The question almost amused her. Why else would Adrianus have sheltered and fed a human child for such a long time?
"Of course. He tried for almost three years and even when he was forced to allow others access to me, he still would attempt a bond during the bonding frenzy around Valentine's Day."
"When did he start?"
She felt the anger in his posture, his every movement, and knew it was not directed at her but at her guardian. It should have gratified her. It was anger on her behalf. But she felt the need to make excuses for the man she had considered her father.
Adrianus had not done anything reprehensible in the eyes of the supernatural courts, to be exact most considered the measures he had taken to protect her as pure foolishness. She was an ErGer, it was her nature that had forced the expediency of bonding on Adrianus -- not trying to bond would have been akin to finding a treasure and leaving it behind for another to take. Even among humans she had been old enough to marry when Adrianus had first tried to initiate a bond.
"I was almost seventeen, long past the age when many others of my age already had their first child. It was worse for him than it was for me. He could barely ..." here she searched in vain for the words to express what she needed to say and finally settled on "... perform."
"How was it for you?" For a moment she thought she had misheard the question, that he had not asked this, but when he turned his head to look at her she saw concentrated interest in his eyes. Heat warmed her cheeks, her embarrassment acute. Uncomfortable, she tried to make little of it.
"Intensely embarrassing, but it was not particularly painful or horrible." He looked at her for another moment before he fell silent again.
His silence did not last and before long he was asking her about her interests, her favourite foods and colours. He kept her talking for most of the eight days they travelled through the Austrian Alps towards Italy.
On the ninth day they crested a mountain path and across the valley the towering walls of a dark castle stood in a strange welcome. Elena knew, somehow, that this was their destination. A subtle change in the atmosphere among the orcs surrounding them, an anticipation of return in the men and an almost nervous expectation in the women. This was not a ruined shell, not the dirty remains of a once great house waiting to be restored -- as the castle outside Innsbruck had been. This building was a well defended fortress with all the signs of regular and good repair. A strange certainty rose in her. She felt Reschkar's eyes on her as they moved towards the waiting gates.
"You never intended to take Innsbruck, did you?"
There was no particular interest in her voice as she asked the question, nor any ire. He matched her tone with the same studied casualness as he replied:
"No."
"What did you want in Innsbruck then?"
Now she met his eyes and saw calm gentleness there -- but also steel below it.
"I came to find an ErGer and believe me, I would have killed anyone who might have stood in my way in order to do so."
Well, that answered the question. He had known what he had come for.
Control
She woke in a warm, soft bed, rested and clearer in her mind than she had been for days. She also woke to an orc's eyes fixed on her face, flames reflected in their yellow depth, their expression pensive and intent. He sat on a chair beside the bed, close enough to touch, had she stretched out her hand. The firelight played over the plains of his still bare torso, though she noticed he had exchanged the black leather of his trousers and boots for more comfortable dark green wool. His feet were bare, the sharp claws scraping against the cold stone slabs of the floor. Elbows resting on his knees, leaning towards her without any sign of impatience. He gave all indication of having sat there, watching her, studying her, for hours.
Elena did not move. There was nothing to move for. The light told her it was evening, if not night. She must have slept through the day, her exhaustion keeping her under far longer than was usual. Her mind thought back to their arrival here.
They had reached the castle in the early hours of the day, exhausted, frozen to the bone, with a blizzard at their heels. Even Reschkar had come close to his limits on the last ascent, stumbling repeatedly and still denying her request to let her walk on her own. By the time they had reached the gates, they could barely see three metres ahead, so thickly had the snow fallen. The icy fingers of the wind seemed to penetrate even her skin and Reschkar had stopped asking her to tell him about her life hours ago. It might have been out of recognition of her exhaustion or in face of the volume of the rising wind, she did not know, but they had not exchanged a word for most of the night. Entering the castle gates, the sudden cessation of the constant pull of the wind on hair and clothes, had been a relief, at first. Then the relative quiet intruded on her awareness and it was louder than the clap of thunder.
A grating sound, the tortured scream of wood and metal, chains straining under the weight of the heavy gate, replaced the muted sound of the wind. Reschkar had let her slip from his shoulders with a sigh of relief, barely controlling her descent, letting her stumble where he would have caught her otherwise. Elena only realised the toll the last hours, days, had had on him as she watched him then, bent over, sides heaving. It left her speechless. He had seemed so indestructible, a being outside reality, full of unlimited strength and power. All the orcs had appeared to her like beings without weakness, at least physical weakness.
Every story of her childhood contained an orc, more often than not as the monster. They were near mythical in their invulnerability. It was the combination of frightening looks, coupled with the legend of their strength, which made it easy to ignore any common sense when judging their powers. She stood besides Reschkar, almost viscerally aware how those stereotypes in her mind were cracking. Suddenly unsure what to do in the face of this new realisation of his humanity. How do you react when a stone, all of a sudden, gets up and turns out to be a living, breathing being?
Some of her emotion must have been evident on her face, for when he caught her gaze she saw the gentle mockery, the amusement in their yellow depth. He straightened and the play of muscles over a chest still bare chased away any fleeting perception of vulnerability.
