Chapter 8
The pregnancy had done more than just make me sick.
It had awakened an insatiable hunger in me.
Not for food but for Vorak. I was constantly aroused, constantly needing him.
His scent alone could make me wet. The healer had warned us this might happen—the magical pregnancy combined with our bond created an intense physical need.
"Vorak," I said, pulling him down beside me.
"You just finished being sick."
"And now I'm not." I kissed him, aggressive and desperate. "I need you."
"Kaela—"
"Pregnancy hormones. The healer warned us." I was already straddling him, working at his pants with frantic hands. "Please. I'll die if you don't fuck me right now."
He groaned as I freed him, sank down onto him without preamble. The pregnancy had made me constantly wet and ready. My body had learned his shape during the rut so I could take him to the hilt.
"So eager," he said, hands on my hips as I rode him.
"Always for you. Only for you." I rode him hard, chasing my pleasure with single-minded need. "Touch me. Make me come."
His thumb found my clit, and I shattered almost immediately. Pregnancy had made my orgasms more intense, longer, with multiple peaks that left me gasping. He followed me over, filling me with his seed.
"Better?" he asked as I collapsed against him.
"For now. Give me an hour."
"Insatiable."
"You love it."
"I love you."
"Then fuck me again in an hour."
He laughed, but true to prediction, an hour later I was climbing him again, desperate and needy.
The pregnancy hormones, the healer said.
I wondered if this was an orc or human thing, or some combination of both.
We fucked three more times before noon—against the wall, bent over the table, and once more in bed with him spooning me from behind, his hand protective over my belly even as he thrust into me.
A knock interrupted our fifth coupling of the morning. "The king requests immediate presence. Both of you."
"Can it wait until my wife stops using me for breeding?" Vorak called out, even as he continued to thrust into me.
I bit his shoulder in retaliation, but I was laughing. The bite made him thrust harder, hitting that spot that made me see stars.
"He says it's urgent, general."
"Everything's urgent," Vorak muttered, but he finished us both with practiced efficiency—his fingers on my clit bringing me over, which triggered his own release.
We dressed quickly—him in armor, me in modified leathers Akara had brought that accommodated my tender breasts and growing belly.
The throne room was tense. A human messenger stood before King Gromar with an expression of resolute fear.
"Perfect timing," the king said as we entered. "Tell them."
The messenger's eyes found me, widened at my still-visible mating marks and the obvious claim on my neck. "The human kingdoms have declared you dead, Lady Kaela. Killed in captivity. They demand your body as proof of orc brutality."
"But I'm clearly alive."
"They don't care. They need you dead for their narrative." He pulled out a scroll. "Lord Commander Silas Hale sends this unofficially."
Silas. Another of Mark's orphans, trained alongside me from age seven.
His first deep cover assignment at seventeen was to play a minor noble's bastard son joining the military.
He'd been so successful that the cover became reality, and he rose through the ranks on genuine merit, his spy training giving him every advantage.
Ten years later, he commanded armies instead of stealing secrets.
We'd been close once, as close as Mark allowed.
My first kiss had been with Silas, hidden in the armory when we were fifteen, before Mark discovered us and had him whipped for "compromising an asset. "
I read: "K— They plan to attack, regardless. Your survival complicates their justification. Disappear or die. Only warning I can give. —S"
"He's trying to help," I said.
"Or it's a trap," Vorak countered.
"Silas isn't like that. He cared for me once."
"Cared how?" Vorak's arm went around me, possessive.
"We grew up together. First loves, before Mark beat it out of us." I touched his arm. "That's the past. You're my present and future."
"Should I be concerned?"
"Should I be concerned about every orc female who looks at you with hunger?"
"Point taken." But his grip tightened.
"We need to respond," I said to the king, "publicly. Prove I'm alive and here by choice."
"That makes you more of a target," King Gromar pointed out.
"I'm already a target. At least this way, we control the narrative."
"What do you suggest?"
