CHAPTER EIGHT
Brokk
By the goddess, if my mate keeps staring at me like that, passion fruit will not be the only thing I eat.
I suppress a groan, imagining licking between her thighs, teasing out all her sweetness.
Yet I must woo her. I push the last two pieces of fruit into her hands. “Stay here. I will hunt and return soon.”
My magic unfurls as I step away from the log and ask the plants to form a protective barrier around Lara.
Then I’m off, moving through the jungle, heading in the direction the plants tell me holds prey. I find them before the last of the daylight fades. They’re a non-fae bird that looks like chickens. I pluck and prepare the two I bring down before returning to Lara.
Thankfully, I still carry my warrior kit with me. Besides my knife, I have a magical glow stone, a fire stone, and a cleaning cloth. I’ve tried not to use them in the human world, because I have no way to recharge their spells away from Alarria, but taking care of my mate is too important not to use them now.
The fire stone is almost fully charged. Human electricity means I’ve had no need of it. I get a fire going and feed it until it’s large enough to cook with yet not so large as to draw undue attention. I ask the foliage to weave a wall around us, so none will spot the light. Then I hold a spitted bird over the flames, turning it in a slow continuous motion that allows it to heat evenly.
Lara watches my every move. “Were you a boy scout? How’d you learn to do all of this?”
“Basic survival skills are part of warrior training,” I say. “All orcs learn to do so by the age of sixteen.”
“That’s not what I write in my books.”
“Yet that’s how it’s done in my home realm of Faerie.” I told her I would not lie to her, and I won’t. She writes about Faerie and magic and fantastical places. Surely, if any human can accept the truth of who I am, it is my mate.
“Faerie.” Her lips purse, and she reaches down into the front of her clothing to retrieve the leather journal. Once she’s freed it from the plastic, she moves closer to the fire, opening the book and tilting the pages to better catch the light. “I have an ancestor who claims she went to Faerie.”
I take a closer look at the book, and a jolt of shock goes through me. “That’s written in High Fae!”
Her eyes widen, and she leans forward. “What’s High Fae?”
“Even though most fae species have their own language, the magic of Faerie lets us all speak easily to each other. Yet the same isn’t true for the written word, so High Fae was created as a common written language.” I look up at her. “I thought you knew it. You’ve used the occasional words in your books.”
“I didn’t really understand it—I just had a feeling for what the symbols meant. But now…” Her hand traces the edge of the pages. “Now I can read it, and I don’t know how.”
“You must have magic,” I say. “You’re a witch.”
“Magic?” She looks hopeful for a moment. Then her face falls. “No, it can’t be magic. I can’t do spells or anything.”
“Magic takes many forms. Each human witch brought to Alarria has a different power. One can fly. One can conjure food. Yours must be this.”
“Magic…” Awe fills her voice. Then she shakes her head and closes the journal.
I spin the spitted bird one last time. The skin is starting to crackle, the rich smell of meat filling the air. I remove it from the fire and lay it on a clean palm leaf, making quick work of carving it with my knife. After handing Lara a drumstick, I lift the breast to my lips. My tusks tear into the hot meat. I swallow and grunt. “It could use some salt. I apologize.”
“God, no. Don’t worry.” She takes a dainty bite and chews happily. “I lived on ramen for half a year when I first tried to be an author. This is great.”
I give her the other drumstick, then finish off the first bird and turn to cooking the other. By the time it’s ready, she’s finished her meal and refuses to have any more, so I eat all of it. As an orc, I can go for several days without food if need be, but I want to keep up my strength so I can protect my mate to the best of my ability. The sprites’ Faerie Fruit gave us a head start, but come the morning, the humans will finish their orgy, and we’ll be greatly outnumbered again.
Once I’ve carried the remains of our meal away from the campsite, I return and use my magic to construct a hammock of vines.
Lara whistles appreciatively when she sees it. “Yep. Total boy scout. You must have won all the merit badges.”
I grin.
“So, how do I get into this?” She grabs the lip and swings the hammock a little bit.
“I’ll hold it steady for you.” I step close and grip both edges, spreading open the sides.
She sits uncertainly, immediately falling backward into the dip in the center, her arms and legs flailing. “Shit! Sorry!”
“It’s all right.” It’s adorable, is what it is.
“This thing is huge.” She rests in the center. As soon as I let go of the sides, they close over the top of her, and she lets out a little eep.
“Ah, I made it orc sized.” I spread open the top again. “It’s what I’m used to. I can make you another one.”
“What? No. It’s full dark now. Get in here.”
“With you?” My cock twitches, and the words emerge as a growl.
“We’re adults. I’m sure we can share only one bed / hammock / thingy.” Her hand flutters in the air.
“Butt to butt,” I say, repeating the promise the hero and heroine of her last novel made to one another under similar circumstances.
