“Lord Lorf, we must hide you!” he cries, wringing his hands helplessly.
I snort from the confines of my cell, drawing their attention to me. I bare my teeth at them, knowing full well that my face is still painted with my own blood. I giggle at the look of fear they wear so plainly.
“Orgath is coming, and you’re about to be very sorry,” I sing out, gloating. “You’re scared. You should be. Both of you. My mate will not show you any pity,” I say, leaning back against my chains and laugh. They are looking at their doom, and at this moment I am its messenger.
The henchman strikes the bars to the door of my cell. “Shut up! You know nothing,” he hisses.
“Tick tock, boys,” I grin, “Tick tock.”
They stare at me in confusion but behind that, I can see that they get a sense of my meaning. Shit is winding down for them. I laugh.
***
Orgath
As if passing through a thick wall of fog, suddenly everything becomes clear and the bloodbond sings to life once more. I realize then that the cells have been enchanted in some manner to completely contain those who they hold. But now that I am here, I can feel Sammi long before I hear the voice of my wife and her mad laughter.
I grin because I know she is no comfort to those who seek to escape my wrath. Below, I hear her voice as she mocks them and prophesizes their end. My wife speaks the truth; I will descend on them with vengeance, blood, and fury.
When I round the last steps and catch sight of my mate through the bars of her cell door, at the way she grins through a mouth coated with dried blood, fury rips through me. It is a torrential fire burning through my blood and I cannot suppress even a fraction of the rage I roar.
I hear Sammi giggle as Lorf scurries back, shoving the smaller orc at me. I catch the male easily, grinning down at him as I raise him up to meet my eye. He twists in a last attempt to free himself, but I don’t permit Uagoral to drink his death. Instead, I tighten my grip and with a savage twist I end his life, breaking his neck before I discard him, forgotten, on the floor.
I look over and meet the wild-eyed gaze of Lorf. His panic has grown and I am cognizant of the source. My clan had descended the stairs behind me. Even if he had a hope to get past me, he will never escape them alive.
“This ends, Lorf,” I growl. That is all that needs to be said. No other words will satisfy the vengeance burning inside of me. For my family, for my wife. The shades of my ancestors scream for his blood from the shadows.
Fear flickers in his yellow gaze yet his face hardens with resolve. With a battle-cry, he draws up a sword and rushes toward me. I bare my tusks in a bloodied grin, and I meet him within two steps, my ax swinging with enough force to knock his sword from his grip. He stumbles and I follow through a turn, swinging Uagoral once more, burying her blade deep into his head with a crack and a sick sucking sound as I pull her free.
Lorf’s body falls to my feet and my clan bellows around me, clanging their weapons as I stand over his corpse.
I look over to Sammi’s cell, dreading that I may see horror in her eyes at the sight of me covered in the blood and innards of my enemies. My breath draws short when I see not disgust or fear, but happiness shining from her eyes as she strains against her cuffs. I barely notice Bodi’s gore-encrusted hand shoving a set of keys in my face that he removed from the smaller orc, but I take them with an incline of my head to him in thanks.
It takes scant minutes to unlock the door and remove her cuffs. As the last cuff falls, she smiles at me, my heart lightening with that look of love I am so caught up in the moment that I do not see the swing of her arm until her fist connects with my face. I snarl and grip my nose.
“What the hell, female?”
“That’s for not apologizing. If you had just said you were sorry for not being upfront with me so I could have enjoyed the most special moment of our lives, I could have been home long before Lorf got this stupid idea into his head,” she hisses at me just before her trembling hand snakes down to grip my tunic.
She grips it tight in her first and pulls us together in a brutal mash of mouths, her lips covering mine and her tongue plunging into my mouth, heedless of the blood on us.
Nothing. Sexier.
“And that?” I growl.
Her features melt into the sweetest smile. “That one is to say that after all this shit that’s happened, you’re forgiven—and I love you.”
I chuckle and yank her forward into my arms, taking possession of her mouth in front of all my clan, swinging her up into my arms to the delight of my kin.