"Public appearance at the border. Let them see I'm alive, pregnant, thriving."
"Absolutely not," Vorak said. "You're not going near—"
"I'm going where needed. This war must end before our child is born."
"Our child needs a living mother."
"Our child needs a world where they won't be hunted for existing."
We glared at each other, and I felt our bond pulse with his fear and my determination.
"Compromise," the king said. "The messenger takes proof of life. A letter. Something personal only you would know."
I thought, then wrote. A memory only Silas and I shared—the day Mark pitted us against each other in combat when we were sixteen. Silas could have won but threw the fight, knowing Mark would punish me worse for losing. He'd taken a beating for that loss, all to spare me worse.
"He'll know it's real," I said, sealing it.
The messenger left.
"This won't stop them," Vorak said.
"No. But it might make some question the war."
"Unless they've already—" Vorak's head snapped toward the window. "Do you hear that?"
Distant shouting. Growing closer.
"They never wanted an answer," I realized. "The message was just to confirm I was here."
The doors burst open. An orc warrior stumbled in, bleeding.
"Attack!" he gasped. "Humans. South wall. Hundreds. They must have been positioning for days!"
Vorak was moving before the orc warrior finished, pulling me with him.
"No," he said when I reached for a weapon. "You're pregnant. You stay safe."
"I can fight—"
"Not carrying our child. Please, Kaela. This once. For me. For our child."
The plea stopped my protest. "Be careful."
"Always." He kissed me hard. "I love you."
"I love you too."
Then he ran toward battle.
The attack was a diversion.
While the warriors rushed south, assassins came through the servant entrance. Three of them, dressed as traders but moving like killers I recognized from my training.
I was in our quarters with Akara when they struck.
"Down!" I shoved her aside as a blade whistled past.
The assassin—human, professional, using techniques I knew—advanced. I had no weapon, nothing but—
The garden trowel Vorak had left. I grabbed it, dodged left (the way Mark taught us), and drove the small blade into the assassin's throat at the angle that would sever the artery. He dropped, blood spraying.
The second came fast. Akara engaged him with brutal efficiency, using her orcish strength to her advantage.
The third circled me, and I recognized his stance. One of Mark's newer recruits. "Kaela Ryn. You're supposed to be dead."
"Disappointed, Theron?" I used his name and saw him flinch.
"Relieved. Now I get the bounty."
"What bounty?"
"Ten thousand gold for proof of death. Twenty thousand if you're with child."
So they knew. Of course they knew.
He lunged with a classical third-form attack. I sidestepped using the counter Mark had drilled into us, but pregnancy had changed my center of balance. His blade caught my arm. It was a shallow cut, but it burned.
"First blood," he smirked. "Easy—"
A wet crack interrupted him.
I looked over to see Akara holding her opponent's head at an impossible angle, his feet still twitching.
She'd gotten behind him somehow. For all her size, she moved like smoke when she wanted to.
The assassin had been focused on me, dismissing the "old orc female" as a secondary threat.
Fatal mistake. She dropped the body like so much refuse, wiping her hands on her tunic.
Theron turned toward the new threat, as his training dictated. One must always face the most dangerous opponent.
Which is why I knew he'd turn. I grabbed his dropped partner's blade, hamstringing him with the precise cut Mark had shown us. He went down with a scream, clutching his useless leg.
"Who sent you?" Though I already knew.
"Does it matter? You're dead either way," he gasped through gritted teeth.
"I've been dead before. Still here."
He laughed. "Mark sends his regards."
Mark. Of course.
"Mark's not sentimental."
"No. But practical. You're a loose end. A broken tool that needs disposing."
"I'm a person."
"You were never a person to him. Just an investment that went bad."
Akara's boot came down on his throat with a crunch, ending his words and his life in one motion.
"You're hurt," she said, examining my arm as if she hadn't just killed two trained assassins with her bare hands.
"Shallow. I'll heal."
"Any wound is dangerous when pregnant. And you fought like you knew them."
