Page 13 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

She hated that feeling.

“There,” he breathed. “Like that. You must look at me this way when we are together, in front of others, and people will believe.”

This way? She must look vulnerable? That was what made people think a woman was sharing a man’s bed?

Well, how could she doubt it?

4

IAHIR WAS SURPRISED at her skill with a sword, though perhaps he shouldn’t have been. He realized now that there was a fierceness in her, a fierceness that seemed to have been forged in some kind of awful pain.

He knew about that, about how pain changed a person, how it made a person both strong and weak at the same time.

Strong because one built a fortress around oneself, one that no one ever penetrated, one that was never lowered. There was no trusting anyone at all, of course, not after that kind of pain, after the kind of pain that taught one that the world was unpredictable, frightening, and uncaring. There was only the fortress.

But weak, too.

Because it made a person isolated, and strength came from cooperation with others.

Neither of them seemed to be very good at that part. They both seemed out for themselves.

Hadn’t Gathren betrayed that orc she’d brought to Marthlis, after all, sending him entirely out of the scheme? Hadn’t she come to the enemy all on her own, a lone orc amongst elves, to pull off this assassination?

If a person wanted something done, the best way to assure it was done was to do it personally, he supposed.

But what do I want done? he asked himself.

He knew he was working to kill the High King, to set the country of Lothnehil on a path of destruction and change, to remake everything. He knew that was what he was doing, but it really wasn’t what he wanted.

What do I want?

Perhaps simply to bed the warrioress?

It was as worthy a goal as anything. She was so intriguingly prickly, after all, and he liked the look of her. He liked her precisely because she didn’t look like an elf. But also, he liked her for the same reason that other elves liked orc women, and that was because of her hips and arse and breasts. Orc women tended towards being broader and curvier than elf women, who were often willowy and graceful and small. There was something about the round curve of an orc woman’s body, it tended to make a man’s cock stir.

However, perhaps he was currently thinking that because she had him up against the wall of the sparring field, and his blade was crossed with her blade, holding her back, and she was gritting her teeth at him, so close, just inches between their bodies, and he could see the place where her breasts cleaved, because her shirt was tugged down and the binding she used to wind them against her was visible.

Yes, he might be distracted.

Even so, it was a worthy goal, he thought.

I will destroy my country if I can fuck that woman, he thought. Anything at all in exchange for knowing the wet grip of her cunt.

He smirked.

She pressed her blade against his. “What’s so funny, my lord?”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head, still smirking.

“You’re terrible with a sword,” she said to him. “Really terrible. And I could beat you with one arm tied behind my back. Is that what’s funny?”

“I am not terrible,” he said. “I have been going easy on you, of course, on account of how I don’t wish to hurt you.”

She moved away, removing her sword from his. “You are only saying that because I have so clearly bested you.”

He straightened up, letting his sword fall so that the blade touched the dirt floor of the sparring field. It was a circular enclosure, surrounded by a tall wooden fence on all sides. The guards trained there, though he had to admit that missing training was rarely punishable.

In truth, the kingsguard was a ceremonial position, given to high-ranking elf lords in the country, and it rarely required any actual fighting or danger. Still, enough of the other guards did train, as much of boredom as anything else, he supposed.