“Ach, woman, I always keep my word,” he said, his voice light, glittering, deadly. “Should you truly wish to witness this, then come.”
10
Gwyn was losing her mind.
It was the only possible explanation, she thought grimly, as she dashed around her house, tidying up the table, yanking on a sturdy dress and boots. She’d clearly been driven round the bend by all the rubbish from her father, and Roy, and now this damned orc.
But she didn’t stop, either. Just kept churning through tasks, one after another. Watering the necessary plants, harvesting the necessary seeds, and even — she hesitated for an instant, but then did it anyway — slinging her crossbow onto her back, and ensuring her bolts were properly fastened into the sling, as well.
“You said it was a half-day’s journey, right?” she asked the orc, who had followed her inside the house, and was now leaning against the closed door with deceptive casualness. “I’ll be back by tonight?”
The chilly distance hadn’t once left the orc’s eyes, and he gave a careless, dismissive shrug. “Mayhap,” he said. “This hangs upon how weary you become.”
Gwyn couldn’t help a snort — some midwife she would be, if she couldn’t handle a day’s walking — but after a moment’s consideration, she snatched for a sheet of paper, and dashed out a note to leave on her kitchen table.
Gone to care for a client, she wrote.May be complications.
It wasn’t much, but it should cover her if anyone came by needing help, or gods forbid, if Roy or his minions should decide to return. And with that sorted, Gwyn squared her shoulders, hoisted her crossbow on her back, and turned to face the orc.
He was looking pained again, his eyes fixed to the note on the table, and for an instant, she had the oddest suspicion that he’d somehowreadit, even at that distance. But surely orcs couldn’t read, and perhaps that explained the tightness on his face, the flex of his long fingers at his side.
“Well, I’m ready,” she said, suddenly feeling strangely self-conscious. “Unless you can think of anything else I’ll need?”
Her gaze had darted back to her plants — perhaps she should bring some chamomile, or some wort to soothe the anxiety this journey was sure to bestow — but the orc shrugged again, and spun for the door. Not even looking to see if anyone was beyond as he yanked it open and strode away, without a single glance toward her.
Gwyn made a face at his retreating back, but accordingly followed, shutting the door tightly behind her. And then rushing to catch up to where the orc was already disappearing around the house, his strides swift, impatient, annoyed.
And as she followed him toward the nearby forest, her unease only surged stronger, lowering her head, heating her cheeks. Gods, what the hell was she doing. Cajoling a clearly unwilling orc into taking her to Orc Mountain, so that she could potentially move hergardenthere? After what they’d just done in her own garden?
She rubbed at her face, fighting to shove the memory back — but it was still so vivid, so unnervingly powerful. The way he’d tasted. The way he’d growled. The way he’d gripped those handfuls of her hair, easy and purposeful, and…
Her vision had briefly blurred, enough that she tripped over a highly avoidable root, jutting up out of the path. A bit of stupidity that earned her a dark glance from the orc over his shoulder, obviously even more annoyed than he’d already been before.
Gwyn gritted her teeth together, and forced her attention back to the path under her feet, and the forest all around them. This indeed seemed a straightforward route, easy and unobstructed, and it occurred to her that it was clearly familiar to the orc, too. Not only that, but it had seemed to lead directly to her garden, suggesting several obvious implications that she’d been very intently avoiding, until this moment.
“I know you said you weren’t… close with my Great-Aunt Agnes,” Gwyn ventured, toward the orc’s stiff-looking back. “But did you ever… meet her?”
It suddenly felt like a crucially important question, and one that Gwyn should have surely asked upon their very first acquaintance. But her stomach was unpleasantly twisting, her clammy hands rubbing at her skirts, almost as if she were afraid of the answer. Afraid of what it might mean.
“Ach,” the orc finally said, his voice thin, as though he hadn’t wanted to answer, either. “I met her.”
Gwyn heard herself exhale, and she dropped her gaze back to the path, stepping over rocks and roots. “What… was she like?”
The question felt choked in her throat, and she kept her head ducked low, her steps careful. Surely betraying even more of her many failures to this orc, and she could almost feel the added weight of his disapproval, his mockery. Because while Great-Aunt Agnes had shown Gwyn shocking generosity, in leaving her an entire house, Gwyn honestly knew very little of her, beyond those long-ago childhood visits. And even though she surely could have made an effort to visit in recent years, or at least written letters, it had never seemed a priority, not with all the other chaos that had constantly seemed to plague her existence.
And now Great-Aunt Agnes was dead. And Gwyn would never be able to sit with her, or work together in her garden, or ask all the questions that had been piling up in her brain these past days. Had Agnes truly been intimate with an orc? Had she somehowsupportedthe orcs? And worst of all, had sheknownthat Gwyn would be confronted by orcs, in coming here? Bythisorc?
“Your kinswoman was… wise,” the orc replied finally, without inflection in his voice. “Quick. Kind. She… granted me freedom to use her garden, as I wished.”
Shewhat? Gwyn’s footsteps stumbled again on the path, her wide eyes blinking at the orc’s stiff back. Not only had Great-Aunt Agnesknownthis orc — but she’d known him well enough to let him freely use her garden? Thehell?!
But the orc didn’t hesitate, or elaborate, or even look back. And as Gwyn clambered to catch up again, a new, surprisingly lowering suspicion flashed through her thoughts, grim and bitter and cold.
“Wait,” she gasped at him. “So you offering to move my garden — itwasn’tbecause you felt guilty about trying to ruin my life? It was because you — you saw that garden asyours?!”
And gods, the orc didn’t even reply. Just kept walking, distant and silent, as though he couldn’t care less that he’d blatantly lied to Gwyn, again. That he’d used her — and was currently still using her — to gain his own ends. His own goals. What he saw as his own damnedgarden.
And now — Gwyn’s feet slowed, halted — she’d once again fallen for it. She’d once again decided, beyond all reason, to trust this sly, slippery bastard at his word. After he’d again mocked her, and spied on her, and blatantly used her mouth for his pleasure? What thehellwas wrong with her?
