Geva nodded, even as she took a bracing breath, gave Kesst another sidelong glance. “So there’s really no one here you have… issues with anymore?” she asked, very carefully. “Not even someone like… Ulfarr?”
Kesst shot her a sharp look, but then shook his head. “No. I mean, yes, Ulfarr’s often been a raging cretin, and he’s always underfoot when you least want him — but that doesn’t mean I want Rath to run off and kill him. Believe me, sister” — a rather unnerving glint flared in his eye — “the orcs I wanted dead? They’redead.”
Right. That was perfectly, impeccably clear, then, and once again, Geva felt her own certainty settling, coiling even firmer than before. And she earnestly threw herself into the rest of the day’s preparations, which culminated in a whirlwind jaunt through the gigantic Grisk storage-room, picking up all the last little items on her wish list. And when they returned to their lovely little schoolroom again, they found Jule and Tengil standing in the middle of it, and staring around at it with matching expressions of disbelief in their eyes.
And following their gaze, Geva felt her mouth curving up, her cheeks warming with a flushed, eager pride. The room had been set up with multiple tables, each with a few chairs clustered around it, and one wall was lined with shelves, which were filled with as many orcling-appropriate toys, tools, and games as they’d been able to find. One corner was covered in soft furs and pillows for reading or resting, and a lively fire was crackling in the fireplace, its light dancing on the bright, elaborately patterned tapestries they’d hung around the room.
“You — devious — Ash-Kai,” Jule’s breathless voice finally said, her eyes darting between Kesst and Geva with incredulous awe. “This is — unbelievable. Grimarr is going to be —”
She was blinking hard, her mouth pulling into a rather weepy, wavering smile. “It’s so thoughtful,” she said, on a strange little gulp. “Thank you. Both of you. Gods, I —”
She didn’t finish, flapping her hand at her face, while Tengil, still in her arms, had begun to look visibly alarmed, giving a high-pitched little mewl. Prompting Kesst to stride over and pluck him out of Jule’s arms, even as he gave her a companionable-looking bump with his shoulder.
“You like it too, Bitty-Grim?” he asked lightly. “Will you come in here every day and poo all over the place?”
Tengil brightened at that, his eyes darting meaningfully toward Geva, and then toward the wall opposite the fire. And Geva gave a shaky little laugh of her own as she brought up Amhalia, and made her roar to life in the firelight.
“I have returned!” she announced in her deep dragon voice, as Amhalia’s huge shadow writhed triumphantly upon the wall. “I have found a new room, with even more delicious mosquitoes to eat! Yum yum!”
Tengil was already squealing with contagious glee, wriggling in Kesst’s arms. And after watching for a moment, his mouth slowly twitching up, Kesst thrust Tengil back toward Jule, and then joined in. Roaring up with a huge, flailing, sharp-toothed dragon of his own, complete with a showy headdress — Kesst’s claws — on top. But of course, Amhalia was highly offended by competition for her mosquitoes, and soon the two dragons were wildly out-competing one another, each one’s antics more ridiculous than the next.
It went on until they were all laughing too much to speak, and Tengil’s wild shrieks had begun to verge close to meltdown territory — so Geva made Amhalia say a showy farewell, and then trot off for her poo and nap. And it was only then, with Tengil still delightedly giggling, that Geva caught sight of Rathgarr leaning against the schoolroom doorway, where he’d perhaps been watching all this, his eyes glimmering strangely in the firelight.
The room had gone starkly silent, and Geva belatedly smiled, and strode over to meet Rathgarr at the door. “There you are, love,” she said, as she leaned up to press a kiss to his warm cheek. “How was your day?”
Rathgarr still had that strange look in his eyes, and he slipped his arm around her waist, drawing her close. “Not near as gainful as yours, I ken,” he said, with an unmistakably appreciative glance around the room. “You have done all this today?”
“Yes, with Kesst’s help,” Geva replied, flashing a grateful grin over toward him. “Your brother is a force to be reckoned with, love.”
Rathgarr’s warm eyes had followed hers toward Kesst, as a slow, affectionate smile curved on his mouth. “Ach, I ken,” he said softly. “Thank you for helping my mate thus, little brother.”
Kesst waved it away, though his cheeks were unmistakably flushed. “Of course,” he replied. “She’s lovely, and it still beggars belief that she’s voluntarily mated toyou. Now I’m late for Eft, so —”
He stepped toward the door, his brows meaningfully raised, and both Geva and Rathgarr hurriedly moved aside, so he could pass through. But once he was in the corridor, he turned back toward them, his shoulders squared. “I’ll stop by tomorrow to see how you fare, sister,” he said. “As foryou” — he exhaled as he glanced at Rathgarr, his mouth very slightly quirking — “don’t get seed on the orclings’ clean new furniture, it’s inverypoor taste.”
With that, he spun and stalked off down the corridor, followed closely by Jule, who gave Geva’s hand a quick little squeeze on the way by, her eyes still unmistakably bright. “We’ll be here tomorrow too,” she said. “Thank you again, sister.”
It left Geva and Rathgarr standing alone in the schoolroom, Rathgarr’s hand spasming against Geva’s waist. And when she glanced up toward him, he was looking back down at her, again with that strange shifting meaning in his eyes.
And then, without warning, he grasped her waist, spinning her around — and then he bent her double over the nearest table, his hands yanking up her shift, lingering on her bare arse.
“What,” Geva gulped at him, “the hell, Rathgarr! This is aschoolroom!”
But oh, that was a low, lazy laugh from behind her, the feel of his booted foot bumping her leg sideways. “Ach, and all the orclings are now down at dinner,” he drawled at her, as he slid her other leg out, too. “And any good Ash-Kai would wish to mark his mate in a newly christened room thus, and thus stake his claim. Most of all” — his voice deepened — “in a room that was once his enemy’s.”
Gods curse him, because Geva could already feel that silken swelling hardness, seeking warm and hungry between her now-parted legs. Enough to make her gasp and shudder all over, nearly losing her footing — and with another firm grip of his hands, Rathgarr lifted her knees up onto the table, spreading them wide apart, while she scrabbled to find balance on her hands.
“Even better,” he murmured, as his finger gave a slow, proprietary swipe down her open, already-slick crease, followed by an audacious little nudge inside. “Your hungry little womb has missed me this day, ach, poppet? It has longed for my tending and filling?”
There was truly no answer to this, not when she was bared and spread wide on a schoolroom table, with an orc shamelessly stroking at her clutching, wide-open heat. And saying these things, why was he still saying these things, as if other orcs were listening — but they weren’t. Were they? It was just — them. Just this. Something new.
“Of course not,” Geva managed, as steadily as she could, as she felt Rathgarr tilting her out more toward him, replacing his finger with a much larger, much rounder press of heat. “I barely thought of you at —fuck!”
He’d slammed inside with a hard, powerful thrust, plunging all the way to the hilt in one devastating cant of his hips. And then he stayed there, sunk deep, circling slow and dizzying inside. “This is it, my stubborn schoolmarm,” he said approvingly. “You curse and squeal and beg for me upon this table, and take joy in your deep Ash-Kai ploughing.”
Joy. That word pulling strangely in Geva’s belly, her body desperately grasping at his invasion inside her — and of course, that was when he chose to draw out, dragging that slick hard heat slow and relentless from her desperate clinging clutch.
“I said beg, poppet,” he drawled, with a gentle slap of his warm hand at her arse. “Tell me how much you have missed me. How you have craved my touch and my taking. How you long for me to claim you here, and make youreekof me.”
