He was an orc, yes — but he waswonderful. A tiny, wriggling, grey-skinned littlemarvel, with delicate pointed ears, a snub nose, and huge, shining black eyes. And he was gazing up at Maria with open, trusting curiosity, his long lashes fluttering, his tiny nose eagerly twitching and sniffing — until he scrunched up his little face, andsneezedat her.
The sound rang through the room, into the heavy watching silence. Into the strange, foreign feeling of Maria’s mouth tugging up, while a fraught, unfamiliar noise choked from her closed-off throat.
“Oh, Iknow,” she crooned to him, to those blinking, innocent eyes. “I’m so filthy! And Ireek. I won’t be surprised atallif you’ve become instantly allergic to me, and begin peppering me with your tiny baby sneezes every time we meet one another. You adorable littlescamp.”
The wee orc promptly gurgled back at her, as if in wholehearted agreement, and Maria felt another choked sound lurch from her throat. A laugh, or a sob, or maybe both — and she felt herself belatedly blinking up, and meeting Lady Norr’s smiling, knowing eyes.
“He’slovely,” Maria croaked at her, as she reluctantly handed his tiny wriggling form back again. “You must be so proud.”
And Maria meant it, she meant every single damned word, even if it was an orc baby, even if it was supposed to be a travesty. And none of this was how it was supposed to be, not the mountain, not this room, not these unnerving orcs and women, nothing was right, none of this made sense…
And worst of all, still, was Simon. The way Simon was looking at her,intoher, still with that rage and contempt and maybe evenregretin his glittering black eyes.
“Ach, Simon?” asked the captain, into the still-silent room. “What is your judgement? Shall you take this woman, and gain the Skai a son? Or shall you send her away?”
Shallyou. Again, as if there had never been any question whatsoever of another orc’s involvement — and as Maria stared up at Simon’s forbidding face, there was the bizarre, inexplicable realization that she hadn’t truly wanted another orc, either. Not since that first moment, when he’d caught her so gently in his arms, and she’d held his heart in the palm of her hand. And even if he taunted her, mocked her,hatedher, it didn’t matter, nothing mattered, but revenge…
“I shall take her,” Simon said, wooden, flat, a monotone. “But she shall honour me, andobey, and follow all the ways of the Skai. And if she betray me, or fail me” — his eyes darkened even further — “she shall be cast away. With no coin, no son, novengeance.”
Maria swallowed hard, blinking wide-eyed at his harsh face — he was truly going toaccept? — but no, no, surely it was only about the son, and he wouldcast her awayif she failed. And did that mean — if she failed to obey? Or if she failed to — to deliver his son alive?
The panic was finally trickling back in again, rattling raw and rickety in Maria’s chest, and for some reason she kept frantically searching Simon’s face, searching for reassurance, for even a hint of that quiet, powerful safety. But this time there was no comfort, no kindness, nothing but danger in those flat, furious black eyes.
“And I warn you this only once, woman,” he snarled, a threat, a bitter mockery of a vow. “When people play game with Enforcer of Orc Mountain, theydie.”
7
Ashort time later, Maria walked out of that meeting-room with a crisp new contract clutched in her fingers, and a shocked, staring disbelief still jangling through her thoughts.
The orcs had —agreed.
They’d agreed to feed and house her for a full year, while she attempted to bear Simon a son. They’d offered a surprisingly in-depth plan for her care throughout her pregnancy, along with reassurances that her survival was not only likely, but in fact highly probable, thanks to their steadily increasing knowledge and expertise.
And after the deed was done, they’d even promised topay. An amount that was more than Maria could have possibly hoped for. Enough to start a new life. A new family.Freedom.
The thought still felt too tenuous to be real, like some kind of bizarre, upside-down dream that would surely soon disappear — but as Maria blinked down at the contract, it was still there, still real, still written in vivid black ink under her fingers.
And all she had to do — her eyes darted back toward Simon’s massive bulk silently striding down the corridor before her — was honour and obey an orc who hated her, and give him ason.
One of those wriggling, wide-eyed, sneezy little orcs.Alive.
The panic had begun bubbling again, simmering deep in her chest, but Maria shoved it down, and gripped tighter at that contract. That impossible promise of freedom. Revenge.Hope.
“Nowbring bath,” Simon snapped at someone he’d passed in the corridor — Baldr again, leaning against the wall outside the meeting-room. Almost as if he’d been standing there waiting for them, and he indeed shot Maria an eager, expectant smile.
“Ach, I shall, brother,” Baldr said, pushing off the wall, and falling into step with — Maria startled as she glanced back — the tall, rangy-looking, angry-eyed orc, who’d apparently been walking very close behind her, his footfalls completely silent on the hard stone floor.
“It is good that you shall stay for a spell, Maria,” Baldr said, his cheerful voice slicing through the silence. “Tell us, what do you know of orcs? Has Simon yet spoken to you of the clans?”
There was an irrational urge to laugh, to point out that Simon had scarcely spoken three full sentences to her, most of them mocking her in some way or another — but Maria could almost see his huge body tensing ahead of her, could feel the discomfort rolling from him in waves. She was supposed to behonouringhim.Obeyinghim.Revenge.
“Not yet,” she managed, glancing back toward Baldr. “Um, but Grimarr just said he was the captain of your clans, right? Five of them?”
“Ach, five,” Baldr replied, flashing Maria another smile, even as his fingers made some kind of incomprehensible hand signal toward the rangy orc beside him. “All orcs come from one of these clans: Ash-Kai, Bautul, Skai, Ka-esh, and Grisk. All these clans bear their own ways, and live in their own part of the mountain.”
Maria mentally filed these points away, and darted another uneasy glance toward Simon’s stiff form ahead of her. “And you told me you were from Clan Grisk, when we first met, right?” she asked Baldr. “And Simon is from Clan Skai?”
Baldr’s smile widened even further, genuine approval flaring across his face in the flickering lamplight. “Ach, Simon is Skai, and Drafli is also,” he said, jerking his head toward the rangy orc beside him. “The Skai are oft the scouts and hunters and fighters among us. They sacrifice much to keep our kin aware, and fed, and safe.”
