“I wish you to leave all this shame, pet,” he said, soft, but firm. “You shall obey me, in this.”
“Only if you leave it too,” Rosa countered, bumping his nose with hers. “And be the devious, calculating,deviantorc that you truly are. Complete with claws, and teeth, and alamp-postbetween your legs.”
John’s growl wasn’t angry, but pleased, warm,hungry. “You shall watch your words, pet,” he breathed. “Else thislamp-postmay teach you to do so.”
And Rosa was a good pet, such a good pet, because she only gasped, and smiled sweetly, and kissed him. “I am here to learn, my lord,” she said. “Do your worst.”
24
Over the next few days, Rosa threw herself headlong into her strange, surreal new existence. She wasn’t a spy, or a university librarian, or a lord’s secret mistress. She wasn’t, for now, even an orc’s mistake. Instead, she was a Ka-esh pet, coddled and protected and obedient, living only to serve her lord, and to meet his every whim with a smile.
Surely, it helped that John’s whims weren’t particularly onerous, and that they consistently seemed to accommodate Rosa’s own preferences. If John wished to provide lavish breakfasts each morning, and then readThe Lady Brightto her in bed while she ate, what fault was there to find in that? If he insisted she study Aelakesh with Tristan and Simon until noon each day, and then spend her afternoons reading, puttering around the library, and working on her own book projects as she wished, how could she complain about that, either? And if he took her in bed each night — carefully avoiding that one particular kind of pleasure, but making thorough, glorious, repeated use of everything else — surely that wasn’t worth protesting over, either?
The only thing there was to complain about — beyond the constant churning mess shoved deep into Rosa’s brain, and which had begun to reek distinctly of guilt — was John’s work. Work which he’d continued to keep Rosa carefully separate from, speaking only in the vaguest of terms of meetings, and deadlines, and various ongoing projects. Making it quite clear to Rosa, without clearly speaking of it at all, that no matter what a good, obedient, worthy pet she was, he still didn’t want her involved in his day-to-day activities. Especially when it had anything to do with the men, and the looming threat of war.
Even Tristan and Simon had become surprisingly tight-lipped about the situation with the men, to the point where Tristan had told Rosa, in stilted tones, that it might be best to ask her questions of John-Ka. And when she had tried asking Jule — who continued to stop by the library almost daily to chat — Jule only rolled her eyes, and muttered darkly about damned fool lords who couldn’t leave well enough alone, and who would be better off spending their limited time and money on their neglected wives and children, or lacking that, their horses.
“Do you really need to workagain,my lord?” Rosa tried asking John again, late one night in his bed. “What could possibly be so important?”
Her voice had come out low and lazy, her hands stroking his bare shoulders with contented, familiar ease. She’d just spent a good half-hour sucking him off, during which he’d dragged her lower half fully around on top of him, so that he could take her with his tongue at the same time. It had been utterlyspectacular, and at this moment, Rosa just wanted to revel in the loose-limbed satisfaction of it, of her lord looking at her with such easy, tolerant eyes.
“Ach, I must,” he said, but there was true reluctance in his voice, in the wry twist on his mouth. “There is much I must yet address today.”
Rosa was getting better at gauging days and nights in the perpetual dark of the mountain — the orcs kept consistent schedules in many ways, from mealtimes to the hours fires stayed lit, and John had continued to take her to his Ka-esh sunroom on a regular basis — and Rosa halfheartedly jabbed at his bare chest with a finger. “It’s not today, it’stonight,” she corrected him. “And there’salwayssomething you need to address. Even orcs need to sleepsometime, John-Ka.”
John dismissed that entirely reasonable point with a careless shrug, though his eyes darted a telling glance across the room toward where Tristan had, indeed, just strolled in, giving them a brief wave before slipping into the bunk opposite. Tristan, Rosa now knew, slept similar hours to her own, though he’d made a habit of waiting until she and John had finished their regular evening activities before coming to bed. And while Rosa still felt the urge to cover up whenever he appeared, John, of course, held little patience for such prudery, especially in his own bed.