"I did. Same training. Same master."
But Vorak was already there, covered in blood—not his—looking wild. His eyes were black around the edges, the violence awakening the beast.
"I felt it," he said. "The bond. You were in danger."
"Handled."
He saw the bodies. The blood. My arm. His jaw clenched. "You're hurt."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You were attacked. While carrying—" He visibly controlled himself, the black receding from his eyes. "Who?"
"Assassins. Human. Mark's students."
"Sent by?"
I hesitated. "Mark."
"Your former handler?"
"Yes."
"He dies."
"He's protected in the capital—"
"I don't care if he's in the king's bed. He threatened you and our child. He dies."
The certainty in his voice was comforting rather than disturbing.
"The battle?" I asked.
"Over. Diversion, as you guessed." He pulled me against him, careful of my arm. "This can't happen again."
"I won't live in a cage."
"Not a cage. Protection. Guards."
"That's still—"
"Non-negotiable. You carry our child. Our future." His hand covered my stomach possessively. "I won't lose you. Either of you."
He was right. I hated it, but he was right.
"Fine. But I choose them."
"Done."
That night, after healers and reports and discussions, we were finally alone. The adrenaline from the attack combined with pregnancy hormones had me desperate, needy in a way that transcended normal desire.
"I need you," I said, pushing him against the door the moment it closed. "Now. Hard. Rough."
"Kaela, your arm—"
"Doesn't hurt." I dropped to my knees, freed him from his pants with desperate hands. "Need to taste you."
"You don't have to—"
"I want to." I took him in my mouth as deep as I could manage, using everything I'd learned about his body during the rut. The ridges that made him groan. The spot at the base where his knot would form that was so sensitive. The way he loved when I scraped teeth along certain spots.
"Your mouth," he gasped, his hands tangling in my hair. "So perfect. So hot."
I worked him with mouth and hand, swallowing around him, pressing my tongue to his knot-spot, until he was shaking. When I scraped teeth along that one ridge while pressing firmly on his knot-spot and swallowing, he lost control.
"Stop—going to—"
I didn't stop. I wanted him to come in my mouth, wanted to taste him, claim him as thoroughly as he claimed me. I needed it with a desperation that wasn't entirely human anymore.
He came with a roar, and I swallowed everything, licking him clean after, savoring his unique taste that the pregnancy had made me crave.
"My turn," he growled, pulling me up. He spun me around, pressed my front to the door, and lifted my skirts.
"Please," I begged. "Hard. Need it hard. Need to feel you."
He entered me in one brutal thrust, pressing me against the door. One hand braced beside my head, the other gripping my hip hard enough to leave bruises as he fucked me with almost rut-like intensity.
"Mine," he growled with each thrust. "No one else's. Never anyone else's."
"Yours," I agreed, then cried out as he hit that spot that made me see stars. "Only yours. Forever yours."
"Going to keep you pregnant," he snarled, his control slipping, eyes flashing black. "Constantly. Full of my children. Marked inside and out as mine."
"Yes," I gasped, the thought sending me over. "Keep me bred. Keep me yours."
His hand moved to my throat, not choking but possessive, and I came harder than I had since the rut. He followed with a roar that reached the great hall, his knot starting to swell.
The stretch and pressure were exactly what I needed. I came again just from the sensation of being so filled and so claimed.
We stayed locked for an hour, him reaching around to play with my clit, making me come again. When his knot finally went down and he pulled out, I nearly collapsed. He caught me, carried me to bed.
"The pregnancy is making you feral," he said, but there was wonder in his voice.
"The pregnancy is making me need you constantly." I pulled him down for a kiss. "Is that a problem?"
"Never." He settled between my thighs. "But now it's my turn to taste you."
He spent the next hour with his mouth between my legs, making me come until I was hoarse from screaming. Then he fucked me again, slow and deep this time, whispering orcish endearments I was starting to understand.
We fell asleep, both of us sated.
For now.