Chapter 34
34
Kargorr
H ow slick she was, how perfect clenching around him this way, welcoming him in while squeezing and milking and suffocating him—it was almost beyond comprehending.
When he had arrived, he had barely managed to hand off Liga to one of the younger warriors before he stalked into the camp looking for Cedar. He would give her no reason to run from him. He would hold her and find solace again in her warm depths.
He had been gone too long, though, and her body had to stretch to accommodate him. But oh, how he would remind her of his size and shape, and she would remember.
Kargorr’s body was determined to take his yapira , to invade her fully, to claim her and roar to the sky how she was his. But she wasn’t, not yet. She would have to admit it first.
His blood howled in his veins as he pumped his hips faster, all his muscles tensing as he drove into her. Her belly had grown while he was gone, and now it was rounded with him, his orcling warm and small inside. His eyes rolled back in his head as he drowned himself in her again and again, his sarga seeking her with one gentle push after another. Cedar’s perfect pink-brown lips parted as he began to wedge himself inside her, squeezing in one stroke at a time. She opened for him, and eagerly, without hesitation, Lord Kargorr fully sheathed himself in her small body.
A roar was pulled from his lips as Cedar’s heels dug into his back, as her body seized, as her breasts bounced and at last, he found his way back to his place inside her.
But the last threads of his control were worn through, and he snapped apart. He plunged into her, then reeled his hips back to suck his sarga free from her, only to shove back in again roughly. She screamed a throaty scream, and so he plowed her spread, swollen cunt until she was writhing and her soft channel was fluttering. They danced on the edge of a sharp blade, almost teetering off the side.
Then she broke. He loved that he could make Cedar break this way, her chest arching and her fingers gripping his arms like claws. All her marvelous squeezing took him easily off the edge, dragging him down with her. His swollen sarga were trapped now, and Kargorr thrust once more before he finally followed her into oblivion.
They did not exchange words until morning, when sunlight crept in through the tent ceiling, and Lord Kargorr blinked bleary eyes. Rarely did he find himself in this state, sated like a cat that has just gorged on a fresh kill. He could move, he thought, and perhaps he ought to. But Cedar was curled up against him, her head resting on his arm, her breathing the only thing in the quiet.
But then he heard movement outside, and knew he had matters to attend to, now that Lord Gannag’s parog was on the way. Still, he watched her a few moments longer, and his free hand traveled down her body, exploring it, tracing the familiar edges of it and committing them to memory again. His blood warmed for her as he thought of all the ways he had rutted her last night, slinging her legs up over his shoulders, rolling her onto her front so he could lie on top of her, their legs and arms wrapped up together.
His cock was fully alert now, rubbing against Cedar’s swelled belly, and she shifted in her sleep. With a soft moan, she rubbed back, and her hands drifted down until they were wrapped around his girth, and her eyes drifted open.
And then she smiled. It was an unguarded, pleased sort of smile, a smile he had never once seen on her face before. Lord Kargorr watched her, frozen, as she stroked up the length of him with her small hand.
There was certainly no chance of him leaving this tent now.
He fucked her while looking into her brown eyes, taking his time, working himself into her one slow inch by slow inch, languidly stoking her flames until she was burning, crying out, a twisting, panting, sweating mess underneath him. It gave him great pleasure to undo her.
“Tell me, little deer,” he murmured to her, teasing her with his sarga but not yet giving them to her. “Tell me how you are mine.”
“I’m not,” she whined, jerking her hips up, trying to take more of him. “Please, I?—”
And Kargorr swallowed her objections, scouring her mouth as his sarga filled her up, as he took pleasure in her and pleasured her all at once, until he had emptied his seed inside her twice more, and she was utterly boneless underneath him.
But the time had come and he had delayed too long. Lord Kargorr sat up and rose off the bed, but a hand caught him.
“You aren’t leaving again, are you?”
Cedar’s question surprised and rejuvenated him, this not-so-hidden plea for his presence and company. Of course he would leave—he had to, in a few weeks’ time. But for a moment, he considered lying, because her hesitance also meant that perhaps the bond between them was healing.
Lord Kargorr held her gaze. “Not immediately,” he said, and she wilted. “First, Lord Gannag will join us here.”
She blinked. “He agreed to come?” They had been too lost in their reunion for him to even convey this news.
“And his entire parog ,” Lord Kargorr said. “We will do as no grrosek have done before us and combine our forces. We will build an army.” As he spoke, his vigor and his determination swelled. “And then I will bring more kazek , more parog , until we have the force to destroy all of humanity.”
Cedar was not affronted, as he might have thought she would be, given he intended to extinguish her kind. Instead, she gave him a look that was almost... pitying.
“When will it be enough?” she asked. “How many lords?”
Lord Kargorr did not understand the question. He would walk to the ends of the earth to find his kin, bring them together, and lead the assault. In the ashes, he would rise as the unifier.
“Until we can walk over their bodies with our boots,” Kargorr said, and began to dress.
Cedar didn’t speak as he finished and headed for the tent door. There, he paused.
“I will remain here as long as possible,” Lord Kargorr said at last. “And send Orgha in my place when I can. But this is what I must do, what I was called on to do.”
