Page 79 of Valpar

I bit my lip and kicked my legs where I sat on the counter.

“Oi! She has!” Finley sat next to me. “How big we talking?”

“I shouldn’t say.” I covered my mouth. “But it doesn’t look like—well, a normal one. It isn’t smooth.”

Everett and Finley edged closer, along with the sous chef.

“It’s not?” Finely asked. “If the shaft isn’t smooth, then what?”

I pinched my finger and my thumb together and pulled it across my lips. “I cannot tell. He is my mate, and I will not betray him.”

Everyone in the kitchen groaned and I giggled.

“That’s what’s so good about you, Calliope. So trustworthy. Now, don’t worry about him completing the bond, yet. Everyone is different. And you know Melina was human when Osirus her met. Everyone has their own time to bond. You are not a fairy or fae, they are expected to do it right away.”

I put down the cupcake and set it on the plate beside me. “I know, but I’ve been raised by fae. My mom, well, Theresa, is the only mother figure I know. I can’t help but want to follow those traditions.”

“But your mother wasn’t born a fae,” Finley wagged his finger at me. “She was human, just like you.”

I nodded solemnly. I didn’t know mom before she was a fae, at least I didn’t remember. I never really wanted to know. I was happy in the now, and that was enough for me. I’d had no worries. I enjoyed just living.

Where did all my time go? What was I like when I was younger? Before Theresa brought me here?

I fiddled with my fingers, trying to remember what it was like on Earth.

A house, darkness.

I put my hand to my temple and fought back a sharp pain in my temple, until another thought came to me.

“Goddess,” I whispered, and stared at Finley and Everett. “When Valpar and I bond, am I…am I going to turn into an orc!?” I squealed and slapped my hands over my face.

Simon jerked his head up. He hated that shrill of a squeal I made when I got upset. I saw his body freeze and he fell to the floor.

When humans bond to a shifter, a fae or a fairy, they become just like their bonded mate. If mates are mixed, such as a werewolf to a fairy, they have a mixture of genes to make sure they are compatible with one another. Such as a siren with a land dweller or a wolf with a vampire. Their children, however, take on only one of the parents' original genes in the womb, so the Bergarian Realm isn’t overrun with a melting pot of mixed genetics.

Go gods for thinking ahead.

But what about me? I’m human, Valpar is an orc.

“Oh my gods, I’m going to be green!”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Valpar

I let out alow groan, my face contorting in discomfort as Osirus delved deeper into the concept of the spanking my miresa had mentioned. The mere thought of it made my body tense up, causing me to wince. My miresa’s perception of the spanking was more of pleasure, not punishment.

The spanking was a game to the king and queen. They both play roles with their rutting encounters. It was one that I did not find very—arousing.

Fae were different, my rutting experiences were limited and I’m sure in time I would want to experience more with my female, but to have her call me ‘Daddy’ did not settle well.

The spanking, however, did have appeal.

There are two forms in which the king talked about; both awful to hear him speak and difficult for him to deliver. One was that of pain for consequences, which was what my miresa truly needed. The other—for fun!

“Theresa has coddled Calliope. If you had seen Calliope when she was at her lowest, you would understand why.” Osirus wouldn’t look at me as he spoke.

He didn’t have to tell me about my miresa’s pain because I already felt it. When I lie awake in the night and my miresa sleeps, I’d try and concentrate. I wanted to feel all of her, not just in body but in her soul. She was mine, she was part of me and I swore I could feel pain deep within her that she ignored. It was so deep, I barely felt it myself, but it was there.