Page 23 of Wed to the Orc Captive

His fingers tightened, near bruising, on my arm, a bite of that brutality before his grip relaxed. His hand slid to cradle my neck. So this was dangerous, too, giving him what he wanted, drawing in the orc I’d chosen. With someone this strong I was in danger either way. Our mouths moved together, mine hesitant, his slow, and then his kiss deepened, testing, like a question. But what could he have to ask me? I reciprocated, clumsy, and he hummed against my lips, his arms drawing me closer, and I remembered again I was unclothed.

I didn’t know how long we would need to be together. What if I needed to be good at this?

Lying still helped nothing. If I was going to kiss him, I might as well touch. I found his body in front of me and to steady myself, I grabbed his shoulders.

His hand found my waist, and he pulled me to him, close against the heat of his skin. His abdomen moved against mine, his mouth hard and soft, and he tasted like wood sorrel and pine, like the burn of a campfire, like salt and rain and if he was going to touch me, why shouldn’t I touch him? I ran my hands down the smooth planes of his body, the divots and curls of him, muscle and soft flesh.

He snarled against my neck, his grip flexing, and I went still.

“I'm sorry,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“Don't,” he growled into my shoulder, pulled back just enough that I could catch the glint in those iron-forge eyes. “Don’t…be sorry.”

I slid my fingertips across his skin again, and his breath hitched, and he came back to my mouth again.

Maybe I was good at this, at affecting him. Maybe that wasn’t pathetic. I was thrown into a cell to get an orc under my control. What else would you call this, when his breathing changed and his head bucked back as I moved? I wasn’t puppeting him, but addicting him, maybe.

Maybe orcs weren’t like human men, where they could take us and then throw us away. Maybe this weak and transitory power mattered.

I didn’t want to admit that it was affecting me, too, the roughness of his breathing, the demand in his kiss, the way he pulled me close, his hands on my back. What I should be feeling was fear. I should fear destruction. I should fear at least pain. This savage satisfaction that his pulse rose with mine, this desire to pull him closer, to take his body as he took me…this was more animal than human. But why not lose myself? Bogdana hadn’t given me medicine for the pain. We should take what relief this world offered. I pressed myself against him, into the way we grappled and dragged at each other. I pressed into the waves of feeling that raked against what was left of my mind. I pressed in like he was the mast in a shipwreck, and we were the last thing above water.

I kissed and bit and clung.

A shuddering heat flowed over me, an enervating warmth. I clung, weaker than before, through the waves, a whimper coming out of me, like some damned dog.

He gasped against my skin. I was still reeling, still clinging like a lost thing, when he pushed my legs open.

I expected pain. I didn’t expect the opposite, the relief crashing into me as he thrust in. I didn’t expect release.

I didn’t expect hunger.

I was shattering, losing my grip on my own mind, the heat rolling through my body that he ravaged, unable to care where his hands went, what happened next. I wanted this, the power of him driving in, the rhythm of his body with those jagged breaths, the sear of each thrust into my core. I wanted the way he pressed into me and gasped, again, the way his hands tightened on my wrists, his snarl as the pressure of him blocked out everything else. His body shuddered, the last of the waves rolling over me, leaving me limp. He pulled off and collapsed beside me, panting, and I lay there, a nerveless thing.

Some women enjoyed this, I’d known that. What did it mean about me, that I was one of them?

“I’m sorry,” he said in the dark, and I couldn’t find my voice in my body to reply. His thumb caressed my lip again, and that wasn’t odd, I supposed, after his tongue had been there. “I should have told you, that first night. That there wouldn't be another.”

The air was cold, but heat came off his skin, our breath mingling. And it should have been odder, to have nothing between us. This all should have been odd, but I didn’t have any fear left.

He pressed a lazy kiss to my head. “Who would take a harem over this?”

The pouch lay heavy against my breast. My thoughts were scattered, unwordable things. I lay next to the orc, and at some point, against the rhythm of his breath, I lost myself.

A TWISTING SONG

Iwoke before him and slipped out of the blanket to pull on my clothes in that dim and fuzzy light before dawn. I tested my body, the places that felt more sensitive than before, the strange lessening of tension in my shoulders. I wouldn’t let myself interrogate what I was doing with him. There should be no shame in survival, and likewise no virtue in added suffering. If Bogdana was here, she would not chide me.

I clutched the sachet at my breast, weighed it in my hand. Insurance, my mind whispered. That’s all it was. Reasonable insurance. How many men could be sweet until they decided not to be? How many blushing maids had been charmed and found themselves in hell?

Maybe I didn’t want to kill him. Maybe even my role as orc-comforter was not the nightmare I’d imagined it might be. I had done nothing wrong. I clenched the pouch in my hand. I had nothing to be ashamed of. I clenched it till my fist hurt, till the pain in my hand matched that in my chest.

A robin sang.

I turned towards the sound before I could think. Robins were the early risers, the first singers. It had been so long since I’d walked in a wood, since I’d had the chance to hear a song. I chirped, instinctively, trilled out a song in answer.

The wood was quiet a moment, and then the robin sang again, and I moved nearer. The trees were dark ghosts in this pale light, and I moved through them like a dream. The robin’s song was closer, and then I saw it, that little burst of red. It hopped nearer to me, a branch down, and I held out a hand.

A bush rustled, and it flew.