Page 24 of Alien Orc's Prize

“Our brother didn’t even attend himself!” Neena added with a scowl. “He sent Padreth to marry Luna as his proxy.”

Althrop looked surprised, and by the venom with which Neena mentioned the proxy thing, I wondered if it was unusual. I hadn’t worried too much about it at the time, and Prince Gal’s obvious enjoyment of having me in his bed had assuaged a lot of doubts, but…

Was that a bad sign after all? That he hadn’t come to collect me himself, and that we hadn’t had a proper wedding with his family here, on his world?

It was too late to worry about it now, I supposed. We were already married and would have to keep working on everything now that we were together.

I tried to put it out of my mind, and did so just in time to hear the twins inviting their cousin on the picnic with us.

“Breakfast with my fair cousins and the luminous new high princess? How could a male refuse such an offer?” he said silkily. He eyed me and smoothed a manicured green hand over his already perfect braid. I resigned myself to spending the morning with this guy, knowing I’d be on my best behaviour even if I hated every moment of it.

CHAPTER 14

GALBRATH

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Prince Gal, being married suits you.”

“What?” I replied irritably to Padreth as we left yet another farmer’s dying field, this one on the road that led to our palace. The wheat plague was spreading, and no one could figure out how or why. It didn’t seem to go from field to field in any discernable pattern, but was popping up randomly, sometimes in very isolated areas. It made no sense.

“The married life, my prince. You’re glowing!”

I gave him a look so black he was forced to amend his absurd statement.

“Well, perhaps that is not the right word. But you seem… different. In a good way.”

“Shut up, Padreth.”

Padreth, being Padreth, did not shut up.

“It is true! I have seen you several times stopping to moon about over mundane things that never would have caught your eye before. I saw you looking at the flowers along the edge of the neighbouring inn’s property for so long that I thought you might be selecting one to pick for your new bride!”

Padreth was both right and wrong. I had been looking at the lush flowers and thinking of Luna. I reminiscing about about how pink and petal-soft she’d been beneath my tongue. The flowers had reminded me of her.

When I’d woken this morning, I’d found myself wrapped as snugly around her as the blanket. My cock was hard and pressed against the curve of her rump, and I’d seriously considered waking her up just so that I could lick her again before getting to actually slide inside her this time. But I’d slept later than I’d meant to as it was, and I knew we had work to do this morning. So with a great, depressing amount of stoic resignation, I’d ignored my cock and my pretty, sleepy-warm wife and had left the bed, and her, behind.

To meet up with Padreth. So that he could annoy me into violence.

“Let’s head back,” I said, ignoring his comments and rather magnanimously, I thought, not punching him in the face. Another failing field meant my patience was running very, very short.

Strangely, though it was not at all productive to the issue at hand, it made me want to go find Luna. To gather her up in my arms and give her a good, long sniff. Only if she smelled good, though. If I encountered her stressed or frightened scent right now, I was fairly certain I could not be held responsible for murdering someone. I’d have to say nice things to her first. Lick her slender neck and then her cunt again. Let all that soothing, sated sweetness waft off of her so that I could inhale it like a drug.

Being with her last night had been the first time since my father had died that I had been truly in the moment with another person. That I’d been distracted from everything going wrong all around me, that I’d been severed from my duties as a prince so Icould take up the surprisingly comfortable mantel of the duties of a husband.

Turned out I actually liked being a husband.

No. That wasn’t quite right. I knew with sharp certainty right down to the toes of my boots that I didn’t like being a husband and wouldn’t like being a husband to anyone else.

I liked being Luna’s husband.

Oceans help me.How in the great span of the seas had that happened?

Padreth and I rode back to the palace hard and fast, leaning low over the necks of the air steeds, our hands gripping the bars. Grass and farms flew by on our right, the sea crashing against the beaches below the cliffs on our left. We’d have a quick lunch, then we’d be right back to it, visiting more farmers and sending missives to scientists in other regions. So far, this wheat blight had only shown up in my kingdom, but the monarchs of other nations had begun to write to me with their concerns about possible spread.

I was so focused on the road ahead that the scent snuck up on me. A subtle shift that made my lips draw back in a silent snarl, the nerves tightening along my spine.

But the scent grew thicker the closer we got to the palace and the beaches below. Until I was sweating and gnashing my fangs together. Luna was somewhere nearby.

And she was unhappy.

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