It was without question the most wanton thing Ella had ever seen in herlife, and nothing else had ever looked so good, or felt so good, and it was like the pleasure was bubbling inside her, churning and boiling, threatening to escape. And she couldn’t escape, she never wanted to escape, she was being taken by an orc before a looking-glass, kissing him with screaming abandon, and she never, ever wanted it to stop —
“Fuck me,” she was gasping, her entire body shuddering, yearning, on fire. “Fuck me, Natt, fill me, make me a Grisk, yours, please!”
A hard, heated growl burned through his chest, so deep it seemed to vibrate Ella’s whole soul — and then he thrust her up close to the glass, pressing her hands flat against it. His strong hands gripping on her waist, holding her there between him and the glass — and at his first full thrust Ella actually screamed, her body pierced, filled, shocked to furious bursting —
But even as her own pleasure crashed over her, sending her face in the glass pained and howling, Natt’s hunger was still rising, his huge body driving into her again and again, holding her there against the glass as if she weighed nothing. And there was only seeing this, taking this, being this, as Ella was viciously, brutally fucked by a huge, fur-and-gold-covered orc, his sharp teeth scraping hard against her neck, his entire muscled body arching, the gold glinting pure and bright between their joined bodies. It was a gift, a ring, a pledge that could never be ripped asunder —
Natt’s joy came with an almost deafening roar, howling against Ella’s ear, while that invading truth inside her opened wide, and fired. Blasting her in pulse after heated pulse, filling her with his will and his might and his hope and his faith, her Nattfarr of Clan Grisk, her pledge, her own.
Ella’s.
She seemed to drift there for a moment, lost in that, in the truth the glass had shown, in the truth of his kiss. And when those hard hands on her skin finally loosened, setting her on her numb, trembly feet, she could only turn, and slide her arms close around his waist, and bury her face into the swift, beautiful thud of his heartbeat.
“I love you, Natt,” she breathed. “And I want to stay.”
28
She wanted to stay.
Ella’s whole body was trembling in his arms, the words echoing relentless through her thoughts — but even as part of her rebelled against them, another part knew they were true. She would give up everything, her inheritance, her reputation, her home — if it meant she could have this. If she could have Natt.
And this time — Ella drew away, enough to blink up at his frozen face — Natt was the one who was shocked. He was the one who couldn’t seem to speak, his mouth opening and closing, his eyes gone entirely still with a truth Ella couldn’t at all identify.
“I want to stay,” she said again, to those eyes. “I’ll give up everything. If you’ll have me, Natt.”
But he was still staring, his eyes so caught, so still — and there was a sound that might have been a laugh, curdling hoarse from his throat. “I fuck you with a cock-ring this one time,” he said, “and now you shall give all for me? I ought to have done this many years past, lass.”
It was a joke, Natt was making ajoke, about what that had just been — and it felt like a kick, suddenly, choked and forceful against Ella’s chest. Enough that she wrenched away from him, her heart wildly pounding, because what did that mean, what had he just said —
“Wait,” Natt said, his voice thick, his hands gripping tight on Ella’s arms, drawing her back toward him. “Lass. I ought not — this only” — he squeezed his eyes shut, gave a bracing shake of his head — “you have near felled me, with this. I thought you only wished” — he shook his head again, almost as though it hurt this time — “to play at being my mate. I thought this was — a game, for you. Only pleasure. Before you return to yourreallife.”
A game.Pleasure. Ella blinked at him, uncomprehending, because surely he must have seen it was more than that, surely she’d said something, surely — but as she frantically cast her thoughts backwards, there was the comprehension, hurtling and astonishingly cruel, that perhaps she hadn’t. At least not openly, but Natt had always been so intuitive, so understanding, all the things he’d said, show me what is mine, show me you are a Grisk…
“I have,” Ella began, but then gathered her courage, looked him in the eye. She could speak truth. She could.
“I have — struggled, with this,” she said, slowly. “With weighing the rest of my life, and all the things I thought I wanted, against you. And I still” — she took another breath — “I still want my home. I still want to honour my father’s last wishes, and to grant our family’s lands to his grandchildren. And I’m scared of what happens next with Alfred, and this war. But —“
Natt was staring at her, his glittering eyes drawing out her truth, and Ella took another breath, and kept speaking. “But beyond all that, Natt — I wantyou. I love you. And I will give up everything else, to keep loving you, and being with you, like this.”
The look in Natt’s eyes was so distant, and again so wrong, that it almost hurt to see — but Ella held her gaze there anyway, waiting, while her heart beat faster, wilder, desperate. What was he thinking. What was wrong.
“But a life here with me,Ella,” Natt said, and that was wrong too, he never called her that, ever, “is not only playing and fucking, as we have these past days. It is hard choices. It is risking all for truth, and justice. It is being alone, being hunted, and facingdeath. It is you” — he stepped forward, his eyes suddenly glittering, almost angry — “risking all to bear my sons. To carry on my gift for the years and wars to come.”
But Ella swallowed hard, nodded, kept her eyes to his. “Yes,” she said. “I know, Natt. I will.”
The wrongness was still there, still glittering, still so breathtakingly alarming — but without warning Natt clutched for Ella, and roughly yanked her back into his arms. His grip against her so tight it was painful, his body rocking back and forth, his face pressed tight to the top of her head.
“You honour me, lass,” he whispered. “I have neverdreamedthat you should one day speak these truths to me.”
Ella could feel herself slowly relaxing, the jagged tension unspooling deep under her skin, and even more when Natt’s oddly shaky hands drew her face up, and he gave her one of his sweet, succulent, filthy kisses. And then went back to holding her again, so tight she thought she might break, but there was only relief, only sinking into it, into him. He did want her, after all. It would befine.
“We must needs speak more of this tonight,” Natt said firmly. “But I am now late for my first Revel. Shall you” — he drew back, his eyes blinking — “come join me there, and stand bravely by my side, and greet my brothers with kindness and with truth? As a true Speaker’s mate would?”
Ella nodded, and even tried for a smile, and Natt slowly smiled back, sharp-toothed, true. And then grasped for his lamp and led Ella toward the door, leaving yet another unholy mess in the storage-room behind them.
“So what’s the reason for the ring, anyway?” Ella made herself ask, as they walked. “To impress all your subjects with your alarmingly large genitalia?”
She’d cast a furtive, appreciative glance down toward Natt’s kilt, which was still noticeably tented in front, but he only laughed, and shook his head. “Did you not see, my filthy lass,” he said, “what the reason for this was? Did you not see yourself squealing in the glass for me?”
