jaw taut and tense. “Mayhap,” he said, the word purposely vague. “Do you hunger, lass? We ought to eat.”
With that, he lurched to his feet, and strode over toward the small table. He was entirely unclothed, Ella belatedly noticed, his high arse-muscles smoothly rolling as he walked. And as he turned to drop his naked body into the chair, he gave Ella a full, unbroken view of — everything.
She swallowed hard, blinking at the sight, because despite all that they’d done so far, she still hadn’t seen —this. His body so tall and lean and powerful, every scar and ridge and muscle lined stark and shadowed in the lamplight. The broad shoulders, the rippled abdomen, the hollows at his hips, the capable thickness of his thighs and calves, and — most compelling of all — the half-hard heft of his tapered grey cock, jutting out from that mass of black hair, with a pair of obscenely large bollocks bulging below.
Natt knew Ella was looking, the bastard, and as she watched, he settled his body on the chair, sprawling his legs wider. And then — she nearly choked — his clawed hand dropped to that cock, circling around it, and stroking up.
Damn. Ella’s breath was already coming out thick and shuddery, her eyes caught on this audacious, impossibly fascinating sight. On how he was growing thicker and longer with every sure stroke of his hand, and how that viscous white seed was already pooling at the tip.
“It pleases you, to feast your eyes upon me thus,” came Natt’s voice, thudding straight to Ella’s groin. “Does it not, lass?”
A furtive glance at his eyes showed them looking hard and intent toward her, and Natt gave a casual, imperious wave of his other hand. Meaning, get up — so Ella did, standing shaky to her bare feet beside the bed.
“Speak this,” he said, his voice cool, commanding. “And come. Stand here before me.”
Ella immediately obeyed, as though compelled, even as she winced at the surprising soreness in her legs, and deep up between them. But Natt’s eyes only watched, glittering, unrepentant, as that shocking hand kept sliding slow and deliberate up his thick length, again and again.
“Speak,” he said again, harder this time. “This is a lesson you must learn, lass. You wished for this.”
And had Ella wished for this —that? Truly? But looking at his imperious, half-lidded eyes, at his still-stroking hand, she realized that yes, good gods, she had. She’d said, do with me as you will. And Natt, of course, would want any number of shocking things. And Ella had known that, andwantedthat.
“Very well,” she heard her voice say, her tongue thick in her mouth. “Um. It, um, pleases me. To see you thus.”
Natt’s free hand gave another commanding little wave, meaning more, keep talking, so Ella drew in air, drew herself tall. “You’re, um, very — fit,” she said. “Very, um, virile. Good at this. Like you are with everything, really. And your —seed, I —“
It was stringing from the tip of him, now, in a long unbroken strand of mouthwatering white, and as Ella stared, his hand pumped out more, bubbling it out thick and lewd and utterly enthralling. “You what, lass,” Natt’s low voice hissed. “You long for this? You long for me to coat you with it, yet again? To spew it all over your bared, filthy little form?”
Gods in heaven, Elladid, and she gave a swift, heated glance downwards, to the thick streaks of white already painted over her naked belly, and her breasts. Which looked utterlydebauched, suddenly, her peaked, painted nipples jutting out flushed and humiliating toward him.
“Yes, Natt,” Ella choked out, appalled, ashamed. “I long for this. I long for you to — to cover me with you. To make me as — asfilthyas you might wish.”
Her face was burning, and there was the sudden, almost deafening urge to cover herself, to hide from her own thoroughly shocking words — but Natt was groaning, deep and guttural, his eyelashes fluttering, his hand jerking up his swollen length with sudden, desperate force.
