Page 2 of Orc Chained
I’d needed it too, being half Orc, and I’d assuaged that need by coming to love the people who’d enjoyed tormenting me. We’d bonded; through shared pain, through wild afternoons and wilder nights, through time and understanding and twisted trust.
They’d hurt me to escape their pain, I’d endured the hurt to escape my loneliness. A. . .fairish trade. Until I’d stabbed the ringleader and fled.
I double take as a few Humans stroll by. Healthy, relaxed. Have the old clan leader and Matriarch fallen? Scanning because I want warning if an enemy approaches, I decide if I runinto my former bullies or. . .him. . . I have no reason to think they'll be interested in tormenting me further.
We're all adults now, and I've been away from home for two decades. They’ll be otherwise occupied. With life, with their own spouses and families. I rub my shaking palms on my trousers.
Iloni probably took a husband, the others presenting their throats to a female. Though I was never inducted as a full clan member, I doubt the wives of my bullies would allow them to torment me. That much attention to another female is an insult to the wife.
I’m about as safe as I can be, considering whose blood I had to spill to leave. The one thing I know, that I can count on, is he wouldn't have told on me.
Pushing open the door of my first destination, I step inside and wilt in relief. Someone bought an air cooling charm; expensive because you have to travel to a City and hunt down a Fae, but always good for business.
“But I want the berry filled,” a small Orcling whines at the front counter.
“They don’t have berry,” the mother says, voice firm and patient. . .but edged with that particular cadence of a Uthilsen female about to teach her young a lesson. “Choose another or go without. There are others in line.”
The child subsides. I grin in sympathy. I want the berry too, and begin to mentally make a different selection.
“I’ll take a cruller for Nathen,” the mother is saying. “You saved one?”
The female clerk snorts. “Course I did, or we’d never hear the end of it. Meanest male with the ax, but the biggest babe when he don’t get his Vhorsday cruller.”
“Don’t you know it,” the mother mutters. “He’s lucky I like him.”
The mother purchases and leaves. I suppress a twitch of envy as they walk out. That’s always what I’ve wanted, and always what’s eluded me. Family of my own, a mate, a house, one or two littles after a nice, uneventful birth. A place in a community where the baker knows my family well enough to have saved the last cruller for my pouting, but dangerous, mate.
His appreciation when I bring it home to him.
“Clever girl,” he murmurs, brushing his lips across my cheek. “But if you keep spoiling me, I’ll grow too fat to kill for you.”
I run my hands up his chiseled abdomen, rest them on strong, scarred shoulders, and tilt my head so those lips can skim my neck, teeth bite down affectionately.
“You spoil me,” I say, desire unfurling.
“That’s my duty, and my right.” Another, harder, bite. “To spoil you, to make you come on?—”
“Are ya ready?”
Blinking out of my well-worn fantasy, I jerk my attention to the semi-patient clerk, an Uthilsen female of indeterminable age—always hard to tell with semi-Immortals once they reach adulthood. The counter doesn’t conceal her pregnant belly. She’s no warrior, though, not with the lack of beads in her fat black braid, and the softness of her round face. She’s someone’s plump pampered wife.
I suppress more than a twinge of envy this time. “I’m sorry, my mind is somewhere else.”
“That time, huh?” Her nostrils flare a bit.
I’m Uthilsen enough that my scent changes at the onset of ovulation like any other predator species, and of course any non-Human with a nose can pick up on it. If I’d been a blooded female of the clan, I’d have the right to signal a male an invitation to kneel for me, but my Human blood made my life miserable in this town.
“Getting close,” I say.
She leans a hip against the counter. “I can vouch for a few fine females who’d be willing to ease your time, and not get clingy after. Unless you’re just passing through town.”
Males are off limits to non-blooded females, except those contracted through the Immortal Sorting, a glorified flesh auction. The Immortals look for females of all species willing to breed, male laborers for their households. Those who offer themselves are given protection and whatever remuneration they can contract during the Sorting.
“I may be here awhile,” I say.
I hesitate. There’s nothing but curiosity, some sympathy and a touch of amusement in her eyes. Has the sentiment towards Human hybrids changed since I left? It’s clear what I am, tuskless with my smaller frame, my skin a touch too yellow brown under the already light green.
“I’m in the old Lethergen cabin.”
