1
The new healer, Kesst decided, was an arse. A stodgy, stuffy, stick-up-the-rumparse.
“You shouldn’t file your claws like that,” the arse was currently saying, his voice hard, his eyes glowering down at Kesst’s perfectly manicured hand. “Of course they’re going to get infected. Can’t you see how that’s irritating your clawbed?”
Kesst frowned straight back at the stuffy new healer — Efterar, his name apparently was, and he was supposedly from Clan Ash-Kai, too. Though he’d only shown up at Orc Mountain a moon or two ago, and gods only knew where he’d crawled out from. The southern clans, most likely, given his square blockish build, his scarred, craggy face, and his utter dearth of manners, or attractiveness, or taste.
“My claws look better this way,” Kesst countered, flipping his long black hair over his shoulder. “More refined. Less… orc-like.”
The healer’s disapproving eyes snapped up to Kesst’s face, fully meeting his gaze for the first time in this highly unpleasant little contretemps. “Youarean orc, Ash-Kai,” he growled, crossing his big arms against his grey tunic. “What, do you want to lookhuman?”
Despite himself, Kesst twitched a step back toward the camp tunnel’s grimy wall behind him, while an odd, curious chill flickered up his spine.Magic. This stuffy grump healer had the old Ash-Kai magic, of course he did — and of course Kesst would be able to taste it. Like knowing like, and all that rubbish.
But gods, it was strong. Stronger than it had any right to be, on such an ugly odious curmudgeon. A curmudgeon who wasstillglaring at Kesst, as though instead of getting bored and fretful on a raid — and taking out his anxiety on his claws — Kesst had just gone and shat on this bastard’s clean, irritatingly large black boots.
“Well, maybe Idowant to look human,” Kesst belatedly replied, giving his coolest, blandest smile. “Maybe I’d rather not be sent off into this godsforsaken raid tomorrow to have my entrails carved out by desperate humans, hmmm?”
The healer’s head tilted, his eyes narrowed to thin, skeptical slits. “They wouldn’t sendyouout to fight,” he said, with a cursory, dismissive glance up and down Kesst’s slim, bare-chested form. “That’s ridiculous.”
It took a considerable effort for Kesst to hold the smile to his face, though his gaze had reflexively dropped, down to his reddened, painful finger. “Indeed,” he said tightly. “But alas, worse things have happened.”
The silence felt thick, suddenly, curdling with an unfamiliar scent — and Kesst realized it was from the healer. His scent had simmered low and unobtrusive until now, sweet but thankfully not too strong — but now it had a sharp, bitter edge on it, almost like anger.
“What do you mean, worse things have happened?” the healer demanded, his voice just as sharp as his scent. “Toyou?”
The smile had fully slipped from Kesst’s mouth now, his eyes still intent on his infected finger. And if he had been a loyal brother, a brave and powerful Ash-Kai, he would have laughed, and waved the question away. He’d have said, with convincing confidence, that he would never be sent out to fight as punishment. Or left outside alone in the freezing cold for days on end. Or loaned out to the best fighters after a battle, while the rest of his clan watched, and envied, andapproved.
“Look, you can’t really think you’ve walked into some absurd orc utopia here, right?” Kesst finally said, his voice not nearly as light as he’d meant, as he gave a jerky wave at the horrid cramped tunnel around them, the distinct scents of blood and hunger just beyond. “I don’t know where you’ve been hiding away all this time, healer, but we’re atwar. The humans want todestroyus. We never have enough food, or gold, or fighters, or sons. It’srubbish, this life, and we’re trapped in it to the death. And if you had any sense whatsoever” — he dragged in breath, met the healer’s eyes — “you would fuck off, back to wherever the hell you came from,forever!”
It came out far too loud, ringing against the tunnel’s too-close walls, and for the briefest of instants, something stuttered in the healer’s scent. Something dark and sour, nearly strong enough to choke Kesst’s already-constricted throat.
“Right,” the healer finally said, his voice flat and emotionless again, his eyes carefully blank — and then his big hand swiftly reached out, brushed against Kesst’s finger, and dropped again. “Do you need anything else dealt with, then?”
Kesst blinked at the healer, at that emptiness in his eyes — and then down at his own oddly tingling finger. At how the previously reddened, inflamed skin had somehow faded back to its usual grey, his black, filed-off claw looking unnervingly fragile against it.
“Oh,” Kesst said thinly, as he kept blinking toward it. “No. Nothing else. Nothing the likes ofyoucould fix, at least.”
He’d attempted a dismissive sneer toward the healer, though perhaps it came out more like a grimace — but the healer had flinched backwards, all the same. And then his big body abruptly whirled around, swinging out a long black braid behind him, as his hand snatched for a full waterskin he’d had propped against a rock. And then he dumped out the waterskin over his hands, and began frantically rubbing them together.
Oh. The healer was… washing himself. As if… as if he’d desperately needed to scrub off the taint of Kesst’s scent, when they’d scarcely eventouched.
And gods, it should not have hurt like that. Kesst should not have given one flying fuck about this stuffy ugly healer from the backwoods, with his stupid judgement, and his stupid naivety, and his stupid damned magic. Magic Kesst could still feelinsidehim, in his own damned finger, still tingling with bizarre, alarming strength. And with a low, astonishing sweetness…
“And next time, maybe warn me before you start fucking with my insides,” Kesst snapped at the healer’s back, because he needed to say something,anything, to shove this feeling away. “And just so you know, I happen to have someverypowerful friends around here, hmmm? So if you’d actually like to survive this delightful new job of yours, youmaywant to take better care in how you treat me!”
And was Kesst happy to see the way the healer’s broad shoulders hunched, he was, hewas. “You came to be healed, so I did my job, and healed you,” the healer hissed, without looking, as he poured out more water over his hands. “So fuck you.”
Kesst instinctively recoiled, his body stiffening, his own hands balling into fists. “You onlywish,” he snarled back at the healer, brittle and scathing. “From the smell of you, you’ve never fucked once in your sheltered littlelife.”
It had only been a suspicion, though one that had kept growing as Kesst had kept standing here, feeling the healer’s magicinsidehim, while still breathing in that sweet, subtle, unnervingly appealing scent. And maybe that was why he was reacting like this, why this heinous stuffy arsehole was setting him off like this, like —
“And from the smell ofyou, you’ve had half the orcs in that damnedmountainfucking with your insides,” the healer growled back. “You think that’sbetter?!”
He’d whirled around to glare at Kesst, his big wet hand waving furiously at Kesst’s weak, skinny form, his tainted, used, broken scent. The sharp movement even spraying droplets of water on Kesst’s chest, his face, as if in some pathetic attempt to clean him, when they both knew he’d never be clean again, ever.
“You prudish, presumptuousprick,” Kesst gulped, as he reflexively scrubbed at the water, brushing it away, away. “Howdareyou. I’ll have you know, I — I —”
He what? Damn it,what? He was known for his wit, his smart mouth, his uncanny ability to sway his superiors with his grace and beauty and charm. For being the sweet, pretty, eloquent human most of them would never have, down to the weakness of his body, and the blunted tips of his claws.
