He was obviously including Gwyn in that directive, his focus again shifting toward her — and she saw Joarr nod at the same time she did, his shoulders visibly relaxing. “Ach, she has agreed to this,” Joarr said lightly. “Whilst she is here, she is solely a midwife who wishes to gain my garden, and my hungry tongue.”
Gwyn’s face flushed with sudden, powerful heat, which was only made worse by Joarr’s jaunty, knowing grin down toward her. “Best of all, this is all truth,” he purred. “Is it not, woman?”
Gwyn shot him a black look, but her retort was forestalled by the warm, appreciative chuckle from the captain at the table. “Ach, you must well meet her wishes, then, brother,” he said. “We shall speak again soon.”
It was clearly a dismissal, and Joarr answered it with an easy nod, the smile still lingering at his mouth. And then, with an already-familiar clutch of his hand to Gwyn’s arse, he steered her out the door, and back into the pitch-black corridor.
Gwyn’s brain was still frantically churning, pulling pieces together, so distracted that the close blackness didn’t feel nearly as oppressive as it had before. And perhaps it was her imagination, but Joarr’s body beside her felt easier than before too, his long arm all but embracing her, his graceful steps moving in time with hers.
“So you didn’t only want me tomeetyour captain,” Gwyn said finally, frowning up in the general direction of Joarr’s face, “but you wanted totestme, while he watched. You wanted to show him how thoroughly I’d stick to our midwife story. And also” — she felt her frown deepen — “you wanted to pitch your revised plan to him, didn’t you? Because you actually had no idea if he’d approve of you single-handedly tossing out your original plan to destroy my life, and deciding to bring me here instead?”
There was a brief, almost imperceptible flash of tension through the warm body against her — and then the sound of his laugh, rich and appreciative in the darkness. “Witch woman,” he said lightly. “I knew you should show your mettle in this, ach?”
So her suspicions were entirely correct, the bastard, and Gwyn huffed a groan, even as she fought back the twitch of a smile on her mouth. “What if your captain had decided to kick me out on the spot?” she demanded. “Or to imprison me, or hold me for ransom, or something?”
And gods, why hadn’t she been more concerned about this, why had she just taken Joarr at his word,again— but his next bright, genuine-sounding laugh seemed to scatter her tension, his hand briefly abandoning her arse to ruffle against her hair. “Ach, he no do such a thing against womanIbring here,” he said lightly. “And even if this come to pass, mayhap you findfunin this prison, ach? Mayhap I bind you in shackles, and pull your hair, and punish you?”
His voice was teasing, testing,searchingher on this — and Gwyn halted mid-step, her breath catching, her heart wildly beating. “No,” she hissed, before she could stop it. “Never. My father, one time he forgot me in the family crypt, and —”
She broke off there, far too late, while certain horrible, mostly repressed memories threatened to surge up, to swallow her — and suddenly it was Joarr surrounding her, his arm on her back pulling her close, his other hand sunk into her hair. “Then we no do this,” he said, softer than she expected. “I only ask, ach? Wish to know.”
Oh. Gwyn felt herself oddly sagging, her head nodding, her eyes fluttering closed. “Is that — somethingyouwant, though?” she heard her wretched voice ask. “Something you’d miss, if I —”
And good gods, what was she even asking with this? Surely she was still only spending a day here?Surely?
But Joarr hadn’t laughed at the question, or dismissed it, and he was somehow still here against her, his body so solid, so damned reassuring. “Ach, no, woman,” he replied, without a trace of mockery in his voice. “I no need locks or chains to spill my seed. I may no more belong to Skai clan, but I am no yet Ka-esh, ach?”
With that, he drew away, his hand again ruffling her hair as he guided her back down the corridor. While it occurred to Gwyn’s still-scattered thoughts that this was another pinecone, another opening.No more Skai, no yet Ka-esh…
“So the Skai were your old clan, then?” she asked, though her voice still sounded damnably thin. “And the Ka-esh clan enjoys, um,games of intimacy?”
It was a term some women had furtively used for it, when they’d come to Gwyn with unexpected injuries, and Joarr gave her another approving little pat. “Ach, the Ka-esh even have a secret room for this, down in the bowels of the mountain,” he said lightly. “But when you meet them, they shall only speak of their books and their learning and theirscience, ach? And so long as you listen, they shall speak, and speak, andspeak.”
He sounded genuinely amused by this, and Gwyn felt her interest catching, her thoughts indeed chasing this damned pinecone where he willed. “And the Skai?” she asked. “What are they like?”
Joarr had to have known it was coming, but that was surely another flare of telltale tension through his body, in his hand against her. “Skai no like to keep secrets, or to hide our hunger away,” he replied slowly. “Skai give no room for shame. And Skaido, instead of read and speak, ach? We hunt, we fight, we mate, and we flaunt ourjoyin this.”
We. It had obviously slipped out without him catching it, and Gwyn again felt that twitch of tension through his body. Strong enough that she twitched too, her eyes seeking his face, despite the still-inscrutable darkness.
“Well, it certainly sounds like you’d fit right in,” she said, and she meant it. “You must miss them.”
There was another beat of silence, another breath of tightness against her. “Ach, they are still here,” Joarr replied, and even in the darkness, Gwyn could envision that mask, slipping over his eyes. “Naught to miss, ach?”
He might as well have not bothered, but Gwyn didn’t try to argue. And after another moment’s silent walking in the blackness, he abruptly drew her toward the right, and then around a sharp turn, and then another.
“Wait here, woman,” he said, as both his big hands gripped at her hips, holding her in place. “Whilst I trade for lamp.”
Wait, he was trading for alamp? But yes, his touch had vanished, and was almost instantly replaced by the sounds of voices. His voice, yes, low and rolling, speaking the orcs’ black-tongue, and with it another voice, higher-pitched, and unmistakably combative. But Joarr’s voice didn’t rise, and after a distinctive clank of metal — of coins? — he was back beside Gwyn again, and a sudden blinding light lit up the black corridor around them.
“Here,” he said, thrusting the lamp’s metal handle into her fingers. “Better?”
Better. And as Gwyn squinted at him in the too-bright light, it occurred to her that his head was tilted, his brows furrowed… and that it might actually have beenconcernin his eyes. Concern, because of what? That stupid little disclosure about the crypt?
But yes, surely, that was what he meant, and his eyes slid purposefully away from hers, his shoulder shrugging, as though she’d somehow asked aloud. “I no followed why you tasted of fear toward this mountain, when you have feared so little else,” he said, his voice light. “I no count this against you, ach?”
Right. Because Gwyn was supposed to be impressing him, showing him her mettle — and she’d already failed, because he’d known she was afraid of a giant hunk of rock. And so he’d bought her a damned lamp, as some sort ofconsolation, and —
“Also,” he continued, louder than before, his head angling toward the dark shadow of a nearby door in the wall, “it is good that I remind Uglak that I haverightto Bautul trading-post, ach? That he must dealfairwith me, lest I comestealwhat I wish whilst he sleeps?”