***
Sammi
We fall to the floor of the cell, the orcs shouting their encouragement and cries of their own pleasures. Many of the females are falling upon males, perhaps their mates or lovers. It’s a total frenzy with the heat of battle concluded. One female I see between two males, all three of them with fever-bright eyes.
Blood is absolutely everywhere, and on everyone, but if anything, it drives passions higher. No one seems to be paying attention to each other, caught as they are in their own desires. Despite at first feeling squeamish about the idea of what’s quickly becoming an orgy, the fact that not one looks my way is some comfort.
“Look only at me, mate,” Orgath growls above me.
“Kind of hard to not notice the orgy,” I pant.
“Everyone feels the need burning to be satisfied, the blood lust,” he grunts. “But here, in this moment, there is only us.”
Through the bloodbond, I can feel Orgath’s wild need to conquer and dominate, and it feeds my own desires. Nothing cruel or ruthless, but a powerful celebration of life and death. It’s intoxicating. Our mouths hungrily take each other, his tusks pushing against my jaw, streaking my skin with blood. I don’t even notice the cut on my lip. I grip his cock through his breeches and Orgath growls, his hips thrusting brusquely against my hand.
He bares his tusks with a snarl and rips down his breeches, allowing his massive member to spill into my hands. It’s thicker than ever, swollen from battle lust. My breasts jiggle when he grips the collar of my shirt and rips it down the middle. My nipples tighten as they hit the cold air. Orgath is focused entirely on me, his eyes aflame, and I know in that moment I am his entire world.
My pussy drenches with the lust thrumming through our bond and the endorphins rushing from a finished battle. And it’s a good thing too. In his frenzy of desire, he thrusts deep within me, his hands anchoring me to the floor as his hips pound into me. His heavy balls are slapping my ass with each deep thrust. It is a fury as his hips pummel against my own, my clit dragging against the rough flesh of his groin. I orgasm with a shattering scream and jerk up against him as his teeth grip my shoulder for the last several thrusts until he comes with a violent roar, his cock springing free mid-thrust to spray the rest of his cum over my belly.
His arms grip me to him fiercely as I come down from the heights of my passion, and all too soon he scoops me up into the protection of his arms and carries me away. His shaft still pressed against me, unyielding even after that rough coming-together. I drape my arm around him as he throws me over Ethiel’s flanks so we can finally go home.
Chapter 17
Sammi
It’ll probably take another hour and two changes of water for me to finally feel clean. Much to my amusement, Orgath elects to forego the use of the tub in favor of washing in the river.
“I am so foul with gore it will be far easier for me to scrub this filth there,” he says as he brushes his nose affectionately against my cheek. I send him off with a laugh and gentle shove while I scrub myself rosy with a rough cloth.
It actually ends up only taking about forty-five minutes, but I do in fact change the water once after the worst of the grime turns loose from my body. It probably would take less time, but mid-bath all the horror of being Lorf’s captive and the stress of the battle catches up to me. I spend twenty of those minutes crying until all of the shock and horror of it is rung out of me.
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I am thankful that Orgath is far enough away down at the river that he doesn’t come rushing in to see what’s wrong. I don’t want our first night at home to be all about Orgath having to comfort a weepy wife. I want it to be all about the celebrating and catching up.
It’s not until I’m dry and dressed in a clean tunic that I look up and see my very naked mate standing just inside the door with a look of intense longing on his face. My eyes drink in the sight of bare gray muscle and a thick cock rapidly rising from between the heavy muscles of his thighs. He growls with lust, and I know that all of this is for me.
“Are you okay, wife?” he asks, a bit of concern lingering around his eyes. I guess I should have known that something would ripple down to him through the bond.
“I am now,” I murmur, my body tingling at the sight of him. He looks me over slowly, taking note of my tightening nipples and the arousal likely coming off my body in waves and nods to himself as if coming to a decision.
His muscles ripple as he begins to stalk toward me.
“You left me, female,” he growls lowly. “You took my heart and all that I am and left me to once again face life alone.”