Gazing upon her face, though, it was clear to him that Cedar knew this. She already knew how his mission superseded all else, including her. So Cedar simply nodded, then lay back down in the furs, resigned to it.
When he left the tent, Kargorr called on someone to find Rathka and bring her. Kiya slept on the ground, waiting for his mistress. Opening the tent flap, Kargorr sent the cat inside. Unlike Liga, who had grown up on the snowfields with the other cats, Kiya had an intuitiveness about him that surprised Kargorr. The cat understood many words and knew when Cedar needed him.
Lord Kargorr should be thinking about what came next, about the wave of grrosek descending upon them and everything their presence would demand: more tents, more land, more food, more everything. There was much to plan and many tasks to do, and yet even as he summoned Samrak and the two of them got to work, Kargorr thought of how his yapira had taken him so well last night, and how poorly he had left her this morning.
He could not give her what she wanted: true security, in his heart and in his parog . And he hated it.
Cedar
The camp was bright with energy when she and Rathka emerged. A warm, spring sun was shining down, and it rather maddened Cedar that the world would only choose to warm up when Lord Kargorr returned. She was second-best, even in the sun’s eyes.
Everyone was working, and when Cedar entered Carn’s workshop, she found another young half-orc there, helping with some fresh kills. She was pretty, and had thick, braided hair that fell over her shoulder. She spoke Cedar’s language, which was a welcome reprieve from most of the time, when no one except Carn and Rathka understood her.
But the orc woman did not meet Cedar’s eyes. She spoke a little of her mother, a human woman who had been taken decades ago and already passed away. It was comforting to speak in her own language with someone who fully understood her.
Apparently, the hunters were out scouring the landscape for fresh kills, so the camp cooks could dry more meat for the coming orcs. Cedar wondered how many of these strangers there would be, and how the camp would accommodate all of them—more warriors, more families, even another lord.
Were he and Kargorr equals? Would Kargorr now be the one in charge? She felt a crawling sort of unease, wondering how power might shift.
That night, Lord Kargorr did not return to the tent until after Cedar had already eaten dinner. When the flap finally opened and he stepped inside, she was lying by the fire in a light doze with Kiya at her side.
Neither of them spoke as he took her to bed, as he licked her cunt and her sweat, as he held her on his lap and lifted her up, only to bring her down over his cock again.
When they were sated, and Kargorr weaved his fingers through her hair, Cedar asked him how the planning had gone, and he reported back that he had already tasked a team with clearing trees and flattening the earth for more tents.
“I sent an assistant,” Kargorr said. “I thought she might be to your liking.”
Cedar furrowed her brow. “The half-orc? You sent her?”
“To help Carn, and you, in preparing more tents. I’ll be sending even more help as our hunters bring in fresh kills so that we might have plenty of leather ready to be sewn together into new homes for our guests.”
“So Lord Gannag is your guest?” she asked. She wanted to know who he was, and what Lord Kargorr might expect of her.
His hand in her hair halted, his finger caught in a tangle.
“Yes,” Kargorr said after a time. “He is a guest, but also an ally. A leader. If he feels that he’s not being afforded the respect he is owed, then there may be trouble.”
It was as Cedar had feared. There would be another pole of power introduced to the camp, and that could be unpredictable.
“I see.” She thought for a moment, because such a transition portended conflict. “We ought to make a welcome gift, then.”
Lord Kargorr sat up on the furs and arched a critical eyebrow.
“A welcome gift?” He snorted. “This is not the grrosek way. We have already afforded his parog many gifts in the courting stage.”
“And once you court, do the gifts end?” She raised herself up on the bed, too, and pulled the bear pelt into her lap. “How does one maintain the relationship, then, and keep the other party pleased?”
She peered up at him, and Lord Kargorr’s pitch-black eyes bored into her, searching her, digging inside her for the source and meaning of her question.
“An angle I had not considered,” he admitted at last. “No grrosek has ever attempted what I am attempting. So perhaps you are right, little deer, and I should keep him fat and happy with gifts.”
Once more Kargorr lay back down, and rather forcefully, pulled her to the furs with him. He pressed her back flush to his firm stomach, and his hands slid down her breasts, over her belly, where he spread his fingers.
“What sort of gifts should these be?” he asked, and there was almost a teasing note in his voice.
Cedar thought for a time over what the coming orcs might need, something they wouldn’t think to bring for themselves but would show them better what the way of life looked like in Lord Kargorr’s camp.
“Syrup-crusted pork,” Cedar said, without hesitation. “Use some of my pigs. They have grown well and would be ideal for a roast.”
Of course, Bread Pudding meant much to her—and her piglets were one of the last few reminders of her old life—but so did Cedar want to ensure that Lord Kargorr’s gambit went peacefully. She feared what so many orcs might do in such close quarters when they harbored an easy willingness to resort to violence.
Lord Kargorr remained in a thoughtful silence for some time, then pulled her ass flush against his hips. He was already hard for her, wet and leaking.
“A clever woman I found,” he muttered as she spread her legs, and he slipped through them. She was already covered in his seed, so his cock found its way easily inside her. “Such a good, sturdy woman.”
It took six more days for the new orcs to finally arrive.