"What do you say to your new home?"
His words made her aware of her surroundings -- and the sudden, unnatural stillness. They had come to halt in what appeared to be a courtyard, surrounded on three sides by high buildings. On every window, every walkway, along the wall across the gate, crowding the parapet, there stood orcs, silent and unmoving. And all of them stared at her. Orcs of every possible shape and persuasion -- women, children, men. So many. Old and young, healthy and maimed. They stood frozen in whatever they had been doing, their faces turned to her. Wherever Elena looked her eyes met the intent, yellow stare of an orc.
She had swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the lump forming in her throat. Somehow, over the last nine days of travel, she had become accustomed to her little band, their strangeness having lost its fearful aspects. They had simply become companions in their combined struggle against nature, admirable in their endurance and strength, comforting in their presence. This, now, was an entirely different proposition.
Under the scrutiny of hundreds of eyes, in the face of so many strange orcs, Elena suddenly became aware of what these beings were, in a way she had forgotten over their journey. They were beings of violence, their fingers tipped with retractable claws, their hands able to rend a body limb from limb and their diet rumoured to contain human flesh as a preference.
It was pure instinct, and a stupid one at that, had she thought of it, which made her take a step close to Reschkar. But his presence had now become interwoven intimately with her perception of safety. Before her mind could remember that he was just as much orc as anyone else here, he pulled her in, cradled the back of her head and fitted her against his side with gentle pressure.
"Safe, girl -- whatever else will happen, you are safe here."
And
just for that moment she let his words calm her nerves, no matter how false they might turn out to be.
The remainder of the morning was nothing more than a blur to her. She remembered, in a vague way, that he had handed her over to two female orcs who had led her inside. In the room she had found herself in, she had barely had the time to take in the large bed, its frame hewn from rough wood, the bark still clinging to the slats, before a large tin bath appeared. Litres upon litres of blessedly hot water filled the large tub, steam rising with the scent of pine oil, the mere presence of the possibility of a bath making her feel better. She felt grubby. Well, she felt more than grubby -- she had left grubbiness behind on the second day, having long since reached the state of outright filth. In that split second a bath had become the most essential need, a need the future promised to sate.
The hot water had seeped the last strength from her bones, her exhaustion fogging her thoughts. Unable to even eat, so tired was she, Elena had crawled into the heavy pelts covering the bed with the firm intention to sleep until the end of the world, or someone woke her, whatever might come first. Fear and trepidation had not had enough power to keep her from the grips of exhaustion.
Still, she had not been able to fall asleep, her restless mind whirling, searching for something. She did not want to admit, even to herself, that it was Reschkar's absence which kept her awake. It frightened her. It made no sense. In all probability, he would end up killing her, out of intent or accident, but her irrational mind insisted that in his presence, she would be safe. In the end, it had been the faint scent of pine and clear air remaining on the pelts which had let her settle into dreams.
Just to wake now to his gaze upon her. Elena looked at him, sitting there, and she saw a different orc, a different being from the one she had known. She saw not the companion of nine days hard travel, the bulwark against any threat, but the man who held her life in his hands, whose every decision could mean pain or degradation, even death. Fear was a heavy weight in her stomach.
It was time. They had reached their destination. He had recovered from their travels, as had she, at least as much as she ever would. There was no reason to wait anymore, no reason for him not to make use of the prize he had brought with him. With every silent second that passed her muscles tensed a little further, the anxiety in her stomach rising, strangling her. Long since had she lost the languid heaviness of sleep, leaving only trepidation.
It was a familiar feeling -- too familiar. This veiled vigilance a well-known coat settling in place over her mind. Elena realised that the sense of perpetual watchfulness, which was an integral part of her life, had been missing over the last few days. On the road, all her attention had been concentrated on simply holding on, all worries, even the need to pre-empt threats, had been discarded in the peculiar trust that to keep her safe, to keep them all safe, was Reschkar's responsibility, nor hers. But they were not on the road anymore and now he was the largest threat in her life. Elena saw that self same realisation in his eyes.
"Get up."
His voice was still as melodic and deep as it had been on that first night. She could have luxuriated in the sound, the tone. Before, she would never have thought a voice such as this would belong to an orc, now she could not imagine him with another. It reached into her mind, stroked over her senses, turned her knees into jelly and made her want to please him.
She hated that voice, hated it because it was deceptive and so hard to resist. When she scrambled from underneath the pelts her movements were stiff and careful, her own body feeling ungainly, as if made of matchsticks. Her mind reached for her usual detachment, the distance she had learnt to wrap around herself when life among the courts became too confusing, too difficult to bear. The disassociation technique escaped her and she was left facing reality without her familiar escape route.
Elena felt his eyes cataloguing each of her movements, not even the smallest change in her body escaping his notice. It seemed to be how he approached everything, his eyes taking note of the smallest change, his brain rearranging the world with the new information every second. It was like watching a normal human's, or supernatural's brain, in extreme -- and knowing that there was nothing you could hide from him.
"Can you smell my emotions?"
