“Damnit,” Gwyn said, pawing desperately at the table for another bolt, but her fingers were trembling too much to even hold onto it, let alone arm the damned thing onto the damned shaking crossbow. While the damned orc just kept standing there, gazing at her, apparently entirely unaffected by the fact that she’d almost nailed him to her front door.
“What the hell,” Gwyn said now, and her voice was shaking, too. “Howdareyou break into my property, orc. This ismyland.Myhouse.”
The orc just kept looking at her, giving Gwyn a good chance to look back — andgods, he was horrifying. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and his skin was a strange shade of greenish-grey, marked all over with visible scars. His eyes were dark and glittering, his jaw and cheekbones sharp and square, and his hair was a shaggy mass of thick chaotic black, reaching nearly to his shoulders. Not only that, he appeared to be barefoot, withclawed toenails, and the only item of clothing on his scarred greenish body was a pair of trousers that had been brutally chopped off at the knee. Unless one counted the cord hanging around his neck, which boasted a single large, curving, deadly-lookingtooth.
The orc seemed to be taking equal stock of Gwyn, his black eyes running up and down her frame, and far too late she recalled that she was only wearing her sleeping-shift, and a rather transparent one at that. Which meant that the orc — this brutal, hideous, half-dressed orc — was openlyoglingher. His eyes lingering first on the slight swell of her breasts, with their dark peaks clearly on display through the thin silk, and then down to the shift’s too-short length. And there was a strange little ripple down her back, because all he would have to do was walk over, lift her shift, and —
“Don’t come any closer,” Gwyn gasped, and she did manage to grip a bolt this time, pointing its sharpened end in the orc’s general direction. “In fact, get out. This ismyhouse.”
The orc’s still-wandering eyes finally rose back to her face, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he looked almostamused. “Ach, I ken,” he said, the words coming out accented, dusky, hoarse. “But you no welcome guest?”
Guest? “Of course I don’t welcome orc guests!” Gwyn snapped back, and in her irritation seemed to find the presence of mind — and hand — to reload the crossbow, pulling back the lever with all her strength, and then placing the new bolt, while the orc just watched. “Also, a proper guest would make proper arrangements, and perhaps bring a proper gift, and most importantly, properlyknockon the damneddoor!”
She aimed the crossbow back at the orc, who just kept standing there, still with that amused look on his harsh face. “Here,” he said, with a fluid flourish of his lean muscled arm toward her. “Gift.”
What? Gwyn’s grip on the heavy crossbow faltered, her gaze darting down to his outstretched hand. A large, capable-looking hand, with long fingers that ended in sharp blackclaws— but as appalling as that sight should have been, Gwyn’s eyes were locked on what those fingers were holding.
It was a plant. Alivingplant. One that had clearly been dug up with care, its roots and earth concealed in a thick wrapping of damp paper. And without even noticing that she’d moved, Gwyn had somehow stepped around the table, in order to better peer at the plant’s large, palmate leaves and distinctive spiked purple flowers.
Her breath clamped in her throat, her eyes widening — because this wasn’t just any plant. It waschasteberry. A plant which grew far beyond the sea to the south, and which Gwyn had never before encountered in person. But it was well known to be an excellent midwifery herb, capable of regulating women’s monthly courses and managing related pain, and its small round berries were often imported, at costs far too prohibitive for her to afford.
And now, an orc simply happened to be carrying about a live chasteberry plant? And offering it to her as agift?!
Gwyn shot an accusing glare up at the orc’s face, but he was still looking amused, or perhaps even smug. “Gift,” he repeated, low and languid, as he came a smooth, graceful step closer. “You like, ach?”
Gwyn twitched, and belatedly jerked up her still-loaded crossbow between them — but the orc only raised a thick black eyebrow, and came another step forward. Moving like he was a prowling forest cat, stalking his prey, and surely orcs had no right to glide like that, they were supposed to be clumsy lumberingbeasts. Weren’t they?
But the orc only came another sinuous step nearer, his glinting black eyes mocking on hers, and Gwyn felt herself swallow, hard. She’d never actually seen an orc up close before, let alone spoken to one — and especially one who was still casually carrying achasteberryplant in his clawed hand. But suddenly her thoughts were swarming with all those memories, with the hushed voices and flushed faces of multiple different women, whispering their shameful confessions with downcast eyes.
He wasn’t at all what I expected. He was so… different. His hands. His smell. The way he tasted. The way he—
“Don’t come any closer,” Gwyn gasped at the orc, wildly brandishing her crossbow between them. “Iwillshoot you.”
Thankfully the orc stopped moving, though his mouth had quirked up, flashing her a row of sharp white teeth. Complete with a set of unnerving, wolf-likefangs— and now here was the horrid memory of that horrid man today, speaking all those horrid words.That great green bastard will be swiving upon you and draining your lifeblood before you’ve even seen him coming. And by next spring…
Gwyn shivered all over, her heartbeat frantically skipping in her chest. “What the hell,” she managed, “do youwant, orc.”
The orc gave a rolling shrug of his bare shoulder, and another blatant, lingering glance down at Gwyn’s scantily clad form. “Wish to greet new neighbour,” he said, in that smooth, accented voice. “See if she like orcguestas much as woman before her.”
Wait. Gwyn’s grip on her crossbow faltered again, her eyes narrowing on the orc’s smug, still-smiling face. “You aresurelynot implying,” she heard her distant voice say, “that my Great-Aunt Agnes welcomedyouinto this house! Or into her —”
She broke off there, her gaze darting reflexively toward her bedroom — and curse him, but the orc only flashed her another knowing, white-toothed grin. “Ino knew her bed,” he replied coolly, angling his shaggy head at the bedroom door, “but it yetreekof Bautul, ach?”
Good gods. Gwyn’s already-unsteady body had badly staggered, and her shaky hand clutched for the table behind her, gripping at its solid wood with painful force. “Im-impossible,” she countered. “G-great-Aunt Agnes was surelyeighty years old, if she was a day!”
But the orc’s grin looked even more mocking than before, and perhaps contemptuous, too. “Ach, and this was luck, you no ken?” he asked. “I no envy any woman who must grow and birth Bautul —”
But it was there, oddly enough, that he abruptly broke off. His mouth thinning, his thick brows furrowing close together, while his clawed hand slipped up to finger at the large tooth hanging around his neck. Almost as if he were — disconcerted, somehow, or even unguarded, for the first time since he’d broken into her damned house.
And rather than taking proper advantage of the moment, and shooting him, as she obviously ought to have done — Gwyn felt her grip further slackening on her crossbow, her head tilting sideways. “What’s aBautul?” she heard herself ask. “And more importantly,whywould my eighty-year-old Great-Aunt tolerate it in her bedroom?!”
And gods, why had she even asked such a stupid question — surely she understood precisely what this orc was talking about — but curse her, perhaps this was why. The way his expression instantly cleared, his eyes back to amused again, the devious smile curling at his lips.
“You wish to learn, woman?” he murmured, as he came another smooth, rolling step closer. “Wish me to show you?”
Gwyn’s mouth dropped open, her eyes gaping at his face — and her heart was suddenly thundering in her chest, frantic and furious. “I wish for no such thing,” she hissed, around her strangely tangled tongue. “In fact, my only wish at the moment is for you to vanish from my sight atonce!”
The orc’s black brows rose, his mouth still quirked into that mocking smile. “If this is truth,” he drawled, “then why you no now shoot me, woman?”
