She lunged for the rock, grasping at it with both hands, and then dropped it back down beside the bench with a loudthunk. And then the next rock, and the next one, building what was beginning to look like a crude, tilting pyre. But still propped up close to the bench, directly beside where Simon seemed to like to sit, so he could continue his incessant sharpening as he pleased.
There must have been twenty or thirty rocks scattered about, and by the time Maria moved them all, she was once again hot and gasping, sweat trickling down her back — but this was something,something, and next she fixed her attention to the mess of clothes and rags. Gathering them, too, into a single large pile, this time near the wooden shelf. Where she next launched into a steady stream of sorting and folding, stacking the ridiculously oversized garments in neat piles of trousers and tunics. While also clearing off the shelf’s haphazard papers and carved figures, creating more piles as she went.
She was making considerable progress, but there was still no sign of Simon’s return, or of any distant orc voices. So Maria just kept going, finishing her folding, and next turning her attention to the papers. Stacking them without really looking, her thoughts still distantly whirling, until her attention caught on a line of text, written in what looked like a child’s uneven hand.
I am Simon of Clan Skai, it said, the charcoal letters slightly smeared across the page.I am Enforcer of Orc Mountain.
The sentences were repeated down the page, again and again, and Maria’s scattered brain vaguely noted that it looked like… practice. A worksheet, perhaps. The kind of thing she’d done in school as a girl.
Simon was learning towrite?
But flipping through the other loose pages, Maria realized that surely, that was what this was. This was Simon, sitting here alone in his mess of a room, sharpening his weapons, and writing out words in common-tongue, over and over again.
And perhaps it was that damned treatise she’d just read, or the very pointed memory of herself hurling out that awful worddim-witted, but there was an odd lump rising in Maria’s throat, battling against the still-swirling mess in her head. Strong enough that she had to thrust the papers aside, her hands instead finding… yes. Fine. These. The carved stone figures, scattered in a jumble across the shelf.
But as she began to set them carefully upright on the top of the shelf, here was the equally disconcerting realization that they were carvings of… people. Of orcs, andhumans. And while they were roughly hewn, they were also surprisingly vivid, unnervingly expressive. One slim, sharp-looking orc was furious, with brows pulled low over his eyes. Another bigger orc with a barrel chest was smiling, his hands clutched in huge fists. And a tall, voluptuous woman was haughty and severe, regarding the world through half-lidded eyes of stone.
There were a few smaller steel knives scattered around them, not unlike the knife Maria had seen Simon carving with the day before. And blinking at the knives, at the carvings, she realized that these had to be Simon’s, too. He’d…madethem.
Maria carefully placed the carved woman on the shelf with the rest, and then sat back on her heels, and looked at them. And looked, and looked, while that tightness kept growing and catching in her throat.
Gods, this place. These orcs. Her horrid husband, out there spending her inheritance, possibly even starting more war based on anger and revenge. And Simon was still mostly awful too, with his horrid games and his horridrewards, and he was just an orc, this was exactly what Maria had wanted, and she wasn’t supposed to care…
She dragged her hands down her face, groaning aloud — and then jumped again to her feet, and stalked back toward the chest. Gritting her teeth and glaring down inside it, as though certain unnerving implements might disintegrate through the sheer ferocity of her gaze — but they were still there, so innocuous, so blatant, so gods-damnedalarming.
I shall find your fresh scent upon these each day, Simon had said.Obey me. Honour me.
And fine, yes, Maria would do this, something,anything— and she grasped for both of them, and lunged for the bed. And before she could think better of it, she yanked off her tunic, dove beneath the fur, and snatched its hot weight up over her face.
She lay there breathing for a long moment, hidden safe in the stuffy pitch-blackness. Where no one could see her, no one could mock her or judge. And Simon had wanted this, and Maria would gain her freedom, and that wasall…
So she fumbled for the implements under the fur, feeling at the smooth carved shapes of them. One was almost a perfect cylinder, long and thick, with two rounded-off ends. And the other — her face flushed hotter under the already-hot fur — was softly pointed at one end, and gradually widened before narrowing and flaring out again.
Two implements, for two…places. Just as Simon had said.
And Mariahaddone this many times before, in the depths of her loneliness. Surely she could do it here. Surely there was no actual harm in taking the less intimidating of the two in both hands, stroking its softness, its heft, its weight. Smaller around than Simon had been, surely, but perhaps almost just as long…
Soon, you shall learn to take all of me, he’d told her, and here in the sweaty quiet darkness, Maria could feel her belly clench at the memory of it, the heated promise in those words. At how it had felt both times so far, when he’d opened her wide, impaled her so tight upon him, pumping her full of slick hot ecstasy…
And how each time, he’d surely wanted it. He’d wantedher. He’dapproved.
So Maria swallowed hard, and slipped a hand down between her parted legs. Down to where it already felt hot, swollen, pulsing against her touch. Craving more than a memory, more than just her own fingers…
The first brush of the hard stone was gentle, surprisingly cool against Maria’s convulsing heat, but it quickly warmed as it nudged closer, deeper. As Maria began to feel the true heft of it, spreading her wide and forceful apart.
But it felt good — gods,sogood — and she drew in a deep lungful of breath, huffed it out. Made herself relax for the stone’s invasion, widened her thighs further for it. Let it slide out a bit, easing the pressure — and then sinking back in, a little deeper, a little harder. And then again, again, again.
And when she reached for the second stone, slicking it all over in more of Simon’s slippery scent, it almost felt… easy. Easy to slide it inside too, her body heating, her hunger catching, twitching into something again almost like determination. She would do this, prove this. She would shove back against the war, her husband, the mess in her head that kept fighting to drown the rising, sparkling pleasure.
But in this moment, Maria had the upper hand. She was impaling herself in both places, with both stones, she was gasping hard and throwing off the hot fur and arching up. Revelling in the pressure, the power, the triumph, as her hand pressed flat to her trembling seizing heat, holding them both fully inside, glorying in the truth of her victory —
And at that perfect, horrible instant, someone strode into the room.
It wasSimon.
18
Maria yelped and flailed, desperately hauling up the fur, far too late — but Simon’s huge form had utterly stilled in the doorway, his head tilted, his hand clamped tight to his sword-hilt. And good gods, this couldn’t be happening, itcouldn’t, and surely he would instantly begin mocking her, he would point and laugh and judge…
