by Trevor Zex
“What is it? What’s making them sick?”
His massive shoulders rose and he sighed. The look in his eyes bore the weight of his world. He felt distant, as though they’d never touched.
It struck her that she’d become accustomed to his company and enjoyed it. Without him, she’d be alone amid the orcs.
“It is a long story, and a painful one. We’ll speak of it when I return. You’ll come to understand that your people practice poisoning and duplicity. They call us monsters.” His hot gaze raked over her, as though realizing he had one of the enemy in his room.
“I’m sorry, Gark. That’s horrible. Is there anything I can do to help?” She glanced out the window. One orcling could bowl her over. A group of them could leave her bruised and unconscious from merely playing. They thrived on rough games, and seemed to have no idea of their strength. No wonder the women were nearly as large as the men. They had to be, to survive child-rearing.
“Please be at home in my home.” He picked up a large club.
She took a battle stance instinctively.
He smiled and swung the club against a metal disk. The gong reverberated through the house.
Dernen entered the room. She had the strong body, full breasts, and forbidding face of most orc women. Her nostrils flared at the sight of Teza.
“Dernen, watch over my guest. Teza is free to explore the house but should have an escort for her safety when she goes out.”
It was nicely done. He showed considerate hospitality without being obvious about keeping her captive. No doubt if she tried to leave, orcs would stop her.
She nodded to Dernen, unsure of the manners. The woman held a higher status than a servant back home, but she didn’t seem close to Gark.
The woman nodded and left the room.
Gark glanced at Teza, cleared his throat, and gathered up his gear. He appeared eager to leave.
His kiss felt hurried and his manner gruff. “You’ll be all right here, I’ll return in a few days.” He took a breath and closed his eyes. “Most of the tales your people tell about us are wrong.” His eyes opened and flashed at her. “The ones about Orcs taking women roughly and many at once are true. I stop it where I can, but the practice has a long history. I don’t always catch them in act. Some orcs take revenge and send warnings to your kind to stop encroaching on us.”
“What of you, Gark?” She gestured awkwardly at herself, her pricked finger throbbing and bleeding again. “You don’t practice revenge?”
“Not in overpowering a woman. Except when you want it that way.” He shifted his weight and drew a battle ax from the wall. He slid it into the sheath that carried it. There are so many wrongs, I could spend my life taking revenge and never kill enough humans to make up for our losses.” The flesh around his eyes tightened with pain. His gaze went past her to the orclings. “I kill when I must. My life must be an example. If I commit acts that create more hatred, the cost of those acts are on me. I choose not be be known as the mage who brought about our destruction in blood and shame.” For an instant, his huge body sagged.
“I want to understand.” She wanted to touch him, but buried her hands in the tunic’s rough folds.
“I’ve seen the weapons your kind build. I’ve studied human brilliance in killing, in inventing greater and more brutal ways to destroy life. They are an enemy that make the worst orc scourges look like one of your tea parties.”
“What makes you so different? Why do you keep such a distance?” She thrust out her chin, stung, as though his low opinion of human creating engines of mass destruction extended to her personally.
“The practice of my teacher and the great mages of our lineage is a way of honorable battle. We half-orcs value life. It does not come easily. ” He displayed his fangs in a way she’d come to recognize as self-deprecating. “My orc blood rages to wipe out the invaders. Your kind.”
“You don’t hate us. You could hate us.” She couldn’t find words for all she wanted to know about him, and he was leaving, damn it. She sucked her finger, tasting the raw-blade tang of her blood.
She tongued it over her lips and Gark’s nostrils widened. His pupils enlarged.
“I had a friend. More than a friend, of your kind. Through him, I learned that people are individuals and don’t always match the stories. Here, we caution our small ones the way you do. We’re brutal, and so are you.”
The thought of orcs telling nursery tales about humans struck her speechless.
Before she could reply, he opened the door. It closed with a sound like thunder. She closed her eyes. The sight of his strong back walking away from her remained.
Her pride didn’t allow her to follow him. She sprang to the window and watched Gark mount his cranky-looking steed. Shellaq’s ring of teeth flashed in the sun. The beast’s long neck twisted around as though it felt her watching.
Teza kept Gark in sight until he turned to a speck in the mountains. She was sorry to see him go. Not only was she a stranger in a strange place, she would miss him. She pressed her face to the warm wall beside the window, grateful to be back in low lands, out of the snowy mountains.
If she hadn’t come to empathize with her captor, this would be the time to contact the other captives and attempt another escape.
Stalking across the room, she threw herself into his chair. She missed her handmaiden Zenar, but she’d accepted the order to remain separate from her people. Given what her kind had been doing to the orcs—including poisoning their children— keeping human captives divided made horrible sense.
In the days following his departure, Teza busied herself exploring his house. With a great deal of persistence and bartering help with household tasks, she got Dernen to give her daily lessons in orcish. The next time Gark spoke to her in his tongue, she hoped to understand more of what he said.
Her pronunciation made her teacher laugh, but the older orc woman in the kitchen seemed to respect her efforts.
