“I broke no law, and no vow,” the orc repeated, his voice mocking. “And you are not even truly Speaker. And thus I have no more to say to you. I shall do with your pretty little brother as I wish.”
With that, he actually yanked his trousers back down, and turned back to the orc who’d been sucking him, and thrust his half-hard cock into his mouth. Giving Natt a very blatant, and very public, fuck-you.
Ella’s shock was tempered with a snapping, furious rage, one that she could see mirrored in Natt’s glittering eyes before her. And when Natt again thrust the lantern toward her, she took it, and then even took an instinctive step backwards, toward the nearest wall.
Natt’s sudden, surging swing at the orc’s face was a blur of sharp black claws and coiled shifting muscle — and though the orc swiftly dodged out of the way, it wasn’t quite quick enough, and Natt’s claw had caught his cheek, the long stripe already pooling with red blood.
The room had gone abruptly, wholly still, as the orc’s head slowly turned, his eyes fixing on Natt with a bare, bitter hatred — and then, with astonishing speed, he leapt around, and tackled Natt bodily to the floor. Their combined weight slamming against stone with a sickening thud, their arms and claws punching and swinging and driving into muscle and bone.
Ella clapped her hand to her mouth, and she backed up further against the wall, her eyes darting at the orcs all around, who were surely this orc’s friends. But none of them had made any move to participate, though they were all watching with undeniable interest, and many of them had moved away, as if to give Natt and the orc more room, as if this shocking scene actually had theirblessing.
And while Ella knew nothing about brawling, and her heart was currently fighting to escape out her throat, even she could see that Natt was good at this, quick and forceful and utterly determined. And while the other orc was good at it too, just as fast and aggressive, he was fighting to defeat Natt, while Natt was only fighting to grasp at the orc’s neck, at his thick spiked hair —
It was when the orc had slammed Natt down onto his back, his fist upraised to punch straight down, that Natt’s hands gripped for the orc’s head, and wrenched it toward him. And again, Ella could feel the familiar snapping flare of his magic — and suddenly everything was still. The two orcs’ bodies held in place, their eyes locked, the only movement their harsh, shuddering breaths.
“Now, Skaap,” Natt said, with astonishing coolness, “we shall Speak, before our brothers’ eyes. And since I am a patient Speaker, I shall give you leave to choose. Do you wish to vow to me that you shall never again touch one who is not of age? Or do you wish to tell us of the youngest orc you have taken? The youngest Skai, mayhap? Mayhap even a brother, or a son, to one who hears us now?”
The tension seemed to crackle through the room, and a darting glance around showed the watching orcs now looking shifty, suspicious, perhaps even angry. Their eyes held thankfully not on Natt, but on their still-silent brother, and Ella couldn’t deny a distant, shaky relief at the sight. So even if these orcswereall blatantly debauched exhibitionists, at least there weresomerules around all this, some things that were still sacred, after all.
“As ifyouhave a right to judge this, Speaker,” the orc panted at Natt, though his face was slick with sweat, his eyes held wide to Natt’s below him. “We all know how you gained the Bautul to your side, when you were yet young and fair. How many of them had you? Forty? Fifty?”
The fear and the disgust surged in Ella’s gut, because she now knew that Natt was caught in this, he had to speak truth too — but his eyes on the orc above him didn’t even flinch. “Ach,” he said coolly, “and those who have not yet tasted my vengeance for their sins shall soon do so, when our Captain makes me Speaker of this mountain. Now, you shall speak this vow, Skaap. Or else tell us this orc’s name.”
His voice had deepened as he spoke, unfurling steady and powerful through the room, and Skaap’s big body was visibly trembling, his eyes bulging wide as he stared at Natt below him. As if he was fighting to escape, but there was no escaping, and Ella could see his mouth opening, his breath dragging deep —
“I shall not touch one who is not of age again,” he said, in a rush. “This I vow, before all my brothers.”
There was a brief, hanging stillness, the orc’s eyes finally squeezing shut, his head giving a hard, bracing shudder — and Natt easily shoved him off to the side, and leapt back to his feet, his claws out, his body giving a rippling shake. Looking suddenly huge, powerful, dangerous, deadly.
