I will drag you out of this shithole house, and burn it all to the ground.
And while Gwyn had seen Roy’s darker side before — and had heard many more tales — until now, she’d never actually been the target of it. Roy had always treated her with indulgence, amusement, affection. They’d known one another for so long, they’d spent so many hungry nights together, and yes, perhaps they even understood one another — or so Gwyn had thought.
But now her father’s words were scraping through her head, over and over again.Leave Roy here to stew without you. Light a much-needed fire under the boy…
Gwyn groaned aloud, and rubbed her still-shaking hands over her prickling eyes. Good gods, did Roy truly think this was some kind of test? A challenge? An attempted retaliation on her part, to spur him on to commitment? Tomarriage?
Her stomach was badly churning, the room feeling far too stuffy and hot — and she stumbled for the front door, and swung it open. The men had disappeared, at least, and she gulped in deep breaths as she staggered around to the garden, and sank to her knees amidst a patch of overgrown comfrey. This would burn too, this whole garden would be destroyed, and she would be —
Her twirling vision caught on a clump of field thistle, growing among the dense clusters of comfrey, and she wildly lunged for it, and yanked it out. Its prickly spines nicked painfully at her skin, but she kept grabbing for more, and more, and more. Frantically, furiously weeding, until her hands were bright red and full of tiny thistle-spines, and the sweat was streaming off her brow.
Gods, what was she going to do. First her father, and then the orc, and now Roy. All trapping her, manipulating her, trying to steal away her freedom for their own damned ends. And now, what options did she have left? Abandon her lovely new house? Run for the hills, and leave her entire livelihood behind? Marry the man who’d just threatened to destroyeverythingshe cared about?
“Stupid,” she hissed at the thistles, dragging her stinging hand against her dripping-wet forehead. “So damnedstupid.”
There was no answer, of course — but even so, Gwyn suddenly felt a vivid, overpowering sense of… something. Something here. Something…listening.
A hard, furious chill flared up her spine, and she whirled around, fully expecting to see Roy standing behind her. Or maybe one of his soldiers, come to loom and threaten andburn—
But no. It was — theorc.
He was sitting casually sprawled on the garden’s single wooden bench, tucked close against the dense encircling hedge. His chest and shoulders were still bare, his limbs long and lean, his face a stark mass of light and shadow in the bright sun. And his eyes on Gwyn were amused,mocking, as though he’d been sitting there all this time, just waiting for her to notice.
Something dangerously plunged in Gwyn’s chest, and her head was suddenly pounding, her hands uncontrollably trembling on the thistles. While somewhere deep in her brain, a vague, distant screaming had begun. This asshole orc had targeted her.Usedher. And she’d told him to get out of her life forever, and now here he was again? Not even a full day later? And directly on Roy’s heels, no less?!
“Why thehell,” she said, her voice badly wavering, “are you back here, orc.”
The amusement had slightly faded from the orc’s eyes, but he didn’t answer. Only kept looking at her, his head cocked, his dark gaze flicking up and down her kneeling form. Lingering first on her reddened hands, and then — Gwyn twitched — narrowing on the still-raw cuts in her scarred forearm, clearly visible beneath the thrust-up sleeve of her dressing-gown.
She yanked the sleeve down, far too late, and her stomach again plummeted in her belly, her heartbeat thundering louder in her ears. “What, are you here to laugh at me some more?” she demanded at him. “Or maybe to see if your little ploy against my father worked? If I’m already pregnant with your spawn?”
Something tightened on the orc’s mouth, faint but unmistakable, but he still didn’t answer. Only kept looking at her like that, surely still mocking her, and Gwyn heard herself make an odd, choked noise, not quite a laugh.
“Well, just so you know,” she spat, “I’m on an extra-strong dose of silphium, which has been consistently proven to be effective, even against your kind. And therefore, despite your best efforts, I willnotbe bearing you any children, or making your case to my father, or publicly testifying before an angry mob, or whatever other life-altering ordeals you had planned for me to endure on your behalf!”
The orc’s hand had again risen to that tooth hanging around his neck, stroking it with his claws — but he still didn’t speak. Not even attempting to explain himself, or gods forbid, apologize. And surely, Gwyn would never want such an apology from him anyway — would never accept an apology, after all he’d done — so why did she still feel so worn, so sick, sobroken.
“I grant you, it was a clever plan,” she heard her cracked voice continue, all on its own. “And my father’s new law isunspeakablyfoul. Gods know, I might have even gone along with you willingly, if you hadn’t —”
And wait, what was she saying — she surely hadn’t oncethoughtabout actuallyhelpingthis orc?! — and she rubbed at her prickling eyes with her stinging palms. Forgetting all about the thistle spines still stuck in them, and then wincing at their sharp scrape against her eyelids —
When suddenly, something snatched at her wrist, and yanked it downwards. Something new, something warm and surprisingly powerful, and wait, it was — the orc’shand?!
Gwyn flinched all over, blinking her bleary eyes — and yes, the orc was —here. Crouching directly before her in the garden-bed, his eyes dark and disapproving, his long fingers flexing tight and familiar around her wrist.
“No,” he said flatly. “You keep eyessafe. These are no easy to heal. Ach?”
She flinched again, but didn’t move. Couldn’t seem to move, somehow, as the orc slowly, carefully turned her wrist over, exposing her raw, reddened palm to the sunlight. And exposing, too, all the clusters of tiny thistle-spines, caught in her inflamed skin.
The pain had been fairly negligible, but the disapproval again flared in the orc’s watching eyes. And as Gwyn kept staring, unmoving, he began plucking the spines out, one by one, with rapid, efficient flicks of his sharp black claws.
Gwyn’s brain was wildly stuttering, but she didn’t jerk away, even as his warm hand snatched for her other wrist, and proceeded to do it all over again. And gods, she should not be allowing this, she should be shouting at him, demanding why the hell he was pretending to care, why he was evenhere—
But she just kept staring at him, blank and bewildered, as he frowned down at her still-inflamed palm, and tilted it toward the light. And without warning, he pulled her hand up to his mouth, and…lickedit?!
But yes, yes, now this incomprehensible orc waslickingher. His long, sinuous black tongue stroking soft and smooth against her reddened skin, lingering against the worst cuts, even curving around her fingers. The movements deft and certain, almost as though he wanted this, perhaps evenneededto do this…
And then he grasped again for her other hand, and set upon it with equal intensity. That sinuous orc-tongue tasting, swirling, almost caressing — and flashing across Gwyn’s thoughts was an abrupt, absurdly powerful vision of last night. Of this lithe, graceful orc on his knees before her, black lashes fluttering, as this same slick, supple tongue curled deep inside her…
