The rest of the day passed in a tremulous, twitchy blur. With Rosa standing back in her place behind the lending desk, fighting for composure, while visions of that orc — and his sweetly caressing tongue, and his loud furious shouting — whirled and scraped through her brain.
I owe you no debt. You shall not use me. Leave me in peace. As I asked you, again, and again.
The words felt so wrong, so bitterly uncomfortable, almost as if Rosa had somehow been the aggressor towardhim— but she hadn’t, had she? He’d owed her a favour. It wasn’t her fault that orcs were vile kidnapping killing monsters, who’d taken hundreds of years to finally end their stupid war. Right?
But Rosa’s discomfort only grew with every endless moment that passed, and with the sinking, frustrating reality that she couldn’t even risk leaving the library. Even without the orc, she was expected to keep proper hours, and Southall was sure to find out — and report to Lord Kaspar — if she closed a minute too early. She was trapped here, alone with a rude, accusing, horrid orc, until nightfall.
At least there were no students or patrons to contend with, thanks to the still-driving rain outside. So there were no interruptions, no distractions, no reasons to leave the lending desk, and Rosa forced her blank, blinking eyes to scan through one book, and then another. Only half-reading the words, page after page after page, more endless biasedbollocks, until the light through the windows slowly faded into darkness.
When it was finally sunset — the permitted closing time — Rosa shut her most recent book with a shaky, resigned sigh. It had been a terribly written, terribly arguedHomily Against the Dire Swivings of the Orc, and as much as she currently wanted to agree with its furious, familiar rhetoric, it was still nothing new. Nothing compelling. Certainly nothing shocking enough to start another war.
She carefully placed the book on top of the pile, squared her shoulders, and then, for good measure, yanked out her copy ofThe Lady Bright.And before she could think better of it, she stalked to the back corner, and thrust the door open.
“It’s time to close for the night,” she announced into the dim, sweet-smelling warmth. “You need to leave.”
It was harder to gauge the orc’s expression in the twilight, but she could almost taste his familiar disapproval, swirling through the air. “Why must I leave?” his deep voice replied. “I wish to stay, and keep reading.”
Rosa’s head was already beginning to ache again, but she held herself tall, gripped her book closer to her chest. “You can’t stay here alone,” her unsteady voice said. “It’s against the rules. You’re not supposed to break the rules. Remember?”
She could just make out those black eyes studying her, glinting in the dim light. “Then can you not stay here also,” he said, “whilst I read?”
“No,” Rosa shot back, “I can’t. I’ve already given you far too many accommodations today, I’m tired, it’s time to close, and I need to go back to the boarding house andsleep.”
If the orc was swayed by such logical arguments, he gave no sign of it, only gazed at her with those unreadable eyes. “You can sleep the night through here,” he said, with a twitch of his head toward the cot. “I can smell that you have oft done this, with this man.”
The contempt had crept back into his voice, and Rosa fought down the responding flare of compulsive, wrenching misery. “No,” she replied. “And honestly, orc, why in the gods’ names would I grant you such a concession, when you have only returned my kindness today with judgement, and insult, and aggression, and mockery?!”
Her voice came out sounding uneven, frayed, as though this awful orc’s awful actions today had actuallyhurt, for some ridiculous, unfathomable reason. And before she could betray herself any further, she turned and strode back to the lending desk, snapping her book down upon it. She would give him a quarter-hour to get out. And that was all.
There was an instant’s stillness all around, broken only by Rosa’s heaving breaths — and then, suddenly, by the chilling, telltale sound of the floor creaking.Directly behind her.
Rosa whirled around, far too late — and found herself faced, once more, with the orc. Except there was no reassuring table between them this time, no reassuring book, and instead — she swallowed hard — there was only that too-thin beige tunic, those broad shoulders, the critical black eyes, glinting down toward her.
Gods, he was big. And Rosa had never been a large woman to begin with, and in this shocked, stilted instant, there was the sudden, blaring certainty that this orc could so easily lift her up, carry her away, lock her into that back room whether she wanted it or not…
“I wish to stay, woman,” he said, calm and authoritative, as though his very tone settled the matter. “There is much truth in these books I must learn, to take back to my kin.”
“Then maybe you should have thought of that earlier,” Rosa countered, her voice quavering. “Before you decided to yell at me, and mock me, andhumiliateme!”
There was an odd, compulsive-looking twitch of the orc’s big body before her, a slight tilt of that dark head. And most unnerving of all, that faint, familiar hint of a long, sinuous tongue, coming out brief and black against his curling, mocking lips.
“Ach, little woman,” he said slowly. “I have bruised your pride today, by sending you away as I did. Have I not? You thought yourself too pretty for any orc to refuse?”
What? Rosa felt herself bristling, her shoulders squaring, her eyes narrowing at his infuriatingly appealing face. “I was only offering a — a mutually beneficialbusiness arrangement,” she snapped. “Which was, in retrospect, indeed a foolish mistake on my part. You have been nothing but rude, insulting, and belligerent toward me, and I havenodesire to grant you any further favours whatsoever, or spend any further time in your odious, highly disagreeable presence!”
The orc’s eyes kept studying her, his big body still far too close, and his lip twitched up, showing a glimpse of a sharp white tooth. “Ach, Ihaveharmed your pride,” he said, with a cool, enraging satisfaction. “Not only did a lowly orc refuse your mouth and your womb, but he refused your silly questions, also. This vexed you most of all, did it not, little woman?”
The unfair acuity of that caught Rosa up short, for an instant too long — and the orc let out a low, sardonic chuckle. “You wished to hear of blood and death and cruelties, did you not?” he continued, his voice smooth, almost caressing, on the words. “You wished to hear of a deadly, filthy mountain, full of black armies and human skulls. You wished to hear of women forced and swollen and screaming. You wished” — his mouth twisted — “for a grim, fearful tale to spew in these dark times, to raise more hate and swords against me and my kin.”
Rosa’s body had pressed itself further back against the desk — wait, this cursed orc couldn’t trulyknowthe extent of her research, could he? — and it took nearly all her willpower to keep her gaze from darting over her shoulder, toward her pile of sources behind her.
“I did not wish for any such thing,” she managed, far too late. “I wanted to know thetruth.”
There was another mocking sound from the orc’s throat, a flare of something unpleasant in those bottomless eyes. “Do not speak false to me, little woman,” he hissed. “You seek no truth in this. You think I have not seen this stack of lies you read so fiercely?”
Rosa winced before she could help it, earning another insolent twist of the orc’s mouth. And then, in a swift movement, his big hand reached behind her, directly toward her research pile. Tracing a sharp claw down the neat edge of it, gently ruffling the paper and vellum as he went.
“You humans wish for these lies,” he said. “You wish for just cause to wreak your cruelties. Youwishto be afraid.”
