He looked at her.
Their gazes met and snagged and she looked into his stormy eyes and they widened, and she saw the expression that passed over his face. Regret.
But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t forgive him. He had ruined her in front of a chapel of people, in front of Celedin, and he had brought all of these orcs with him.
How was she supposed to forgive him this? Ravishing her like this?
The tears might be coming back, she thought, and she fought them.
He flinched, and his rhythm inside her flagged. He slammed against her, hard, letting out a grunt, and he stopped his movement.
When he retreated, his cock was still hard as he tucked it into his trousers. He shot a glance at Celedin. “Your dying thought can be whether or not my orc seed will take root in her womb,” he spat at the other man.
But she was fairly certain there was no seed as she drew her trembling thighs together, as she pushed the tatters of her skirts down over her body.
Dathor gestured without looking, his gaze holding Celedin’s. “Get her out of here. Take her to the room at the top of the north tower. She won’t want to watch this.”
Orcs were coming for her. They were all dressed the same, like Dathor, in their rebel uniforms, the fabric a dark blue.
She scrambled backwards on the altar, trying to get away from them, but two of them seized her. They were taller than Dathor, bulkier, full-blooded orcs with thick necks and wide chests. They yanked her up between them, each taking her by an arm.
She tried to watch as Dathor advanced on Celedin. Dathor was saying something to him, something as he leaned close to the other man, whose face was bleeding, who was…
Oh, by the gold fingers of dawn itself, Celedin was crying, too. She had not seen him cry since they were all children together. Admittedly, he started paying other children to hold Dathor down while he beat him before they were out of childhood.
She moaned. She couldn’t stop herself. The sound just bubbled up out of her.
Dathor turned, his expression fierce. “You want to plead for him, then?”
She could not speak or the tears would come out.
“Hold her still,” said Dathor in a hard voice. “I’vechanged my mind. She watches.” He turned back to Celedin. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you when you were slamming your fist into my face again and again, I told you that you would pay for everything you did to me? Do you remember?”
Tears streamed down Celedin’s face. “Please, Dathor, please. We are cousins. We are blood. If that means anything to you—”
“Blood?” said Dathor. “Oh, am I not acreature, then? Am I not an animal?” And he had a dagger and the two men looked into each other’s eyes, and she thought Dathor’s face was twisting, too, she thought he might cry.
But he didn’t.
He just slashed Celedin’s throat, one quick motion, and Celedin’s head slumped forward, and blood poured all over the front of his tunic, and she moaned again, just a moan, just one low and long moan.
Dathor turned to look at her, his expression twisting. “Take her to the tower,” he said hoarsely.
2
AERHRIL DIDN’T REMEMBERmeeting Dathor.
He was just there, all the time, on the periphery, in the shadows, skulking on the stairs, peering down from the loft in the barn, taking plates of food from the kitchen because he wasn’t permitted to eat with them.
She supposed someone must have pointed him out to her and explained to her who he was, but for the life of her, she couldn’t even remember that part now. Those first few weeks here at Foxglove Peak, she had been having trouble adjusting to it all.
She was the ward of the keep, sent here by the government, by the parliament of Lothnehil, sent to live with the low elves—well, they didn’t like to be called that, she knew. They liked to be called silvan, on account of their affinity with the trees.
She was a high elf, Valaedor, one of the fair ones, and she came here from the south, from the Vale, all the way to the top of the country, to the mountains, to the Silvarenna, which translated as, “the wooded hills.” These elves were called Cirdan.
Her people had conquered their people some fifty years ago in the wars. Back then, oddly, the orcs had been the allies of the silvans, but now it was the one thing the elves could agree upon, the one thing they could come together in, their hatred of the orcs.
Ward was what it was called, but she was really a hostage. She and other children were traded—the silvans to the south and nae Oir (literally translated “of gold”) to the north, in order to ensure peace. The elf lords would not go killing each other if they knew their children were with the enemy.
