Chapter 11 #2
Was it my imagination or was he smirking as he nuzzled my temple with his unbroken tusk? “I’ll buy them for you. I would buy you anything you wanted, Riven.”
Right. Because I was a good lay.
Well… I inhaled his scent. At least we were both enjoying ourselves. I might be fucking my boss, but it wasn’t like he was using me. I was using him too, right?
But later that night after our shower—he talked me into leaving the mess in the dining room and sink, since the cleaners were coming tomorrow—I wasn’t so sure.
He’d made me come four more times—twice with his mouth, for crying out loud!
—and I was just a puddle of contentment, propped against the pillows in his bed with his head pillowed on my chest. The lights were dimmed, and it was easy enough to pretend this was some sort of emotional connection.
I mean, on his end.
Because I was pretty sure I had a hell of an emotional attachment to Abydos right now, and not just because he was so good at bringing me pleasure.
Abydos’s arms were around my waist, his left cheek—the one with the scars—pressed against my stomach, and the position should have been awkward. It wasn’t.
“I think I could die happy right now,” he murmured.
My laughter was the quietest little huff. “You only came once.”
I felt his brows move against my skin. “You think that’s what I mean when I say I’m happy?”
“Mmm. It’s not?”
I ran my fingers through his hair, and when my stubby nails accidentally scraped across his scalp, he shuddered out a groan, then pressed his face closer. I chuckled again.
“Okay, I see what you mean.” I scratched his head some more. “Do you want to move?”
“Not even a little bit.” The words were muffled by my stomach.
“I mean, you can’t be comfortable like that, with your broken tusk all smooshed.” I gave his head another few squeezes. “I can scratch your head if you want to move—”
His head rose, and that strange green stare met mine unerringly in the dim lighting. “Am I hurting you?”
“No,” I whispered.
He grunted and lowered his face to my skin again. “You could never hurt me, Riven. My tusk feels fine.”
Did it, though? “Tarkhan told me that you can feel with your tusk, like it’s a sensory organ.” When he didn’t respond, I pressed on. “And that if it’s broken and uncapped, it causes constant pain. I don’t like the thought of you in pain.”
After a long moment, during which I kept scratching, Abydos finally lifted his head. “Do you want me to cap it?”
“I’d buy you a cap myself if I had any idea what to look for,” I told him truthfully.
Then, with a sigh, I used my hold on his hair to turn him to face me.
“You don’t deserve pain. I don’t know what Tark was talking about tonight when he talked about your hatred and pain, but I can guess, and I don’t like it.
” I shook his head slightly with my grip on him.
“You’ve grown past that. You’re in bed with a human, for fuck’s sake. ”
I saw the flash of white as his grin came and went in a moment.
“I am. My favorite human.”
“And you know that humans can be kind and welcoming and aren’t all full of—”
“Yes, fine,” he groaned, dropping his head back to my stomach. “You’re all amazing, and I’ve been a fearful, scarred, bigoted asshole all these years.”
I froze. “I didn’t say that.”
He merely hummed, and I sighed in response.
“Abydos, you’re not an asshole.” My fingernails raked across his scalp again, and he shuddered. “I asked you before, and you refused, but I’m going to ask again.” It was easier to ask here in the darkness, without having to hold his gaze. “What happened to make you fear us like this?”
The silence stretched on, and I thought he wasn’t going to answer.
Finally, however, he blew out a breath and turned his head so he faced away from me, his cheek pillowed against me. I felt him swallow, and his voice seemed dull when he began to speak.
“I grew up hungry. Our father was a shit provider, preferring to drink sternka berry wine instead of hunting with the other males. I started taking his place with the hunting parties when I was young, just so Aswan and our younger brothers could eat. When the elders decided to send Tarkhan through the veil, I stepped up to go with him. He was my best friend.”
Lovingly, I dragged my fingers through his hair. “And you are noble enough to want to make sure he was protected?”
“And I was desperate to get out of there. Aswan, Memnon, and Simbel came with us. Sakkara was our leader, but I was the one the humans saw first. I didn’t realize he had a plan to make sure the human military couldn’t hide us away.
” I felt his arms tighten around me. “The humans who found me out in the forest were a group of young males with rifles and whiskey.”
I winced, guessing what happened. “They were scared of you, but being together gave them courage?”
He grunted. “They beat the shit out of me. At first, I didn’t want to fight back…and then I couldn’t. Broken bones, a broken jaw.” He blew out a breath. “They’d started a fire, and I guess they’d decided to burn the evidence…when Sakkara showed up and saved me.”
My chest clenched, imagining how hard it was for Abydos to admit that.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed, and began to move my fingers again.
I felt him relax a bit, exhale. After a long moment, he shrugged, his hold on me loosening. “I needed medical attention, and we knew Luxor—his legs used to be withered—was with us by then too. So Sakkara moved up his timetable, got us to the scientists, and they locked us up.”
Remembering what Tarkhan had told me of that year, the indignities the males had undergone, I frowned. “You don’t think that was your fault, do you?”
“No, I think it was the humans’ fault.” He was frowning when he pushed himself up off my stomach. “But we wouldn’t have ended up there so quickly if it hadn’t been for me.”
