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“Dove…” I lean in and place my lips on top of her head. I wish I could take her somewhere safe, and we can raise our children alone like we had planned.
What I wouldn’t do to give her the life we once had. If only we could return to her realm and get back to our home and our life. But I have to believe that things will be good here. I need to. Otherwise, why am I doing everything I hate?
I touch her shoulders and drop her dress. Then I pull away. I unknot my pants and they drop to the floor. I smile a little when her gaze lands on my girth that is very ready.
“Come, let me help you with your hair.” I lead us to the tub, and we settle in. She sits on me as I soap her hair.
“Tell me what you are thinking…” I say when she doesn’t start any conversation.
“Last night was good.” She says softly.
My hand halts a little before it continues. This was not where I saw this conversation going. “It was?”
“I saw it, the sense of community and the culture.” She pauses. “It felt like I wasn’t an outsider.” Her voice is still low. But she isn’t sad, just reflective.
“The ale is still as good as I remember.” I reminisce fondly.
She looks over her shoulder with a face. “Your taste buds are all wrong or I must have not tasted the correct one.”
“You didn’t,” I confess. She had wanted to have the ale, but I had Mulan prepare another drink for her.
“Igor!”
I chuckle.
“You are carrying orcs in there; you saw what it did to me.” I joke, making her roll her eyes.
Then she smiles. “Faz is insane.”
Faz had two young female unmated orcs fighting over him last night. Apparently, he has been sneaking to their chambers on alternate nights and both of them thought they were in line to be chosen. That’s when I took my mate and we left.
“They all are,” I tell her.
“They are pleasant, most of your cousins. A departure from their father.” She pauses. “Even Zod isn’t as bad as I thought he was when I first met him. I thought it was me he disliked at first, but he isn’t very social, is he?”
I start massaging her scalp and she cranes her neck with closed eyes.
“He has his moments, but he is a little reclusive and he often likes doing things by himself.” Zod has always been like that. He is the second son after Hergo – the quiet one – but he has always been mature and long thinking, even as he is manipulative and self-serving.
He doesn’t like most getting too close and he keeps everyone at a safe distance. I also noticed that he wasn’t there at our vow ceremony, but he merged during the assembly celebrations. Strange but maybe he was with a young female. He is a sneaky demon.
“I’ve noticed. He shows up and slips away without a word. You see him, you don’t. Talks just enough to ensure someone knows he’s there but seems like he is always on his personal time,” she says.
“How did you notice all of that? You’ve known him barely a week.” I haven’t been around Aria with other people. I’ve always known she is intelligent but her reading of him is spot on.
She shrugs. “When you are seen and not heard for most of your life, you learn…people.”
“Okay, do…Jani.”
She is silent for a few moments. “Honorable, honest, stubborn. I mean, this is a tribe of orcs where I have not seen them touch, never even hug, let alone smile freely at one another but he was holding his mate and caring for her in the midst of all that and living in his convictions.” She pauses. “I like them.”
I pick up the jug I use to rinse her hair and collect water in the tub and start pouring it on her. She sighs a content sigh.
“He is a stubborn orc.” I find a grin on my face.
“Is that where you get it from?” She says with a small smirk on her face.
“I am a combination of him and my father.” I say, fond memories bubbling of both orcs training me and teaching me as a young orc. They often argued about many things. Jani was my trainer who wanted me to have heart with axe, where else my father wanted a physically capable orc for his throne.
