Maria’s disbelief was blessedly drowned by a surge of indignation, and she frowned at Joarr, even as her hands tightened against her precious new implement. “Women do not,” she snapped, “shrivel.”
But Joarr’s eyes were unnervingly narrow on hers, the sound of his scraping steel even louder than before. “Ach, and you take Skai prick easy on first try?” he countered. “You take Simon ploughing with no care?”
Maria’s face flushed even hotter, the words and the memories tangling tight together — and Joarr was still scowling at her, with what looked like genuine disapproval in his glinting eyes.
“No,” Joarr continued, as if Maria had in fact replied, or argued. “My brother take great care with you. He work hard on you, and teach you with no blood or pain. Hehonouryou. You wish him forgive you?Younow honourhim.”
Oh. Maria couldn’t quite find an answer to that, but for perhaps the first time today, some of the constant heaviness had seemed to fade. And in its place, there was something small, quiet, flickering. Something almost like… hope.
She could still prove this? Still gain Simon’s trust? Still?
But Joarr was nodding, again as if Maria had spoken the words aloud. “Honour him,” he said firmly, with a flutter of long fingers toward the tool still clutched in her hand. “He shall know, when next he plough you.”
Even more heat had swarmed to Maria’s face, but now it was also swirling in her belly, husky and low.Honour him. He shall know…
Joarr kept looking at her expectantly, black brows raised — and Maria felt a distant, uneasy awareness dawning. “Wait. Um, you don’t mean I should do so… here?Now?”
Her voice had come out like a squeak, and the disapproval flashed again across Joarr’s watching eyes. “Ach, silly woman,” he replied. “You honour Simon here, safe. You ken we no see you in thrall to him before? We no see you spurt and squeal upon him?”
Maria’s face was truly smarting now, her chagrined eyes angling toward Baldr — surely he hadn’t been witness to such things, too? — but there was an unmistakably wry twist on his mouth. Suggesting, good gods, that he’d spent all this time living next door to them — in a place lacking actual doors — so of course he had.
“Mayhap you shall hide this beneath your cloak,” Baldr helpfully suggested, “if that should help you feel more comfortable?”
Maria grimaced at them both, even as she felt her shoulders squaring, her hands clutching tighter at her stone. Simon had given her a chance. A gift. And no matter what, she had to try. She had to honour him. Shehadto.
She flopped back onto the sleeping-mat with a groan, and yanked her heavy cloak over on top — and then, while two orcs blatantly watched, she slipped down her trousers, and brought the new stone close. Fighting back the whispers of shame, of fear, because Simon had given this to her, Simon wanted this, wantedher…
She gasped aloud as she felt the stone’s rounded head, searching, seeking — and then even louder as it began to breach her, piercing her whole upon it. And gods, itdidfeel like Simon, deep and solid and utterly uncompromising, filling her with its certainty, its strength.
And as it kept driving, kept filling, it was almost as though the small underground room had blinked away. And instead, Maria was in Simon’s room, on her back on his furs, quivering and gasping under his huge hovering weight. Filling her breath with his scent, scraping her fingers against his broad back, arching and begging and craving him, needing him, her mate, the father of her son,hers.
The pleasure blared bright and wide, flooding Maria with sheer pulsing sensation, with impossible warmth. With her sated body sagging onto the mat beneath her, while something almost like relief settled into her soul.
She could do this. Prove this. Fix this.
And when the room around her slowly slipped into focus again — and with it, Joarr and Baldr — Maria didn’t even feel humiliated, or ashamed. At least, not enough to fret over, not with Joarr looking at her with such saucy approval in his eyes, and Baldr with something that might have been… longing?
“Better, ach?” Joarr said crisply, before sliding his dark gaze toward Baldr. “Now next, how we fixyou,pretty Grisk? Mayhapyouwelcome strong Skai fuck also?”
Joarr’s long-fingered hand had brazenly slipped down to clutch at his groin, clearly displaying the swollen bulge beneath. And perhaps it was a sign of just how relaxed Maria felt, or how much time she’d spent with these orcs, that she didn’t even feel slightly shocked, and instead rearranged herself and sat up, searching Baldr’s shadowed face. Remembering, abruptly, about his fight with Drafli, and how she’d walked in on it, and made it even worse.
You only care, Drafli had growled at him,until woman show up.
“No, I had best not,” Baldr replied, grimacing, after an instant’s silence. “I thank you for the offer, though.”
Joarr shrugged and returned to his sharpening, but Maria was still watching Baldr, caught on the almost visceral misery in his eyes. And gods, he’d been so kind to her all this time, and here she’d helped muck up something he clearly cared about. And then she’d gone and entirely forgotten about it, while wallowing in her own miserable fuck-ups?
“Is there anything else we could do to help?” she asked Baldr, echoing his own question toward her earlier. “I truly regret interrupting you and Drafli the way I did. I know I only made it worse.”
But Baldr waved it away, and his answering smile was sad, and painfully genuine. “It was not your fault, Maria,” he said. “This has been building for some time. I ought never have moved into the Skai wing as I did. This only laid bare all the rifts between us.”
And surely it wasn’t Maria’s place to keep pressing, but suddenly she couldn’t bear not to, either. “How so?” she asked. “Shouldn’t living closer together be a good thing?”
Baldr winced, and shook his head. “This showed me, stronger than ever, that I shall never be Drafli’s mate, or gain his fealty,” he said, his voice wooden. “And it showed him the depth of my… ease with you. My help. My…care.”
His care. Maria felt briefly struck to her sleeping-mat, her eyes wide on Baldr’s face — surely he didn’t care for her likethat? — and thankfully he winced again, and gave another sharp shake of his head.
“Not —hunger,” he said, too quickly. “Not foryou, Maria, as lovely as you are. But just” — he made a face — “women.”
