Chapter Two
Farigoth
Farigoth sat back on the heavy furs spread across his throne, the seat groaning under his weight. The skulls of his enemies, worked into the frame of the backrest, teased his peripheral vision. He dropped his elbows on the armrests fashioned from the tusks of the beast he’d slain as a boy.
Below the dais, the tribe stood to the sides. Guards dragged forward two orcs who’d been caught ravishing men against their will. Lightning flashed across the night sky. The scent of smoke filled the air.
BOOM, the drums resounded.
It wasn’t the first time orcs had violated men, and Farigoth gritted his teeth at the thought it might not be the last. It was not how orcs were meant to treat their mates. No wonder humans ran from them. Farigoth was going to put an end to it.
The two culprits were giants, thickset and muscular. The guards, outnumbering them three to one, had wrapped them in chains and were pushing them forward, fighting to contain them as they roared and twisted, moments from breaking free.
Boom, boom, boom.
Chains rattling, the guards pushed them to their knees in front of the dais, forcing their heads to the ground. They reeked of the fear of the men they’d defiled. Farigoth’s nostrils flared. The scent sealed their fate.
“You dare to break the code,” Farigoth roared, drowning out the distant thunder.
Few crimes were considered worse than taking an unwilling man.
Orcs had a finely tuned sense of smell, its main purpose to tell lust from fear.
An orc who failed to make the distinction would meet the punishment his chief saw fit. Farigoth knew but one punishment.
“You are guilty of defilement,” Farigoth growled, his voice, throaty and deep, booming across the field. It was orcs like those two who hindered relations with the humans. They tarnished their entire species. Farigoth had no patience for them. “You are guilty, and you will bear my judgment.”
Farigoth rose from his throne, and the tribesmen stepped back. The drums quickened to a crescendo.
Rage flashed in the eyes of one of the culprits. He snarled at Farigoth, baring his teeth. If his sentence had not already been decided, this would have.
Farigoth descended the shallow steps of the dais, his bare feet sinking into the grass below.
The orc snarled once more, but when Farigoth didn’t react, approaching in measured steps, his confidence wilted momentarily. Then he threw his head back and howled, and in one powerful twist, he shook off his handlers and broke the chains. He pulled his fist back, swinging.
Beside him, his comrade tore out of his handlers’ hold and launched himself at Farigoth.
Farigoth walked into the attack. He allowed the first punch to land. It did not hurt. Farigoth gripped the orc by the head and, with a resounding crunch, broke his neck. His body fell to the ground with a dull thud.
Farigoth turned to the remaining captive, whose anger withered to fear. Lightning struck in the distance. The orc shrank back and threw himself to the ground. “Plea—”
He didn’t get further than that. Farigoth stepped on his head, crushing the skull under his weight. He wouldn’t be adding this one to his collection.
Thunder rumbled.
The tribe roared.
Having meted out punishment, Farigoth returned to his throne of bone and pelts. It was time to raise the penalties. He had not done so before, as the warriors were needed, but this close to victory, he had troops to spare.
“The next orc guilty of defilement, I will execute along with everyone who, in the three days prior, has shared food with him, hunted with him, fought with him. Watch your comrades. Do not tolerate unwanted ravishment. I will punish all who participate, watch or ignore. You will meet your fate alongside the instigators.” Farigoth growled, and a tremor went through the crowd.
“Defilement ends today. You obey, or you die.”
The orcs fell to their knees.
Too many men had been violated by orcs who didn’t have the patience to court a mate.
It was a disgrace to their kind. Most orcs had no interest in an unwilling man.
Most men submitted eventually. Some needed coaxing, some needed time to see what an orc could provide for them, but in the end, temptation won.
Mating was a delicate matter, a balance of seduction and conquest. Every orc dreamed of having a mate to cherish and breed.
Female orcs were no more, but Vale was full of beautiful, fertile men.
Farigoth was going to secure them as mates for the tribe.
“Tomorrow,” Farigoth called out, “we continue north. We will find willing, breedable men. Be patient. The gods promised us a way across the Great River, and we have found it. The gods promised us fertile mates, and we’ve found them. They’ve promised us the submission of men, and we will get it.”
The orcs howled, beating their chests. The wind carried the scent of their quarry—the men they’d chased from the castle—across miles of open land and down the valley. It was driving the tribe wild.
There was one scent in particular that had the orcs—including Farigoth—salivating.
They called him the Jewel of Vale. Few orcs had seen him, but those who had described him as a beauty that made the gods weep.
His scent was indescribable. It annihilated clear thought, promising a young, fertile and submissive thing that Farigoth was burning to mount.
The scent had first struck him when they’d taken that castle.
One room in particular reeked of the man’s arousal.
Farigoth had nearly seized when he walked into the airy chamber of tall windows and ornate stucco.
Finding the room devoid of its occupant had sent him into a rage.
In his fury, he smashed the furniture to pieces.
He went to the bed, where the scent was most potent, and buried his face in the sheets.
The man’s arousal had leaked onto them, and as Farigoth inhaled deep lungfuls, his fingers curling in that dainty, white linen, something inside him clicked into place.
Despite having plenty of opportunity, he hadn’t taken a mate. He’d been waiting for the right man. Now, he knew in his bones he’d found him.
Farigoth was going to pursue the jewel. He was going to send an army after him. He was going to make him his, wasn’t going to stop until he was coming inside his sweetly clenching hole, mating him, binding him.
“Mine,” Farigoth growled into the sheets. “He is MINE!”
Driven by obsession, Farigoth chased the humans up the valley. He smelled the jewel all day and all night on the wind, the air telling of the man’s lust.