“Well,” she said, her voice too high-pitched. “I did finish your book, John. And do you know, at first I wasn’t sure about it — at least some of ithasto be exaggerated — but the more I’ve read it, the more I truly think it could help you.Allof you.”
John glanced down at the book, his eyebrows raised, but he didn’t otherwise speak. Waiting for Rosa to keep going —listeningto her, her thoughts whispered, while her gut spasmed again — so she took a bracing breath, let it out.
“This author claims to have studiedhundredsof women, with a seemingly rigorous methodology,” she said. “And he’s developed comprehensive lists of which foods and herbs proved most beneficial, and detailed descriptions of stretching and massage that helped prepare women for birth. And this part” — she reached to open her book with a shaky hand — “makes a credible case for inducing birth at least two full months early, if you have an orc like Efterar to help you. It also has a section on birthing in water, and this part is about how to make sure you properly detach and weigh the placenta. Apparently orc placentas are larger and more metabolically active than humans’, which is quite fascinating, don’t you think?”
She was babbling, most definitely, but John didn’t look annoyed — in fact, his eyes had narrowed with his telltale deliberate focus — so Rosa just kept talking, flipping to another part of the book. “And most importantly, according to his research, women whose orcs stay with them throughout their pregnancies apparently have amuchhigher rate of survival. He attributes this to immunological therapy — essentially acclimatizing the woman’s body over time to the orc’s particular genetic makeup, and teaching it to therefore welcome his offspring. And, also, he claims increased maternal nutrition. From. Er. All the” — she couldn’t help a weak, shamefaced smile — “seed drinking. It’s healthy, apparently. Like you keep saying.”
John didn’t smile back, though his eyes had taken on a distinctly disbelieving cast. Almost as if he couldn’t possibly believe Rosa was saying such preposterous things, but she kept going, digging deeper. “And I actually think,” she said, “the implications of that are huge, don’t you? The fact that successful orc-womenrelationshipsmight be the key to your survival, rather than just successfulbirths. So maybe you need to shift some focus to there. Maybe you need to give your orcs better tools to communicate. Maybe instead of all your foolish feuding with the Skai, you need to actually teach them how to treat women, or how to speak common-tongue, or even how to write. And not just aspunishment.”
John still wasn’t speaking, just looking at her with those disbelieving eyes, and Rosa swallowed, gave an uneasy shrug. “If you read to the end,” she continued, quieter, “the author ultimately claims to have an eighty-five percent success rate birthing orcs, if all measures are followed. Even with small women. Like me.”
The room around them had suddenly gone very quiet, very still, and Rosa could feel John’s slow exhale, the way it caught in his throat. The way his eyes were now glittering, his hands clenched at his side, his jaw taut and square.
“And you,” he said finally, so soft, so damnably close to mocking, “trulytrustall this, woman. A strange book, by a strange, long-lost orc from ages past. A book I did not even know Ihad.”
Rosa fought to objectively consider the question, even as her heart was erratically pattering, her mouth gone entirely dry. “Maybe?” she heard herself say. “I mean, almost everything I know, I’ve learned from books. From reading. It’s how we communicate with people we can’t see, to the people who come after us. It’sknowledge, John, and knowledge informs new choices, new actions. Knowledge changes us, if we’ll accept it. Knowledge changeseverything.”
Her voice had gone low, fervent, perhaps almost pleading, and her heartbeat kept thundering, her breaths coming shallow and quick. And John just kept gazing at her, his eyes hooded, dark eyelashes blinking — and then, oh thank thegods, there was his tongue, brief, black, slipping against his lips. Betraying him.
Rosa scarcely felt herself rising to her feet, reaching toward him — even as she watched her hands grasp at his shoulders, and shove him down into the chair she’d been sitting in. His body sprawling heavy but easy into it,willing, and that was a betrayal too. And even more when Rosa’s tingly fingers fumbled for her tunic, and yanked it off, threw it to the floor.
John’s dark, blinking eyes roved up and down, drinking in the sight of her naked form, and Rosa stepped closer, between his parted thighs. Tilting his face up with a trembling hand, catching and holding those blinking,betrayingeyes with her own.
Rosa couldn’t speak, couldn’t bear to break it, but she somehow nudged a hand down to his groin, felt the familiar swollen heft through his trousers. Gripping it, waiting for it, and when his own hands came, obeyed, pulling his thick, dripping hardness out into the air, it felt like a promise. A revelation.