The question was out before she had considered the implications of asking it. He frowned at her, not in anger but as if he had to think about the answer. When he spoke there was hesitation in his voice.
"Yes, but by that time your body has already told me what I need to know."
The hesitation was not of someone trying to hide the truth, just someone taking a question serious enough to give it due consideration. Another characteristic of everything in this man, this deliberate air surrounding all his actions. That intent deliberation was one of the most overwhelming, and frightening, aspects of this being. Nothing escaped him, nothing was random, all a part of a strategic plan she had no way to understand. Coupled with his answer, the fact that he saw and smelled her emotions, it was devastating -- and gave her faith in the future.
When all was said and done, was there a chance, even a small one, he would manage to bond her where all others had failed? It was hard not to let that little flower of hope grow, not to contemplate a future in which she could live as an ErGer, not just a burden. He appeared near omnipotent to her in that moment, it seemed almost impossible to consider his failure at anything he set his mind to -- even a bonding everyone else had long since abandoned. It was a dream, a fantasy. Her lips stretched in a tentative smile, one which died fast. He was an orc, a being who was bred for physical power, their race kept weak and vulnerable when it came to mental control. How could this physical being succeed where those with unparalleled mental powers had failed?
Reality was such an ugly animal. There would not be a dream. No, he would try to bond her until Valentine's day, three weeks hence, and then, if not this year then the next or the one after, give up and take the solace her blood could give. In the beginning, a few drops in their food would be enough to give his court the same benefits as a bond to her would -- but it would not last. Soon they would need a few sips, then a cupful. Her blood, as any ErGer's was addictive, but if he was careful, and everything she had learnt of him said he was a very cautious man, he would be able to stretch the benefits of her blood over a few years before the strain of it would kill her.
Somehow, though it mean her death, that thought was comforting. She would finally be good for something -- and then, in the end, it would at least be over, this life of constant failure. And it would be worth something. She would have protected her family and, possibly, given these people a chance they had never been granted by the Courts, a chance to build a nation, a race, away from slavery, infighting and subjugation. She might be able to give them a future with her slow death. This was what she had been aiming for. The memory of her goal settled her enough to be able to meet his thoughtful gaze.
"Go. I will be waiting here when you return."
She was startled, unsure what he meant with this. Her eyes followed his gaze and she realised he was pointing to the door across the room, the door to the little bathing chamber. He had let her think and he had seen when she had settled, only then had he disturbed her.
Elena rose to make use of the amenities in the little room. It was an unexpected luxury in this godforsaken place. Few human dwellings so far away would be able to sport a separate, indoor bathing chamber. One private to the Lord's chambers was more than simple convenience, it was outright decadent. Elena made use of the chamber pot, washed quickly and availed herself of the toothbrush she had been provided with more than ten hours ago, before she had fallen into bed.
It took courage to return to him, to open the door to the bedroom, and cross the room under the intent weight of his eyes. His gaze was a touch, not hot but heavy, ropes tightening around her, pulling her closer with each step. He had sat back in the heavy oak chair, his muscular arms resting on the armrests, his legs splayed in a parody of
relaxation; and on the floor before him, pooled a pile of furs from the bed. She knew what he wanted, could have told him there was no point. The games of Dominance and submission had been played with her too often, too thoroughly and not once had they been able to break open her mind to allow for a bonding to occur.
Though before she could slide to her knees before him, he stopped her with a raised finger.
"Take off the shirt."
Of course. She was wearing what she suspected was a shirt originally made for him, its folds falling almost to her knees. Elena had found the garment besides the tin bath the previous night and had seen no reason not to take it for her own use. The fabric had been soft and surprisingly luxurious against her skin, his scent of pine forest and clear air interwoven in its very strands. It was the scent of his skin, one she had become intimately familiar with. It had surprised her. If the last few days, and his penchant for facing even a snowstorm with a bare torso, were any indication, then this orc did not avail himself of shirts often.
Now it seemed as if he would not allow her the protection of the garment either. She understood why, knew he was merely increasing her vulnerability in an attempt to weaken her defences. She could have told him this was a futile measure as well. If empirical evidence was any indication then it would not work, never had worked before.
Though, why was it then so hard to pull the soft fabric over her head, the glide of the wool on her skin a reminder how exposed she would be. No matter how many people had seen her bare, touched her naked body in the fool's errand to bond her, with him it was somehow worse. Not because he was an orc but because, for the first time, a man saw her, not only what she stood for. She had seen that in his eyes every day, never hidden, never disguised, that simple desire of a man for a woman.
When her head cleared the fabric she saw the smile tugging at his mouth and the softness in his eyes. He knew how hard it was for her to take step, to bare herself to him-- knew it and, worse, enjoyed her discomfort, her vulnerability. As the shirt slipped from her boneless fingers, the satisfaction, the softness in those predator eyes were joined by blazing heat. He held her gaze, let her become aware of all he felt, told her with one look how much he revelled in her unease. There was no doubt he wanted her at his mercy and would savour every second of it. When her knees bent to let her slide to the floor he did not stop her anymore. She was glad, unsure if her muscles would have held her up for much longer.
By My Side ... (A Valentine's Day Story) Page 5