“I shall be here when you wake, pet,” he said firmly, with a satisfied pat at her bare breast, and then a pinch to her still-peaked nipple. “I have heard that Bautul’s hunters brought in some honey today. I shall trade for this, and bring some for your breakfast tomorrow.”
Rosa couldn’t deny the spark of eagerness at that — John had already deduced, and taken full advantage of, her partiality for sweet treats — but when he again made to leave the bunk, she clutched at him, pulled him back against her. He didn’t resist, gazing down at her with eyebrows raised, and she swallowed, stroked a careful finger down the hard line of his jaw.
“Is your work really so important,” she ventured, “that you can’t stay even just a little longer? If you truly don’t need the sleep, maybe you could even just read with me for a while?”
She nodded toward his own small stack of books on the nearby shelf — for someone who loved books as much as he did, he certainly seemed to spend very little time reading them — and his sidelong glance at the books indeed looked almost regretful. “I cannot, pet,” he said. “I must first meet with the captain, and next Eben, and next survey the new northern tunnel. We have also just learnt of two more women carrying Skai orc-sons, and this must be dealt with at once. And the men —”
He halted there, grimacing, but it was still more detail than he’d given her in days, and Rosa clung to that, to him. She was only a pet, curious and interested, she didn’t need to learn any information, or return to Dusbury, ever, and especially not in ten short days…
“Have the lords answered any of your letters yet?” she asked, as lightly as she could. “Have you heard any news from Preia? Has there been any response to Simon’s attack, and the injured men?”
John’s face betrayed a faint twitch, and he drew away from Rosa, easing his fully naked form out of the bed entirely. Bending to grasp his trousers from the floor, showing a brief but impressive view of his bare backside before yanking them on.
“No,” he said curtly, as he pulled his tunic on over his head. “We have been sent no return letters.”
Oh. Rosa silently watched him, something twisting deep in her belly. “Do you think the lords are still pushing for war? Even despite all your efforts to prevent it?”
But John only dismissed the questions with a jerky shrug, and took a step toward the door, as if to leave. But then he reached back, abruptly, and rustled his hand in Rosa’s already-mussed hair.
“Do not fret,” he said. “We shall take care of all this.Youmust sleep, little pet. You need this rest.”
With that, he turned and strode off, leaving Rosa alone in his bed, blinking after him in the light of her candle. Thinking, with a surprisingly fervent misery, of Lord Kaspar, and the ten measly days she had left. And after that, war would surely come…
And despite John’s ongoing reluctance to discuss this looming war with her — or perhaps because of it — Rosa hadn’t missed the rising hints of preparations all around her. The fully armed, scary-looking bands of orcs in the corridors. The constant clangs and shouts from what she now knew was a sparring-room, only one level up from the library. The murmurs in the kitchen and the corridors about men, and skirmishes, and strategies. All spoken in quick, clipped Aelakesh, and while Rosa’s understanding of Aelakesh was still extremely rudimentary, she’d begun listening very carefully, and asking Tristan to translate words and phrases that she often heard. Things likearmed,bands of men,no attacking yet. Suggesting that, perhaps, war was even closer than John wanted to allow…
But maybe it was just paranoia. Maybe it was just Rosa brooding, thinking too much. Lord Kaspar had told her there was no money, hadn’t he? He’d said they were waiting on her revelations. So maybe the situation with Simon hadn’t truly changed anything. Maybe everything really wasfine, at least until she…
Rosa forcibly bit off that thought, and glanced toward Tristan’s dark silhouette in the bunk opposite — perhaps if he were very tired, he might let something slip? — but that hope was dashed by the sudden appearance of Salvi, striding tall and silent into the room, and making straight for Tristan’s bed. Something he did most nights, Rosa had noticed, though so far she’d only ever seen them speak to each other for a few minutes, the words quiet and clipped, before Salvi went over to his own bunk to sleep.
But this time, there was no speaking. No sleeping. Only Salvi first shucking his tunic and trousers onto the floor, exposing his tall, grey-skinned, fully naked form to Rosa’s blinking eyes — and then hurling himself into the bed with Tristan. Pinning Tristan’s smaller, still-clothed body close beneath him, and cutting off Tristan’s obvious noise of protest with a deep, powerful kiss.