And it didn’t need to be spoken, only taken. Only made truth in Rosa’s stepping closer, climbing up onto those powerful thighs. Spreading herself open over him, over that hard, dripping, very real danger — and then lowering herself upon it, slow, steady. Finding the thick, slick, shuddering head of it, learning it, tasting it, kissing the glory of it with swollen wet lips. Feeling it speak back, swell back, flaring and spurting, sinking deeper and deeper into her, intothere, breath by breath. For the very first time, since that fateful night in another library, another life…
Fuck, it felt good, felt likeeverything, felt like nothing else Rosa had ever known. Like this orc’s bared, blinking eyes on her were just as strong as the huge, bared orc-prick driving its way inside her, stretching her, splitting her in two around it. And it took all Rosa’s breath, all her courage, to keep looking, keep sinking, taking more and more, so tight and full she felt she might break — until her groin sank flush against his, his huge hardness fully buried inside. While her starved, stretched-out body shivered and clutched at him, craving, impaled, trapped. Where he belonged, whereshebelonged.Home.
“Oh, my lord,” she whispered, without knowing it, following it. “Ríddu mér. Please.”
The words sparked in John’s eyes, in the sustained flare of his invading heft locked inside her — and he rolled his hips, gentle, but enough to wedge himself just a little fuller, a little deeper. Tilting at just the right edge of pain, andohit was good, and when he did it again, Rosa rocked herself back, meeting him. Feeling her body arch and heave, clamping around the massive, irreconcilable truth of him, of this. Her orc, her lord, within her, taking her, there, like this, until —
“No falsehoods?” she whispered at him, soft, shaken, and she felt the swallow of his throat, drowned in the flutter of his eyes.
“No,” he whispered back. “Ríddu mér, my brave little rose.”
And it was everything, the whole of the world crushed down to this, to an orc’s praise and eyes and prick, his heated voice saying in his own tongue,fuck me. And Rosa’s body was writhing and rocking on its own, arching and moaning, driving, impaling, revelling. Needing this more than life, needing to be trapped and skewered whole on her lord’s strong driving cock, more moremore—
Her hands were clutching at his face, her eyes dazed and frantic on his, her breath skittering at the sight of his tongue, curling against sharp teeth. Flashing to life images of him in the forest, his teeth dripping red, and then Tristan’s neck that morning, and —
And it was unthinkable, unconscionable, but Rosa was fucking an orc where it mattered, she was his, she would please him, show him, be worthy. Her hands gripping at the back of his head, dragging him downwards, thrilling all over at the shocking feel of his tongue on her neck, distantly realizing that he’d never done this before, never so much askissedher there. And maybe this was why, the way his teeth were already scraping, seeking, his breath coming out harsh, anguished —
John yanked back, dazed, but still licking his lips, again, again, matching each smooth, heart-swarming roll of his hips against her. “You are,” he gasped, with effort, “weak. Small. This may — break you.”
But they’d already been over this, Rosa had no patience for this, not anymore. “You’re a good lord,” she breathed, between moans. “Take care of me. Trust you.”
And he didn’t believe that, or did he, his eyes again going somewhere she couldn’t follow. Thinking, maybe, back to where they’d been just before this, is there aught more you might wish to tell me…
And suddenly, Rosa couldn’t bear the sight of it, the very thought of it. Not like this. Not with her core, her very self, filled with him, bared wide open for him…
“Please, John-Ka,” she choked out. “Ég vil þig.”
I want you. I want you, I need you, I adore you — and she could see his capitulation, could feel it, the invading pole inside her swelling even fuller, barring any escape. And his head bent, slow, reverent, his soft mouth skating against delicate skin, tongue tasting and teeth scraping, savouring, seeking —
And then hebither. Swift, deft, ruthless, his sharp teeth sunk deep into Rosa’s actualneck, and she could feel her blood warming to meet him, answering him, filling him. Drowning in his hard, hungry swallows, the sweet salve of his sliding tongue. The hoarse, steady moan from his throat, the buck of his hips up beneath her, his hard cock punching deeper, swelling wider, shuddering and straining, while his bollocks below rose, bulged, caught, tilting on the edge —
His blast inside her was vicious, merciless, glorious. Spraying out spurt after spurt of hot, thick, deadly orc-seed, flooding Rosa’s belly with him, pouring her full. While his throat kept swallowing, filling him with her in turn, and it was right and it was good — and as Rosa’s own release shot and screamed into pulsing fire, sheunderstood. The entire world thrust into utter clarity, perfect relief. John was hers, she was his, matched, worthy, wise,whole.
