Rosa risked another look up at John, who gave her a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. “But during this, Efterar shall allow Salvi’s help,” John said flatly. “Ach?”
John had glanced sharply between Efterar and Salvi as he spoke, hinting at some meaning Rosa couldn’t follow — and in return Efterar sighed, and rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine,” he snapped, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t truly fine at all. “Now could you please lie down, Rosa?”
It didn’t seem worth it to argue, so Rosa obediently clambered up to lie on the table, tugging down her loose tunic. Almost like the few times she’d visited a physician during her schooling, and the unexpected familiarity was strangely reassuring, despite the hard, unforgiving stone at her back, and the fact that four huge orcs were now looming tall and deadly over her.
“May I touch you?” Efterar asked, making Rosa twitch — but John’s hand had come to her shoulder, giving a slight squeeze. Saying yes, do this, be brave, please me — and Rosa immediately, frantically nodded, bringing a look to Efterar’s ugly face that might have almost been amused.
But the first touch of Efterar’s hands — somehow, oddly enough, without claws — to Rosa’s waist over her tunic was careful, distant, professional. Pressing very gently, and then moving lower, left, right.
“She’s full of your seed all right, brother,” he said, as his hands kept moving. “Did you fully empty yourself?”
John’s fingers spasmed against Rosa’s shoulder, and a glance at his face showed his jaw clenched, his eyes narrow, disapproving. “Ach,” he said, voice flat. “Only once.”
Efterar shrugged, as if that made no difference, and beside him Salvi visibly grimaced. “When were your last courses, woman?” Salvi interjected, curt but businesslike. “Are these constant, each moon?”
Rosa cast her memories backwards, counting days and weeks. “No, they haven’t been regular for a while. Last was a few months ago, I think.”
To Rosa’s vague surprise, Salvi had pulled out a paper and charcoal from somewhere, and was making notes, while Efterar slowly moved his hands up to her collarbone, her neck. His ugly head tilting, eyes distant and thoughtful.
“So what, exactly,” Rosa heard herself say, before she could shut her mouth, “are you doing, right now, Mr. Efterar? With this?”
John’s fingers on her shoulder had clamped tight, but Efterar’s face only looked amused again, his hand moving carefully to the side of her throat, where — Rosa fought to hold herself still — she could feel a distinctive twinge of pain, no doubt due to John’s claws the night before.
“I was born with a certain kind of old power,” Efterar said, now frowning toward her neck. “One that has been threaded throughout the history of my clan. And with this, I can see — or perhaps, more accurately, feel — into other living beings. I can feel what their bodies feel. I can most of all feel pain, or what does not belong.”
That was truly fascinating, Rosa had to admit, especially since it was yet another point that hadn’t been addressed in all her copious reading. The orcs had repeatedly been accused of dark magic, of course, but unsurprisingly, it had all been aimed toward the usual horrible ends, like maiming and ravishing and destroying. Not —healing.
“So you can feel another person’s pain,” Rosa said, “and then what? Can you make it better? Or worse?”
That seemed an excessively powerful — and dangerous — skill, but Efterar nodded again. “There are times when worse is what is wished for,” he said steadily, though Rosa didn’t miss the unmistakable distaste in his voice. “As John says you wish for now.”
Right. Rosa felt herself draw in a heavy breath, her eyes again darting toward John — but he was currently glaring at Efterar, his bottom lip jutting out. “And what Efterar does not like to say,” John snapped, “is that his Ash-Kai magic cannot predict, or understand, or explain. It can only feel, and act, in that moment, and not before, or beyond. It isnotenough.”
Now that was an interesting point, Rosa rather felt, as she glanced toward Salvi, who was still writing intently on his paper, his mouth pursed. Efterar was looking at Salvi too, his eyes narrowed, and his hand abruptly dropped from Rosa’s neck.
“And yet, all the charts and books in this mountain,” he countered, “shall not show you or Salvi all the faint marks you have left on this woman, and the bruising deep in her throat, and between her thighs. It shall not show you the dregs of thefearthat yet linger in her blood.”
Rosa’s face flushed red and hot — Efterar couldseeall that? — and John leaned over her, his eyes flashing with anger, his claws gripping painfully on her skin. “This woman wished for this,” he hissed. “She offered herself to me without prompt or question. She wished to be marked and bared and filled. She wished to choke herself on my prick, and gobble up my seed. Shewishedto be used and frightened by anorc.”
He almost spat out the words, every one seeming to wrench the shame higher, tighter. And when his angry, glittering black eyes dropped down toward her, Rosa felt herself shiver all over, her breath choking in her throat. He was mocking her. Blaming her. Using her…
But the truth of that was blunted, somehow, in the way those eyes were looking at her, in his claws still pressing against her shoulder. In his other hand, abruptly coming up to trace, slow and gentle, down the side of her cheek.
“You wished to be taken,” he said, his voice so smooth, so rational. “You wished to be forced and frightened by a fearsome orc, and used as a silly little plaything.”
Rosa let out a sharp, humiliated gasp, her body twitching reflexively against the hard stone, and above her John’s mouth spread into a dark, dangerous smile, showing all those teeth. “Speak this, woman,” he murmured. “You wished for this. Yes?”
Those claws kept caressing against her cheek, breathtakingly soft, bringing out Rosa’s breath faster, shallower. While his other hand was now sliding against her shoulder, his thumb circling. “And,” he continued, “you yet wish for this now. Do you not?”
There was some kind of reply from Efterar, muttered in the growling black-tongue — but Rosa only had eyes for John, leaning close, safe, protective over her. His hooded gaze finally intent on hers, both those hands touching her with careful reverence, his lips parted, his scent warm and sweet…
“You wish for this,” he purred, as the hand on her shoulder circled downwards, moving ever closer to her heaving breast, and its already-aching nipple. “Yes?”
His eyes were like a flame in the dim candlelight, drawing her nearer, thrusting away at the unease and the shame. Rosadidwish for this, gods she wished for this, how did this cursed orc see so much, know so much, his hand finally,finallybrushing over her hard nipple through the fabric of her tunic…
A choked, shuddering moan escaped from Rosa’s gasping throat, and Johnlikedthat, Johnwantedthat, his black tongue curling against his lips. “Yes?” he breathed. “Shall I show them just what you wish for, little pet?”
Little pet. And it was that, inexplicably, that seemed to whisk away the last of the orcs, the room, the shame. Leaving only this, him, she would be brave, a good little pet, a worthy woman for her orc…