One afternoon, as the sky reddened behind the deep forest that hid the city, dust filled the road. Heart pounding, Teza craned over the window sill. Her heart surged as she recognized the surly, fanged creature that came into view with Gark on its back. The orc king looked too huge for real life.
His skin, his breastplate, his belt, his battle ax, all gleamed. His tusks and eyes glittered. His hair blew in the wind. He was enormous.
She rubbed her eyes. He could not be real. The pulse between her legs said he was. She felt glad all over he’d returned at last to take her in his bed.
Teza watched Gark as his people crowded around him shouting in welcome. His laugh boomed through the street.
She stayed at the window, quashing the urge to greet him.
The big orc leader had treated her as a guest in his home. His concern for her comfort seemed genuine. How could she trust an enemy? Yet she did. She saw the amazing tenderness on his face when he looked at her. Her face grew hot. She undid her braids, spreading her hair over her shoulders and breasts.
When he conquered her guards and captured her caravan, she could not have imagined enjoying his touch. She burned for him.
His footfalls made the shields and weapons thrum against the wall.
Entering his room, he gave her a small smile. He swallowed.
“Good. I see you’re well.” He pulled off his chest plate, returned it to its hook.
“Yes, thank you. Did you get the medicine?”
“Yes. I hope it will work for this.” He stood at the washstand and sponged himself with soapy water.
If she reached out with her finger tips, she’d be able to check if his lower back and the curve of his butt felt as downy as they looked.
The flame from a single lantern made him glow. Up close and seen often, the green cast to his skin was lovely as moss. His big body amazed her.
Watching him wash felt natural now, yet they’d been strangers.
On impulse, she asked the big orc a question she wasn’t sure she wanted answered. “You will keep your
promise and let me go, won’t you?”
“I don’t want to let you go.” He stroked her arm with his calloused fingers. “Don’t you feel at home here? Have I, in some way, failed to show you that you are a treasured guest?” He lowered his brows, shadowing his narrowed pupils.
“No, you’ve been wonderful.” She spoke to him as though he hadn’t abducted her and taken her warriors and servants captive.
Courtesy, and the woebegone expression on his big powerful face, demanded the social lie.
He clapped his hands.
She flinched at the loud sound.
“Good, that’s settled.” His grin stretched across his face.
Orc politics must be so much simpler than ours. Being large and powerful settled everything, apparently. Despite her qualms, his pleasure at thinking he pleased her appeared radiant and earnest.
She smiled at him. Some part of her wanted to believe their cultural exchange was her choice, she wasn’t in fact a prisoner to the huge brute.
He turned back to the basin and continued washing off the journey dust.
He might be clever at manipulating her. She kept finding herself seeing his side of things. Or imagining she grasped what he thought and felt.
Drips of soap ran down his powerful ass.
Her fingernails gouged into her palms. He wasn’t human, not fully human. She couldn’t know what he intended or if he was honorable. She’d become distracted, trying to divine his motives and wishes.
In a way, the distraction helped her. If she allowed herself to think for long on how dire her circumstances were, she might become paralyzed.
She was trapped into serving the enemy. Acting as though she liked it might help her people. To complicate things, part of her did like it. She felt like a traitor. The orc somehow charmed her. The orc made her ache with wanting him to take her again.
The lust she felt was a perversion. Would she ever recognize herself again? Would she be attracted by a regular man after experiencing the twisted pleasure of wanting this orc leader so badly?
He made her a thrall to his masculinity and brute force.
Water ran down his massive thighs and streamed over the long cock swinging between his legs. The hollows of his hips called to her hands, recalling how she gripped him there when he entered her.
Teza pressed her hand to her mouth and averted her face, forcing herself to stop watching. She longed for him to plunder all of her body and fuck her hard.
As though reading her mind, Gark came to her, tossed her over his shoulder, rushed to the bed, threw her on it, and mounted her.
Before she had time to react, he kissed her, making her dizzy with his tusks pressing her lower lip, his tongue pushing into her mouth.
Fresh lilac essence and his scent filled her. She arched against his hard chest.
His huge hands became gentle on her breasts, and his big fingers shook with need. He growled low, teasing her legs to open.
The warrior princess opened wide for him, sighing with longing, already wet with desire. He crawled down her body, his long tongue trailing over her belly, over her sex, slipping between her lower lips. Finding her most sensitive place, he licked her there. He made slow circles, probing her with a finger, making her surrender. He homed in on the spot that made her gasp.
He flicked so fast, right there, he sent throbs from her bud to her head. She squirmed.
He grabbed her hips and pinned them, trapping her beneath the pleasures of his mouth.
She bucked against his face. Delirious, she grabbed his hair and hollered. She wanted him to stop and to never stop.
She yanked his hair, ferocious in her need.
He chuckled into her, a sound of pure pleasure.
The vibrations of his laughter felt so good there. His tongue claimed her again, pushing inside her the way his cock had done.
He pumped her with his big, long finger in time with his tongue. Filling her, maddening her.
She clawed his shoulders and braced her feet on the bed. She ground her heat against his face, free, lust-filled. Cries rose from her, uncontrollable.
His long fingers gripped her ass, he slid one finger up and down the crack of her butt.