I tilt my chin stubbornly. “And you withheld important information that I deserved to know before we mated.”
He halts his forward motion and his expression turns solemn. “Never with the idea to hurt you, delfass-ki. Never that. I felt a deep compulsion I could not resist to make the offer to you and did not appreciate how little you knew of orc mating traditions. I regret that you were hurt and disappointed because of this, but I do not regret making you mine that night,” he proclaims with a sudden wide grin.
I laugh. “Fair enough on that score.”
“I am, however, very unhappy that you did not seek out my protection as soon as you discovered that you were carrying my child. For that, I am thinking that you need to be slightly corrected.”
My eyebrows shoot up and I set my hands stubbornly on my hips. “Just what kind of punishment?”
He chuckles and takes a bit of rope from a drawer in the common room, winding it around his hand. His eyes narrow like a cat preparing to pounce.
I hold up a hand. “Now just wait one damn minute—”
He darts forward with a nimble grace and seizes my hand, a small slip knot sliding around one wrist and binding it to the other behind me, forcing my breasts to jut forward. I growl irritably at him, unable to ignore the surge of lust as he draws the rope down and circles it around me, knotting it at several strategic places where it rubs erotically against my skin. I peel my lips back from my teeth in a threatening grimace to egg him on.
Gods, how I have missed his strength.
He bares his tusks back at me, his eyes shining with humor and desire in equal portions. His cock is now gloriously thick and heavy against his belly. It brushes against my abs when he draws me against him, his fingers playing along my bound breasts. The grin that curves around his tusks is wicked and makes wet heat pool in between my legs, my thighs coating with my slick.
The bit of rope between my legs slides erotically as he tugs on my bindings to pull me even closer. I gasp at the sensation and wiggle against my bonds, my body brushing against Orgath’s massive member. He growls and slides a thick finger down parallel with the rope, pulling it back just enough to pinch and rub at my clit counter to the light brushes of the rope along my tender flesh. My breath goes jagged straight away.
Hyper-focused on the movement of his finger and the feel of the rope against my flesh, I yelp in surprise when suddenly he turns me around, laying me out over his lap. His hand gently massages the globes of my ass.
“I’ve never known fear like I did when you were taken by Lorf,” he mutters. “I’d just learned of our child growing safely beneath your heart and then just that quickly you and our child were gone, facing threat from him. I was terrified of losing you and our babe,” he growls and his hand whips down, landing sharply on my asscheek.
His strike is no gentle or playful swat. It stings like a son of a bitch. I shriek and attempt to move my ass away from him, but he has me immobile within my bonds.
He leans down and licks the edge of my ear. “If you want to stop, tell me.”
It’s right there, on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t manage to form the words. Something within me rebels against the idea of stopping this thing between us. Instead, my body waits at attention for his next move.
When his hand falls on my ass again, I cry out, but it triggers beneath the pain a dark spur of pleasure between my legs. The tension increases by increments with every blow from his hand, the rope shifts between my legs pushing my pleasure onward, and I raise my hips as he rains his slaps alternatively over both cheeks and the tops of my thighs. It is only when my bottom begins to burn and my throat grows raspy from my cries that Orgath’s hand stills against my bottom, his fingers lovingly stroking the hot flesh.
Two thick fingers carefully slip into the folds of my flesh, stroking deeply, his short claws tapping within me as the fingers of his opposite hand roll and squeeze the nipples of my breasts. His hand skates over my belly and he sighs into my hair.
“I don’t know what I would have done if you I’d lost you,” he says in a hoarse whisper.
I whimper at the pleasure he is stirring, but my heart breaks a little at the vulnerability I hear in his voice, so at odds with the fierceness he projects to the world.
“If anything happens to you, it will be the end of me,” he continues, his thumb pressing against my clit. “I wouldn’t want to go on without you.”
“I won’t leave you,” I cry out, my hips moving in time instinctively to his touch.
“Never again. I will never let you go.”