“I seek a strong Skai who will train with Timo, and teach him your ways with naught in return,” he said, to the room at large. “Who shall grant me this kindness, in the face of your brother’s sins?”
There was an instant’s silence, dark eyes darting all around. And then, across the room, the first orc Ella had seen — the huge one who’d so insolently watched her as he’d taken his brother’s arse, and who, she realized with a shock, was slowly and silentlystilldoing so— raised his head from what he was doing, and nodded.
“I shall,” he said, in a heavily accented voice. “Start in morning.”
Natt gave a curt nod toward the orc, and finally reached back toward Ella, grasping her hand in his. “I thank you, Simon,” he said, as he led her back toward the door. “I shall remember this, and seek the Skai’s lost truths on your behalf, when I am Speaker.”
The orc gave a solemn nod back, his eyes briefly holding to Natt’s, more truth flaring between them — and then Natt turned and stalked out of the room, dragging Ella behind him into the blessed emptiness of the corridor. While Ella blinked blankly at his stiff back, his square shoulders, had that awful Skaap orc saidfifty, he had, hehad—
And without at all meaning to, Ella darted up behind Natt, and slid her arms around his waist. Drawing him to a halt, in the midst of the corridor, so that she could hug him as tightly as she could, pressing her still-blinking eyes into the hot strength of his back.
“You’re such a wise, generous orc, Nattfarr of Clan Grisk,” she whispered, choked, into his back. “Your brothers should be so grateful, to have you as their Speaker.”
Natt made a sound that might have been a scoff, but she could feel the tension seeping away from him, his big body sagging into the touch of her arms. “Most of them shall be glad when I am killed,” he said, with a sigh. “Just as the Captain shall be. I am indeed but a thorn, to them all.”
But Ella’s thoughts had flicked to that young orc in the corridor, to the true gratefulness in his eyes. “Yes, but they stillneedyou,” she said firmly. “Whether they know it or not. You cannot die, Nattfarr of Clan Grisk. I utterly forbid it.”
And thank the gods, that was the sound of a chuckle, rumbling from his throat. “Ach, well, ifyouforbid this, lass,” he said, finally turning his body around, settling his arms warm against her back, “I shall have no choice but to heed it.”
And blinking up at him, at the sudden dangerous warmth in those eyes, it occurred to Ella, far too strong, that this, too, was why Natt needed a mate so much. Why that room had shown those twelve generations of families, with those barely clothed women standing so staunchly and brazenly by their orcs.
The Speaker made enemies. The Speaker stood for truth and justice, against his own kin. And the Speaker needed someone always on his side. Someone, like he’d said, who he could trust. Someone who would support him in his goals. Someone who wouldn’t eventhinkto wear his enemy’s ring, after he had so carefully dressed her as his own.
He needed someone like Ella, of Clan Grisk.
Ella couldn’t seem to stop considering that as the rest of the day passed, as Natt kept guiding her around the mountain, introducing her to his countless brothers, and showing her his home’s many disparate, curious, stone-walled rooms. More shrines, more sparring-rooms, and also trading-rooms and meeting-rooms and brightly lit forges. And, most plentiful of all, more rooms with beds and tables and orcs cavorting, more shocking sights that had, in their ubiquity, almost ceased to be shocking, to Ella’s blinking eyes.
Natt, of course, seemed to be shocked by nothing at all — but again, watching him with his brothers, Ella could feel that it still wasn’t easy, on either side. That even as most of these orcs did seem to respect him, and acknowledge his role as Speaker, they also regarded him with a consistent, unmistakable fear. The Grisk were clearly the most comfortable with him, generally speaking and meeting his eyes with ease — but across the other four clans, no matter how lightly or kindly Natt spoke, no matter how often he laughed, most orcs still looked at him with shifty, askance glances, avoiding his touch and his eyes. So much that Ella could almost taste Natt’s tension, and his increasing tiredness, or perhaps even loneliness, as the day passed.
