To Rosa’s surprise, John’s tour of Orc Mountain began not with mines, or forges, or chaotic scenes of vicious orcs battling together — but with a stop back in that same trading-room with Hanarr.
“We need food and drink,” John announced to Hanarr, without so much as a hello. “Aught fresh that you have, brother.”
Hanarr seemed inordinately pleased by the request, scuttling at once around his rows of shelves, while also casting furtive, bright-eyed glances over his shoulder toward Rosa. “Ach, this shall please you, John-Ka,” he called, from behind a shelf. “And you, Lady Rosa-Ka.”
John visibly winced at that, but otherwise only stood there, his claws impatiently tapping on the counter, until Hanarr returned bearing a basket that appeared to be overflowing with food. “Here, John-Ka,” he said proudly. “Berries, and nuts, and dried meat, for Lady Rosa-Ka!”
John winced again, but curtly thanked Hanarr for his efforts. And then, rather than taking Rosa elsewhere to eat — a dining room, perhaps, or even his bedroom — he bodily plopped her up onto the counter before him, and thrust the basket into her hands.
“Eat,” he ordered. “Slowly, so you are not ill.”
Rosa likely should have protested the manhandling, or the ordering, but her eyes were already roving over the basket’s contents, her stomach audibly grumbling. The food mostly seemed edible, if rather unusual — the nuts weren’t anything she’d seen before — and after another impatient wave of John’s hand, she carefully began to eat.
John’s eyes didn’t leave her the entire time, even as he and Hanarr launched into some kind of discussion about supply lines and product sourcing, studded through with occasional words of black-tongue — or, rather, Aelakesh. Rosa listened with interest as she ate, particularly noting the assumed authority in John’s voice and manner, and the surprising way Hanarr deferred to all he said.
“Um, do youcommandHanarr?” she asked John, once she’d finished eating, and he was once again leading her through the dark corridor, lantern in hand. “And your mountain’ssupply chains?”
“This is only the Ka-eshsupply chain,” John replied vaguely, without quite looking at her. “Now come. Next I wish to take you to my medics.”
Hismedics? That odd statement was accompanied by a sharp turn into another room, which — Rosa blinked — sherecognized. It was the medical clinic John had brought her to the other night, when he’d made anexampleof her to Efterar and his friends. Or hislovers, or whatever the hell they were.
And one of those lovers washere. The tall, scar-eyed one named Salvi, leaning over a workbench, and mixing something in a bottle. While across the room another slim, smooth-faced orc was bent over an open book, and writing inside it.
Rosa’s feet had begun dragging, her eyes lingering first on that table in the middle of the room, and next on this Salvi, who was currently flashing her a wary, sharp-toothed smile. As if he hadn’t recently seen her naked and exposed in this very room, and then tried to bodily prevent her fromleaving.
“This is Eben, one of my medics,” John said, gesturing toward the new orc, who was giving Rosa a careful nod. “And Salvi you have met.”
Rosa mutely nodded toward both Eben and Salvi, though she felt her feet edging sideways, back toward the door. A movement that Salvi seemed to notice, and he abruptly strode forward, clutching his bottle in a hand that somehow, suddenly, bore no claws.
“Ach, woman,” Salvi said, still with that hesitant smile. “I know we haven’t met on the best of terms, and for this, I ask your forgiveness. We Ka-esh aren’t yet at ease with women in our home, and” — he glanced at John — “of all our brothers, we didn’t expectJohnto be the first to bring a woman here.”
He offered Rosa another smile, quick and hopeful, and she felt her resistance thawing — at least, until she grasped one of the possible implications of that last statement. “And was that because,” she said, before she could seem to stop it, “because John already had, er,obligations, toyou? Or, um” — she cleared her throat — “to Tristan?”
Salvi blinked at her, once, and then shot John a look that Rosa couldn’t at all read. “Ach, John and I know better than to seek such now, with each other,” he replied, his voice not quite light. “I ken I would tear his head off, and he my prick.”
But he hadn’t said anything about Tristan, Rosa noted, as her cursed brain darted back to what John had said about Salvi and his mate. He fucked her before us each night. There was great joy in this…
Salvi loudly cleared his throat, and then thrust out the bottle he’d been holding toward Rosa. “A gift for you, woman,” he said, with a joviality that felt slightly forced. “Drink up.”
Rosa eyed the bottle with misgiving — it was dark brown, so the contents were anyone’s guess — and John nudged it purposefully toward her. “It is a kind of milk we have made, that shall help you grow stronger,” he said. “You have already drunk this, in my bed, and welcomed it. It shall not sicken you.”
Rosa tentatively took the bottle, and gave a careful sniff. “What’s in it?”
“Milk from the Ash-Kai’s new goats, mostly,” Salvi said promptly, with a wink. “And a bit more. Naught that’ll harm you.”
John was guiding it toward her again, now with that telltale stubbornness in his eyes. “This is a proven remedy for weakness, pet,” he said firmly. “We have studied this at length with both orclings and women. Salvi has marked all this in his books, should you wish to read these later.”
Oh. Well. Rosa’s resolve was again faltering — especially if they’d actuallyresearchedit, and documented it properly — so she carefully brought the bottle to her lips, and tasted it. It was indeed the same thing she vaguely remembered drinking in John’s bed, and it actuallywasn’tterrible, and once she’d finished it, she was rewarded with a satisfied rub of John’s hand against her back.
“Good little pet,” he said, low and approving, sending an unexpected jolt of goosebumps up Rosa’s spine. “Now, Salvi shall survey you.”
Beingsurveyed, it turned out, apparently meant the same thing as being measured and weighed. Rosa meekly obliged this time, earning more pats and murmured praise from John in reward, and she was almost disappointed when Salvi finished, turning away to write a long list of numbers on a sheet of paper, and then breaking them into some kind of mathematical equation.
“Well?” John asked, clipped, to Salvi’s back. “Salvi?”
Salvi turned and held out the paper toward John, who snatched it away with surprising force, his narrow eyes scanning down the page. “As we thought,” John said, his voice curiously flat, his hand thrusting the paper back. “Thank you, brother.”
Salvi shrugged with seeming carelessness, and tossed the paper onto the counter. “You might again ask Efterar,” he said offhandedly, though his eyes were intent on John’s. “Or even Sken. They might see aught that we cannot.”