“Yes,” I cry, both in response to his declaration and at the sudden roll of my orgasm. He growls at the feel of my cunt clenching down on his fingers. He thrusts his fingers in and out, pushing me brutally through my orgasm before finally pulling them free.
With a tight grip on my bonds, he sits me up, facing away from him, my back and arms supported against his chest. He pulls aside the cord between my legs and my cunt is dripping so much that his cock easily pushes its way deep within my pussy.
He fills me up tightly at this angle, enough so that there’s a slight burn, but oh gods I am hot and eager for him. So much so that my pussy is sucking like a vise on him as he begins to rock me on his cock.
Beneath my thighs, his hips jerk with his rapid rhythm, and only his tight grip keeps me seated firmly upon him. My cunt weeps and I pant raggedly for breath, the large veins of his member rubbing in all new ways as he shuttles in and out of me, pitching me toward a feverish height.
When his hard length pulsates and swells I’m pushed over that edge into a blistering climax, shouting out my pleasure. He follows me over shortly afterward by his roar of completion, his hot seed spewing deep within me with every jerk of its head.
My thighs quiver from exertion as I slump forward against his arms, and I feel his lips burrow against my neck. I’m physically exhausted and emotionally drained—and my ass stings now, too. We don’t move for what feels like a long time as he holds me tenderly in his arms. I’m aware of him breathing me in and the gentle kisses he trails over the flesh of my neck.
Still, his whispered praise and words of love make my heart beat with happiness.
With infinite tenderness, he unties the bonds and carefully massages my limbs before his arms wrap around me and carry me into our bedroom. He lays me there on our bed, his hand stroking down my belly, his brow puckered with worry.
“I did not think—I hope we did not hurt our babe with all that.”
My eyes shift over to him in surprise and I begin to laugh. Once I get myself under control, I playfully twist one of his coarse braids and grin up at him. “My love, this baby has been on Mister Toad’s Wild Ride for over a month now. What we just did? That’s nothing,” I snicker and peck a kiss on his nose.
He grins down at me, h
is yellow eyes crinkling with mirth. “I have no idea what you are talking about, mate.”
“All children do just fine on a bit of bumping and rolling,” I say mischievously, my hand snaking down between us. “Come to think of it, I’m thinking it’s about time for another ride.” He groans as I grip his cock, his hips pushing forward eagerly.
“Sounds good to me,” he grunts, pulling me close to him. “I have lost time to make up and will be happy to do so until you are boneless, replete, and satisfied.”
“Mmm, I will hold you to that,” I purr against his lips as he slides between my thighs.
Some time later we lay together, dozing languidly in each other’s arms. I am officially exhausted, as promised, and Orgath is just shy of falling asleep. He rests his cheek against my belly, whispering in low tones to our baby growing inside of me. I know it’s too early for the baby to be able to hear him, but I find the gesture sweet and so don’t discourage it. Orgath is so pleased to be a father that it brings tears to my eyes. It’s so easy to imagine him as a large, strong doting father to our children.
Pressing a kiss to my belly and tickling me with the gold metal of his septum ring, he pulls back and slides back up beside me so that he can comfortably pull me back against his chest. I have no complaints that my orc is a big-time cuddler. It’s one of his more redeeming qualities as far as I’m concerned.
He threads his fingers through mine, kisses the back of my hand, and meets my eyes.
“Sammi, there is something we need to discuss. As much as this cottage is home, now that Lorf is gone, there will be pressure very soon for us to take up residence in my familial home. It is not as private as our little cottage here, but I can promise that we will come here as often as we can to be alone with our family.”
I lean back and sigh. “Yeah, I figured that would happen when you took out Lorf. Are you disappointed that you’ll have to take up the duties of chieftain? You never showed any interest before.”
He shakes his head. “In truth, I would prefer living my life peacefully with you here for the rest of our days.” With a deep sigh, he continues, “However, I do have a responsibility to my clan, and to my ancestors—as well as to our children, who will inherit all that we have and all that we do.”
The Orc Wife Page 14