“You did nothing wrong, Abydos.” I reached for his cheeks, my fingers wrapping around his ears as I pulled him to me. “You did nothing wrong. The guys who hurt you, they were the assholes.”
He loomed over me, his weight resting on his palms. “You’re a remarkable female, Riven, do you know that?”
I snorted and raised my head to brush a kiss across the corner of his lips, near his broken tusk. “I’m just telling you the truth. And you’re a smart male, you know this is the truth. You’re not to blame, and you don’t deserve any of that pain. Just because they broke your tusk—”
“They didn’t break my tusk.”
With that announcement, Abydos flopped to the side, rolling so his head rested on the pillows, his glowing green gaze locked on the ceiling.
Well, what the hell else was I going to do except roll over to hover above him? “Abydos, what? What’s that supposed to mean? I thought your hatred for humans—”
“I started Vengeance as a way to beat the humans at their own game,” he said dully, his fingers laced across his chest. “I’d heard them call us beast and monster.
I knew they valued money and control…so I learned what I could, and I beat them all.
” He flicked a glance at me. “Do you know how difficult it is to make this much money in a decade?”
There was no pride in his tone, mere questioning, but it surprised a bark of laughter from my lips. I pressed my hand against his chest. “Yes, love, I know,” I said dutifully. “You’re remarkable. And you won, Abydos. You don’t need to keep trying.”
One of his large forearms rose to rest across his eyes, as if the faint light hurt his eyes, or if he couldn’t look at me.
“I know. But I made plenty of enemies. Even today, we have humans picketing our mine, protesting and…” He sighed.
“In the beginning, I hired humans and orcs and anyone who wanted to work. Gargoyles are particularly good in a mine. But then, about eight years ago...”
A dull sense of certainty came over me. “Something bad happened? The humans hurt you again?”
“Not just me.” The words were clipped, fierce.
“We were celebrating Kap’paral and had gathered in an aluminum structure along one edge of the pit mine.
One of my employees, a human blaster… He left a manifesto talking about how disgusting it was to see humans mixing with monsters, as if we were equal to him. ”
Only one kind of person left a manifesto. I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear the rest, but knowing I’d asked for this. “What happened?” I whispered.
“He planted explosives where they shouldn’t have been and collapsed half a cliff on top of us.
If Garrak hadn’t been there…” Abydos shook his head.
“He saved us. Saved me. I refused to leave until we’d dug everyone out, and he knew enough about engineering to know the beams weren’t going to hold.
One of them came down on him as he was dragging me out of there, and he lost his leg. ”
“That’s horrible.” I swallowed, then shook my head, my fingers digging into his chest. “Abydos, that’s horrible. Did he survive?”
His lips curled ruefully. “He’s a tough bastard. Not in the mine anymore, but he runs the whole operation. I owe him my life, but we lost three friends that day.”
My touch moved to his lips. “And your tusk.”
It wasn’t a question, but he nodded once. “Because of hate and fear. It just…” He moved his arm from his eyes and met my gaze. “Any attempt to feel goodwill toward humans broke that day, along with my tusk. Until I met you.”
What had started as fear had turned to hatred, coiling inside of him until it had consumed him.
I’d seen it that day in his office, when he’d roared at me, his claws out.
If I hadn’t had the courage to stand up to him then, would he still be like this?
Was it possible I could help him understand the truth about the world around him, that there were good and bad people, and we couldn’t make assumptions.
Of course you can. You love him, don’t you?
“Yes,” I breathed in realization, not in answer to his statement.
I loved Abydos. I loved his fierceness, I loved his quick intellect, I loved his loyalty. I loved him.
The awe that came with such a realization was quickly followed by dread. Because I might love him, but to Abydos, I was just his employee. Someone who was here to help him, to take care of him.
I didn’t have a claim to his heart, and I never would.
“Riven?” he lifted his head, his lips pressing against my fingertips. “What’s wrong?”
I forced a smile. “Absolutely nothing. I’m just thinking.”
“You shouldn’t think about that shit.” He reached up to lace his fingers through mine. “It’s in the past.”
My grin turned more natural as I loomed over him. “Yes it is, and I’m glad you see that.” Smirking, I swung one leg over his stomach until I was straddling him, then scootched backward. “For now, we have to look ahead. To the future.”
Even if I didn’t have a future with him, I was going to help him be at peace.
With a hum, he dropped his hands to my hips and shifted until his hardening cock rested against my ass. “Oh yeah? And how do you think we could make that happen?”
“Well, the way I see it…” With a wicked grin, I lifted my weight on my knees so his cock fell forward, and I could lower myself to slide along it, trapping its ridged length between my pussy and his torso. “As your employee, my job is basically human-orc relations, yeah?”
I slid along him again, sighing as his ridges tantalized my lips. His eyes flared green, and his claws extended just slightly to dimple my skin.
“Relations, huh?” He grinned in the darkness. “You think you could change my mind about humans?”
I’d done so already!
I lifted again, settling the tip of his cock against my entrance. “I’ll have to work very hard.”
He hummed. “I have a position I think you’d be a good fit for.”
Ha! “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
With his hold on my hips, Abydos eased me down over his cock. “No, my little human. Thank you.”
As soon as I was fully seated, my orgasm slammed into me, and I arched into his hold. “Yes sir!”
His chuckle in the darkness was all I needed.