Good gods, Gwyn couldn’tthink, and Joarr ground himself even deeper, while the chaos streamed through her thoughts. More ruin, more poison, speak,speak…
“None of that,” she gasped at him. “But you still lied to me,again. You didn’t tell me the true situation of your clan. Howdireit is. That women are already at risk, and they’redying! That two Bautul sons are motherless. Because ofmy father!”
Joarr’s forehead abruptly furrowed, and he drew slightly out again — the movement small, but still enough to wring another gasp from Gwyn’s mouth. “I tell you Bautul clan suffers,” he said, voice flat. “I no ken you wish to hear each tale of woe and death, ach?”
He punctuated his last sentence with another push inside, and Gwyn gasped again, even as she glared at him, her hands gripping to the edge of the examination table. “Idowant to hear about it,” she choked at him. “I want you to tell me the truth.Everything. Can’t you see that I’m trying to trust you? That Iwantto be able to trust you?!”
Joarr kept frowning at her as he again slid out and sank back inside, a little harder this time. “I wish this also,” he said, his voice still appallingly steady. “But you no follow why I no wish to burden you with this? You are no at fault for the deeds of your father, or these men. Yet here you seek torightthis. You work with all strength to help us, and serve my kin. You honour us in this. You honourme.”
He’d picked up speed as he spoke, sliding in and out, the sheer sensation sending sharp flares of heat through her at every thrust. She honoured them. Honoured him…
“If I burden you with all this,” he continued, his voice just slightly ragged now, “I ken you shall work yet more. You shall serve yet more. You shall cast away all you long for, all your hope for thisnew way, in seeking to right what these men have done. When these men have also harmedyou!”
Gwyn’s breaths were coming in short, scattered pants, her whole body trembling at every steady drive of that demanding hardness into her. “That is still,” she somehow gasped at him, “mydecision to make. Not yours, asshole!”
But Joarr was laughing, the harsh sound lacking all mirth, his hips slamming even harder against her. “Ach, no,” he said, the coolness in his voice at unnerving odds with his bitter, glinting eyes. “This is no your choice. No even my choice. This is now the choice of my fool fathers, and these fool men, and this cruel Bautul goddess, who only taunt me, and mock me, and seek toruinme! Ruinyou!”
What? The anger was blazing bright in his eyes now, and Gwyn could feel him oddly quivering as he plunged in again and again, hard enough to make her teeth chatter, her body wrenching at each impact. Her hands finally fluttering to his shoulders, clutching painfully tight as he took her, pierced her, invaded her. As he somehow seemed to draw her anger into himself, into his flashing eyes, his growl burning through the air…
“You no deserve this,” he hissed, his voice hitching with every plunge. “You no deserve your father. No deserve this betrothed. No deserveme. No deserve me making you my own. No deservethis.”
This. He meantthis, his coiled frenzied body ramming into her, claiming her, making her his.My own, he’d said, and somehow that was important, extremely important, his growls cracking into something like roars, his claws sinking through her dress, into her skin, as he kept hurling himself into her, flying together, soaring in a careening rush, plummeting into the depths…
His flood of heat blasted out in a furious charge, spurting deep and dark within her, pulsing again and again and again. While his bark tore from his throat, his eyes squeezed shut, his body otherwise frozen motionless, in utter thrall to the spray of liquid fire filling her, claiming her,his…
Gwyn’s own shout tore through the room, the throbs of her release reeling hot and wild, clamping against the hardness still plunged to the hilt, pouring itself out inside her. Craving it, welcoming it, even if it, even if he…
And as the pleasure slowly ebbed again, in its place was… awareness. A strange, unmistakable certainty, teetering quiet and close between them. His. His own. Because…
His eyes were blinking downwards now, not toward their still-joined bodies, but just above. Because. Because…
Gwyn’s hands fluttered for his face, tilting it up again, finding his eyes. His broken, betraying eyes, oddly bright on hers, glittering with all he wasn’t saying. All he had done. All he had known…
“Am I…” she whispered, choked. “I’m not…pregnant, Joarr?”
And his slow, answering nod was a cruel, staggering blow from the gods, ringing deadly and devastating between them. No.No.Impossible.
“Ach,” he said. “You are.”
25
Gwyn was… pregnant. With an orc’s son. WithJoarr’sson.
And as she stared at his dark, glimmering eyes — his guilty,guiltyeyes — there was the strangest, wildest urge to laugh. Of course this would happen again. Ofcourse. And of course Joarr would know about it before she did, gods curse all the world, gods damn her utter blazingstupidity.
Because she’d known this was a risk. Hadn’t she? Even with the silphium, it had been a risk. She’d known all those stories about the power of the orcs’ seed. She’d cared for all those pregnant women. She’d told them again and again to be safe, aware, because they couldn’t trust men, surely they couldn’t trust orcs…
“From… when?” Gwyn heard her voice say, distant, grating, someone else’s. “Not just now, surely?”
Joarr shook his head, his mouth grimacing, his eyes squeezed shut. “From… the altar,” he whispered. “In the storm. I ken.”
The storm. Sodaysago. And surely he’d known before this moment — maybe he’d even known then? — and Gwyn’s urge to laugh was swarmed with the desperate, all-consuming need to weep. He’d known. And he hadn’t told her.Again.
But now it was his hands on her face, his fingers skittering on her skin. “I tell myself I…dreamthis,” he breathed. “I long too much for this — fear too much for this — so thus I taste it in my scent. Same way I taste your care for me, ach? I ken I never gain such gifts, no after all I see. So I” — he swallowed, the sound thick in his throat — “Isavourthis. Revel in sweet scent of son, upon my quick, wise woman. I overlook how this grows stronger. How he tastes no only of me, but ofyou.”
Oh. Oh gods. And was Joarr telling the truth now, he couldn’t be, so why was he blinking like that, why was his entire body twitching against hers, his breaths rattling in his throat. “Never wished to visit this upon you,” he whispered. “No in truth. No after this first night I taste you, ach? When you keep me secret. When youseeme.”
Gwyn couldn’t speak, caught in his choked words, trapped in his shimmering eyes. In eyes that were… guilty. Grieving. Perhaps even…afraid.
