She spent the next half-hour plucking out the books one by one, and after some direction from Tristan, translating their titles into John’s well-organized master catalogue. Next she pulled out that book of recipes, frowning down at the page with its delightful squirrel stew — and then she deliberately put it back, and drew out another one instead.
It led to her working quietly and companionably at the table across from Tristan, making thorough use of all the writing and binding supplies John had acquired for her. Some of them were clearly rather makeshift, and not to the standards she was accustomed, but she persevered, and soon was in possession of a half-dozen pricked, ruled, and folded quires, clean and ready for copying.
The translating itself was the fun part, especially given the many curious — and often highly amusing — expressions the orc author had used. Rosa frequently had to ask Tristan for guidance, but he didn’t seem to mind, and as the afternoon slipped by, it occurred to Rosa that again, she was actuallyenjoyingherself. Enjoying being trapped in Orc Mountain’s library, doing intensive labour on the orcs’ behalf, while trading genial comments back and forth with a kind, handsome, soft-spoken orc who may or may not have also been receiving John’s —attentions.
But Rosa successfully managed to shove that thought away too, along with multiple other equally uncomfortable misgivings. And by the time John returned, several hours later, it was almost easy to smile up at him, and even to reach a hand to slide against his waist.
“You’re back!” she said. “Did you have a productive afternoon? What have you been up to?”
John’s eyes bore a decidedly wolfish cast, flicking up and down Rosa’s form. “Ach, much,” he said absently, as his hand came to rest on her shoulder, his claws drumming lightly against her skin. “What work have you done, pet?”
His gaze dropped to the table, his brow furrowing, and Rosa accordingly brandished one of her new quires at him, feeling her cheeks inexplicably heating. “Well,” she began, “I know you wanted the recipe book, and those repairs to your broken bindings, but Tristan helped me catalogue all the Osadan books” — she shot him a swift smile across the table — “and after that, I thought you might rather have a translation of this one, to begin.”
John had carefully taken her quire into his hands, blinking down at the title she’d neatly written at the top.A Treatise on the Gainful Birthing of Orclings.
“It’s a midwifery manual,” Rosa said brightly, “with a variety of case studies. It discusses a variety of manual techniques and herbal remedies to reduce the maternal mortality rate, though of course” — she grimaced — “that’s mostly with the aim of getting more children out of a single woman. Typical males, right? However, it does talk about one poor woman in Osada who apparently birthedseventotal orclings, can you imagine? I haven’t actually translated that part yet — it’ll likely take me another few days to get that far — but I thought it was relevant, don’t you?”
She belatedly realized she was babbling, and decisively clamped her mouth shut, while an unaccountable anxiety marched through her brain. What if John would have preferred the repairs, or the book of recipes. What if this had been overstepping, or foolish, or useless…
Tristan gave a faint cough from across the table, a sound that snapped John’s gaze up toward him, eyes narrowed — but then Rosa could see his throat convulse, his eyes darting back to her face. Looking almost — stunned. Bewildered. Wondering.
“I did not,” he began, and he visibly swallowed again, “know that this book was here. In my library.”
Something warm was bubbling up in Rosa’s belly, and she flashed him another quick smile. “Of course not,” she said. “How would you, if you hadn’t been taught Osadan? I mean, it’s an awfully tricky language even with an accomplished teacher, it probably took me three years to get the verb conjugations right, and even now I still really need to think about it.”
John was still looking at her, his eyes almost painfully intent — but then he dropped his gaze back to her quire, and carefully flipped through it with his claw. Scanning Rosa’s lines of neat, flawless script, covering page after page.
“How many languages,” he asked, his voice very even, “have you learnt, pet?”
Rosa shrugged, though her face still felt hot. “Only three, really,” she said. “The common-tongue, and Osadan, and Albajan. I can read a fair bit of Kraitish, but not well. And, I suppose” — she rifled through the papers on the table, and snatched up her sheet of writing from earlier that day — “now I’m learning Aelakesh, aren’t I, Tristan?”
Tristan answered with a gratifying smile, which John didn’t see, as he was too busy frowning at Rosa’s new sheet of neat Aelakesh script. “Ach,” he said, the sound deep in his throat. “This is all — yours?”
He shot a look at Tristan that might have been accusing, but Tristan was nodding back, a single eyebrow slightly arched. To which John visibly swallowed again, and squared his shoulders, and fixed his eyes back on Rosa.
“This is good, pet,” he said. “Your work pleases me.”
The warmth seemed to lick all the way up Rosa’s body, from her feet to her face, and she couldn’t help another quick, sheepish grin toward him. “It really hurt you to say that, didn’t it?” she said lightly. “Don’t deny it, John, you look like you’ve just eaten rotten squirrel.”
There was a choked sound from Tristan at the table, and an unmistakable, deeply satisfying quirk at the corner of John’s mouth. “Rude little pest,” he said, even as his hand rose to cup at her cheek, brief, approving. “Next time, you shall bow your pretty head, and say, thank you, my lord.”
Rosa couldn’t help a peal of laughter, another flush of warmth at that thrilling wordpretty. “I shallnot, you devious reprobate. I knowexactlywhere this leads.”
“Ach, do you?” he asked, his brows rising. “Then I ken you shall welcome this, my hungry little pet, and beg me for more.”
Rosa’s clever retort was swallowed in the surge of sheer, breathtaking craving — and of course John knew it, the asshole, flashing her a smug, dazzling smile. “Now come,” he said firmly, as he reached for the lamp on the table. “You must eat. I shall show you the kitchen, and if you behave, after this I may reward you.”
Rosa did her best to behave — how could she not, with an incentive likethat— and she accordingly stayed close to John’s side, asking her questions of him quietly, and smiling politely as he introduced her to any number of strange and alarming new orcs. She even met another actualwoman, by the name of Stella, who seemed perfectly content to be publicly manhandled by her mate — a massive Bautul orc called Silfast who, Rosa decided, was quite possibly the most hideous living being she had ever seen, and who she still managed to greet with a smile.
“Was I good enough?” she asked John, once they were finally back on his bed, and she was running her hands up and down his delicious form. Even taking the liberty of tugging off his tunic, a presumption that he didn’t seem to mind, only raising his arms above his head, and watching her with hungry, half-lidded eyes.
“Ach, you were fair, pet,” he said, all cool imperious command. “And you asked me only sixteen questions through all this. As your reward” — he waved an insolent hand toward his tented groin — “you may suckle me.”
Rosa protested and elbowed at him, laughing, and despite her best attempts at resistance, she soon found herself indeed kneeling over him, frantically suckling his bounty while he moaned and bucked up into her throat.
“Good pet,” he breathed afterwards, without prompting, his lashes fluttering at the ceiling. “Ach, your throat is so sweet, little rose.”
The resulting warmth seemed to envelop Rosa all over, lasting not only that night, but all throughout the next day. A day where she purposely refused to think about wars or Lord Kaspar at all, and instead focused only on learning.
