And again, Maria… nodded. She would do this. She would prove this. She would become a Skai, for good.
“Ach,” she whispered. “I will.”
25
For the next few days, Maria devoted herself to her new life, her new truth. She was whole. She was at peace. She would become a true Skai.
And becoming a Skai, she soon discovered, was just…fun. Each day beginning with Simon’s constant sharpening, easing her awake, drawing her naked body toward him on the bench. And then, while Maria curled on his lap, Simon would invariably begin some kind of lesson. The first day, it was how to clean and sharpen a blade; the second, what each of his weapons were best used for; and the third, even how to shave his beard, demonstrating by dragging Maria’s gleaming new dagger against his stubbled throat.
“You must learn no only to harm with your blade,” he told her, curling her fingers around the dagger-hilt. “But how to taunt, and tease, and do good. Ach?”
Maria laughed, and pointed out that her teasing was liable to result in Simon’s being seriously injured — to which he only smirked at her, and sprawled his legs wide. And then, with infuriating coolness, he ordered her to practice by shaving him in certain other places, without missing a single spot.
It proved to be a singularly distracting endeavour, and one that Maria soon abandoned entirely, in favour of swallowing his too-tempting bounty down her throat. And afterwards, he kissed her with fierce, approving thoroughness, and promised to reward her when he came back from his work that evening — and even more if she once again sought to use her new tools, and honour him.
It did mean Maria was left alone in his room again, a pattern that had continued for multiple hours each day — but between Baldr, and her tools, and her prayers and treatise-reading, it proved to be mostly bearable. And when Simon returned that night, dusty and irritable and bearing strange new wounds, Maria dragged him close, and begged for her day’s reward. And in return, he fervently drove into her, from both front and behind, plunging her full of his heat, his power, his safety.
He still wasn’t always forthcoming about his daily activities, but Maria soon realized that it was after their shared pleasure, in the quiet warm contentment, that he was most likely to speak. To tell her, maybe, of the orcs he’d seen that day, or what he’d sought to accomplish. And despite the lack of detailed explanations, Maria rapidly began to understand that Simon’s job as Enforcer wasn’t only about punishment — but, perhaps even more importantly, aboutawareness. About Simon knowing his kin, and in that knowledge, keeping themsafe.
And this information wasn’t all gained by Simon personally, Maria soon learned, but by an entire network of Skai orcs. By what seemed like dozens of dedicated scouts, directed mostly by the spiky-haired, keen-eyed Joarr, but also sometimes by Drafli, and sometimes by Simon himself.
But the Enforcing still appeared to fall to Simon alone, as decreed by his clan’s ways. And when he stalked in a few nights later, and again cut his hand, and streaked another bloody mark on the wall, Maria didn’t rage, or shrink back, or demand explanations. Instead, she only clutched and clawed at his stiff, blood-streaked body, and met his angry mouth with hard lips and biting teeth. And then screamed with abandon as he pounded her into the bed, her hands pinned over her head, his fangs skating sharp and dangerous against the pulse thundering in her neck.
But he hadn’t actually bitten her, it turned out, and afterwards he carefully licked her reddened skin, and drew her close. And it was then, stilted and hoarse, that he spoke. Telling Maria of the lone, faraway Skai who’d hunted multiple unsuspecting women, seeking to use his power to force, to harm, tokill.
“I wished to make him pay,” Simon whispered, his voice thin. “Iwishedto hear him scream. Ach?”
And pinned beneath his still-rigid body, Maria swallowed the last whispers of fear, and stroked her hands up and down his stiff back. And then dragged his head close, so she could press kisses to his cheek, his grinding jaw, his scratchy, fragrant neck.
“Thank you for keeping those women safe, Simon,” she whispered back. “They needed you, and the justice of your fathers’ ways.”
Simon didn’t reply, but Maria was sure she felt his body relaxing against her, his lashes blinking hard against her neck. And when she shoved him onto his back, and climbed on top, his eyes were oddly bright, his hands clutching powerfully at her hips as she rooted herself deep upon him, and rode him until he roared.
After they awoke the next morning, and Maria had shaved and then sucked him, Simon again spent the whole day with her. First taking her to the shrine, and then to an unfamiliar room he called the Skai bath. Which turned out not to be a bath at all, but a cool, airy, tucked-away alcove that had a genuinewaterfallpouring out of the ceiling, pooling crystal-clear onto the stone floor below.
“Come, woman,” Simon ordered her, as he kicked off his trousers, and then plucked off Maria’s tunic, as well as her dagger. “Bathe with me.”
With that, he dragged her loincloth-clad body into the pool — and she yelped aloud as the flood of water rushed over her head, drenching her in shocking wet coldness.
“Y-youasshole,” she spluttered. “This is f-freezing. And ap-publicr-room.”
But Simon only flashed her his teasing, crooked grin, and he yanked out his ever-present braid, shaking his long black hair around his head in a streaming wet arc. “Ach,” he purred, low and husky, his damp hair adding a surprising softness to his rugged face. “Good for fucking, ach?”
And curse him, but Maria couldn’t even argue, especially once she was plastered close against his bare, powerful warmth, her legs clamped around his waist, his hands easily holding up her full weight. While that already-prodding beast at his groin sank slow and strong inside her, locking them together beneath the ice-cold spray.
“You wish for me to take you thus,” he hissed into her ear, as he eased them into a rhythm, sliding Maria bodily up and down his invading heft. “You wish to be ploughed true and deep by your Skai, where any of his clan might see. Ach?”
Maria could only nod, and clutch tighter at his powerful shoulders, and bite back the rising urge to howl — and Simon flashed her that grin again, cool, mocking, deadly. “You wish to be bared,” he informed her, thrusting harder, faster. “You wish to be flaunted. You wish for the reward of my good Skai seed. Ach?”
Maria nodded again, choked and frantic, the hunger flashing and swarming, skittering between the steady rush of ice over her, the furious heat impaling her again and again. “Yes,” she moaned, her eyes wildly fluttering, her fingers scraping against his back. “Yes, Simon, gods, yes,please!”
Her voice had risen to a shriek, and Simon was gasping, still half-grinning, as he plunged her once more into him, grinding her deep — and then swarmed her with spurt after spurt of his blessed, glorious release. While she flailed and wailed and choked upon him, her own pleasure quavering out sharp and cold, filling her with icy shivery relief.
And once the shocks had faded, and Simon’s eyes had angled surreptitiously toward the door, Maria wasn’t even surprised to see multiple orcs standing there, and openly gawking toward them. And while she instinctively clutched Simon tight, burying her face in his warm neck, the shame somehow seemed to whisper away beneath the force of their joined truth. He’d wanted that. She’d wanted that. She was honouring him. Proving this.
And once Simon had drawn himself out again, and settled Maria down onto her wobbly feet, he rewarded her by drying her all over with a nearby cloth, and carefully braiding her hair. And then even dressing her again, tucking her dagger close against her side, and once he’d finished Maria smiled at him, and then leaned up to kiss his cheek.
“Thank you, Simon,” she murmured. “I feel very refreshed.”