The smooth tip surprised her. He’d sacrificed a claw.
He pushed at her rear passage and entered it. Fucking her ass with his thick finger, he tongued her and banged her in front.
His skilled fingers took her deep and hard the way she wanted it.
Freed by his forceful passion, she dug her nails harder into his shoulders. She curled her toes in the blanket and thrust her hips at his mouth.
Grimacing, growling low in her throat, yelling—Teza lost control, shattering with mind-stopping pleasure.
Crying out her climax, she fell to the bed, no tension left in her body.
A small thought intruded. She could not go to her bridegroom now, not after losing all inhibitions in the arms of the orc king. The warning troubled her, but she dismissed it.
Gark slid up her body. His massive arms supported all his weight. He took hold of her chin.
She resisted, squeamish.
He kissed her, and his intense pleasure in her stopped her concerns.
She tasted herself on his tongue and lips. They kissed like ravenous adventurers dining.
His cock throbbed against her inner thigh. Its heat and length extended to her knee.
She envisioned the big, thick veins beating on its surface, its length swollen, the head dark purple, engorged.
His tusks grazed her throat. He bit her life vein, soft, and harder. She pushed her head back, offering her throat and her body to him.
Gark roared, as crazed to be in her as she was to have him plunge inside.
The princess raked her nails down his back. She gripped his ass with her claws and spread herself wide. She’d planned to act like a waterfront whore for him. Now she felt the part. She felt more than the part, she felt unstoppable desire.
She didn’t have to pretend to want the orc to fuck her. She wanted the orc to fuck her more than she ever wanted—ungh.”
He hit her deep, pushing behind her navel with his erection.
Wordless cries poured out of her.
“So delicious, my beautiful princess, so tight, smooth, and slick.” His words panted out of him. His eyes gleamed. “You are so good, Teza, you please me well.”
“Fuck me. Yes, Gark.” She grunted her responses.
She couldn’t talk. She needed the orc to fuck her.
“Tell me.” His tusks took her ear and tugged it.
Lust stabbed her. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me hard.”
“Yes, oh yes, my beauty. I’ll fuck you hard.” He reared back, positioned his massive cock, and powered it into her.
She screamed, and clung to him with her claws and her thighs.
Shocks went through her body. Her arms and legs shook with spasms. Her head whipped from side to side. Her hair lashed his face.
He gripped her hair and pulled it, fucking her harder.
She thrust up at him in a frenzy. Fucking him back with all her verve, her ass pushed off the bed. Her hips slapping against him sent rushes through her bud. The sting maddened her.
She ground on him hard and gasped as he rammed deep inside her. The thickness of his cock stretching her made her wild.
He bit her neck.
Moaning, she thrashed under him.
He grabbed her in his arms. He squeezed her so hard, she feared he might squeeze her too hard. His tongue grew longer, surrounding her throat and squeezing.
Her sight flickered. Dark smoke filled her vision.
The slick, turgid length of his tongue pressed her flesh, stole her breath, made her afraid and ecstatic.
His cock stabbed full-depth inside her. He roared, releasing her throat. Crushing her against his hard, slick chest, he filled her with his seed.
Clinging to him, quaking, she roared with him as the hot, tight ache he made in her peaked and flared.
She
bit him and held on with teeth and nails, helpless, yet powerful as an orc in her own way.
The orc cock that grew so mighty for her softened in her grip.
“We are well matched,” he whispered in a tone of wonder.
Tenderness made his fearsome face soft.
Pride surged through Teza that she transformed him so. At home, she’d been betrayed, filled with lies. This act wasn’t filthy, it was holy in the widest sense of the word.
Coming back to herself, she released his flesh from her teeth. A blood-purple rose bloomed on his muscled green torso from her bite.
She pressed her hand against her mark on him. He wasn’t the only one taking and claiming when he ravished me. I met him in the battle. I conquered him, too. Her throat felt raw.
Teza lay stunned, the feeling of her growls and roars surrounding her. It was as though she was part beast, part orc, and Gark roused her, challenged her to let it out. She had, and it was magical.
She drew her finger from one of his nipples to the other, returned her palm to rest over her bite. The mark unfurled and grew darker at the edges of her hand.
He had me. The great orc warrior had me. I wasn’t going anywhere.
He cradled her in his big arm as though sensing she felt troubled.
She accepted his comfort. She no longer felt like a captive.
“You never were a captive, Teza. You were mine before we met. You needed only to realize it and to surrender to our fate.”
She struggled out of his grip and stared into his placid face. “You know what I’m thinking.”
“I get glimmers.” He ran his hand down her tightened spine, pulled her close again. “Teza, don’t fear me. We are different, yet more alike than you know. Give us time. You are my chosen one. You will be at my side in the creation of the era to come. We will transform the realms into a land of safety for all. This is my dream, the dream that led me to you.”
“You mean this?”
“Yes, because it’s true. I draw on the legacy of my human ancestry as well as the powers of the orc mages. In my reign, I will bring the best visions of our peoples to fruition. With you.” He licked his lips. “There was never any question of you leaving me. We will create a new people.” He pressed his thumb against her lips. He kissed her, a slow, thorough kiss.
