Page 134 of Halfling
He didn’t spy Maeve most of the day and was told she’d gone to Granach to study with her tutors. She returned in the afternoon, taking an armful of books out to the orchard and sitting in the shade to read. Though honestly, Orek thought it was more to let the grooms admire her, as she spent far more time watching them from under her lashes than with her eyes on the page. She did eventually wander into the house, he supposed to help with dinner.
All day her father and older brothers trained. He supposed knights needed to, but what they trained for, he didn’t quite understand. A handful of human younglings, who Orek learned were training to be knights as well, followed Ciaran through forms. They sparred against each other and did exercises in a yard east of the house. Orek learned one of the outbuildings was a small barracks for the trainees. Connor and Niall appeared now and again to help, and even sparred with one another and put on demonstrations for the trainees.
Connor did stop to help Sorcha wrangle the goats, but Niall made himself scarce until dinnertime.
The meal was hearty, the family talkative. Many wanted Sorcha’s opinion on something they did. When the meal was over, it was Sorcha who rose to help her mother clear the table and wash the dishes. Orek drifted in behind her, taking a place in line to dry. He’d never stood drying dishes before, but he enjoyed the quiet warmth of the kitchen and Sorcha and her mother humming a tune together.
By the time they made it up to her room, she was almost asleep on her feet. She giggled tiredly as he stripped her clothes away and pulled a soft nightgown over her head. She turned her face up for kisses, and Orek picked her up to place in the middle of the bed. He took his time kissing down her body, and lavished her cunt with his tongue and teeth, pulling a long orgasm from his mate. Her eyes went drowsy and sated, and he would have climbed into bed beside her if she hadn’t held her arms out for him. Unable to resist, Orek slid inside his mate, taking her slow and steady until release burst through them. He bit back his roar, burying his face in Sorcha’s hair.
Body humming in pleasure, he cleaned them up and tucked them into bed, Sorcha asleep before the blankets had covered her.
And so the days went, one after the other. Early rising to start chores before everyone else. Shepherding the younglings to and from Granach. The gardens needed tending, the orchards harvesting, the livestock feeding. It was Sorcha who fixed the well when the pulley broke. It was Sorcha who mended a broken fence on the southern border. It was Sorcha who tended the lame and sick animals.
She was the one who every sibling went to for help. For Keeley, it was her reading. For Blaire, to help mend a dress. Calum needed help untangling a net, Maeve to help find a ribbon she lost, Niall for advice on how to impress a girl in town, and even Connor when he needed an extra hand oiling weapons.
“I don’t mind it,” she told him when he asked her why one night. “They need me.”
Orek did what he could, taking his mate’s burdens and shouldering some of that weight. The family accepted his help even more readily than Sorcha did—but she used the time to take on more work, more projects, more duties. There weren’t enough hours in the day for all she’d set herself to doing, and she chastised herself for not getting to everything.
Every day, he watched his mate being pulled in every direction. Yet she somehow found time to give him her attention and affection. In between chores, she loved to show him the little things that brought her joy—the last of the apples, a foal’s antics, the crystals she’d collected around the property. He heard and felt her love for this place in every word, and Orek felt himself falling in love with it, too, for how could he not love something so beloved to his mate?
At night, she insisted on staying up with him to speak of their days. Even if they’d spent it together, side-by-side mucking and brushing and mending, they spoke, their hands tracing patterns languidly. She whispered dreams and ideas to him as the fire in her little hearth crackled, how they could go and choose a plot of land to build a home of their own, how perhaps they could help Darrow and Aislinn root out other slaver rings, even how he might find his own calling here.
He told her what he liked of the place, of the animals he’d seen. He told her how Calum’s observations were going and what he’d added. And he told her of the odd things, how they’d come across eviscerated rabbits and birds strung up by their legs on branches. It disturbed Calum, and Sorcha too, but she said perhaps it was a bear preparing for hibernation.
Orek had never seen a bear string up birds, but there was no other explanation, so he let it rest. For now. It was hard to remember his worries sometimes after a long day, with his mate sliding into place against his body.
Every night she made sure to breathe and kiss her claims into his skin,I love youandI’m yoursandmy mate. He took it all greedily—even though he knew she was tired. He gave her everything in return, everything he could—even though he wasn’t sure it was enough.
He held her when he could, helped her where he could, and silently watched his beautiful mate bury herself in her responsibilities.
And although he loved her and liked her family—some more than others—he couldn’t help a spark of resentment towards them flare in his chest, weighed heavier by his own guilt that he was too greedy to give up his own portion of her.
There was that ache in her shoulder again. Sorcha had noticed it come on about a year ago, but other than a few afternoons of Sofie digging her thumbs mercilessly into the muscles and tendons, there hadn’t been much to do about it.
She hadn’t realized it’d ceased until she felt it come on again.
It was a dull sort of throb, and she fell into bed each night with a sigh of relief when it eased. That sigh always turned into a moan when her mate rolled her to her front and worked her back and shoulders with those wonderful big hands of his, so much gentler than Sofie’s sharp talons.
In the back of her mind, Sorcha knew the thing for it was rest. If Fiora began to limp from overuse of a limb, she’d put the mare in a quiet paddock and let her rest.
But Sorcha didn’t havetimeto rest.
There was so much to do, so much to catch up on from her weeks away.
Autumn was always a busy season for them, selling horses before winter made travel too cumbersome, bringing in the harvests from the garden and orchards, and building up stock for the stables. There were holidays and festivities to plan and attend. Fruits and vegetables and meats had to be preserved and cured.
Winter would be busy in its own way, but much of it confined to the house. Sorcha always liked to do a thorough clean from the attic to the front parlor, if only to give herself something to do. She often got antsy just sitting around in the house while the snow fell.
Although, it may not be so bad to stay abed all morning,she thought with a smile.Not when I have a handsome halfling to keep me company.
For all that her daily responsibilities nipped at her heels, everything was so much better with Orek beside her. Just his steady presence mucking stalls or taking the young ones to school gave her such joy. It was a relief to have the companionship.
She often worried that he’d resent the work or come to dislike it, but if anything, he took to it immediately. Especially the horses. She didn’t know how or where he got all the treats for them, for the garden never seemed picked over, but all the horses knew by now that his pockets had good things in them. They all hurried to hang their heads over their stall doors and greet him with a chorus of whinnies. The grooms all joked they knew when he and Sorcha had arrived just from the excited whickers and stamping hooves.
Sorcha had faith that they would find him something that was his to do. While she enjoyed having him near all day, she figured he would like to take on his own projects and find new interests, and she would support him whatever he chose.
And he’d quickly won over most of her siblings, particularly the youngest ones. Connor also seemed to like him; another reason he was her favorite brother. Once Keeley had discovered what a fantastic storyteller Orek was, Sorcha often caught the younger three gathered round him in the parlor or the kitchen or out in the orchard, coaxing a story from him.