“Exactly.” She nods up at me. “Butt to butt.”
I climb in beside her, my weight rolling her up against my side, her scent perfuming the air. Goddess, she feels divine! As she does when she squirms and works to get into position on her side, facing away from me.
I roll over until her butt presses into mine, and I grin.
For I have indeed read her books, and every time she writes only one bed, it always ends with some form of physical affection.
Morning brings warm sunlight filtering through the trees. I come awake first, long years of warrior training making me rise with the dawn.
We shifted in the night until I ended up on my back with Lara draped across me, her head resting on my chest. Little sighing puffs of breath come from her open mouth, her eyes moving rapidly beneath closed lids.
What does she dream with that brilliant mind of hers? What fantastic tales will she put to paper next? Her stories have offered me the only glimpse of home I’ve had in this new world, and I treasure them.
Almost as much as I treasure her, my mate. I never thought to find her. As one of the king’s guard back in Alarria, I traveled with him regularly from one village to the next. There wasn’t a single orc I hadn’t met, even if only briefly, and none of them had sparked the mating instinct.
Lara must be the reason the Moon Goddess let me get sucked through the door to Earth. In her wisdom, she knew my fate lay here with this amazing woman.
My mate stirs and gives a little groan. She squeezes her eyes shut and rolls her head to press her face more fully against me, not wanting to wake.
I can’t help it. I laugh, my torso shaking and jolting her head.
She snaps upright, her hands patting at my chest. “Oh, god. Oh, god. I didn’t drool on you, did I?”
“I don’t mind,” I say.
She groans and tries to get out of the hammock, only to fall back onto me.
I extend a leg over the edge until it touches the ground, wrap my arms around her, and roll from the hammock to stand, bringing her with me.
Her wide brown eyes meet mine. “How did you do that?”
“I’m very strong.” I grin. “And besides being a warrior, I’m also a good dancer. Both require strength, flexibility, and very fine control of your body.”
My grip on her tightens, pulling her more closely to me. She feels so good with her breasts pillowing against my chest that my morning erection roars back to life, straining against the front of my pants.
Lara’s breath catches, her cheeks flush pink, and she pushes at my shoulders. “I… I… Put me down.”
I set her on her feet, sliding my hands down her arms to cup her elbows until she steadies. “What’s wrong?”
“You… you make it hard to think.” She takes several steps away from me. “And that’s what I do well. I think. And if I can’t do that, then what good am I?”
Is this truly all she thinks she has to offer the world? As much as I love her creativity, she’s so much more than her books. I move toward her. “Lara.”
“No.” She throws up a hand. “I need to make today’s list. Then I’ll know what we should do.”
“I’ll get us some breakfast while you do that.” I drape the cleaning cloth over the end of the hammock. “Use this when you go to the bathroom, then dip it in water after, and it will be refreshed.”
“Thanks.”
My magic spirals out into the jungle, asking for fruit or nuts. A strong pulse comes from the right, and I follow it to a group of coconut palms, tall smooth trunks rising into the sky. Clusters of large brown globes hang under wide-flung fronds, and when I ask, three of them drop to the ground.
A flicker of awareness flashes across my back with the uncomfortable feeling of someone watching me. I spin around.
I scour the heavy vegetation, my magic unfurling to ask the plants if any humans are near.
They say no.
The feeling disappears. Perhaps a wild animal that realized an orc warrior is no easy prey? I grin and snap my tusks at the air. How right they are.
Back at the campsite, Lara sits on the log, muttering to herself and smoothing her hair back into a ponytail.
I slice off the top of the first coconut and hand it to her before preparing one for myself. The liquid inside is faintly sweet and nutty, and as soon as it’s gone, I chop the shell in two to more easily get at the meat.
“We need a way off the island,” Lara says in between bites. “How did you say we got here?”
“They have a plane, one that can go straight up and down instead of needing a runway.”
“I can’t fly a plane. Can you?”
“No.” As soon as the talent agent took me to an apartment and turned on the TV, I’ve used it to learn many things about the human world, but nothing like flying an aircraft.
“What about a boat? There could be boats.”
“I don’t think so.” I shake my head. “When the plane flew in, I didn’t see any signs of habitation other than the camp.”
“Elton did say this island only appeared a couple of months ago, and that he bought it.” Her shoulders slump. “There’s probably no one else here but his people.”
“It’s an island from a realm of Faerie,” I say. If it’s only been here a few months, I imagine it arrived when I did—when the doors of Faerie were thrown open.
She shoots me a dubious look but doesn’t argue. “He brought me here because he says he found something in the center of the island, a building with walls covered in the language you call High Fae. I didn’t get a chance to read the pictures he took, but I grabbed them.”
My mate pulls several photographs from the journal and fans them across her thighs. “Maybe if we get some idea of what he’s found, we’ll know if it’s something we can use to get off the island. It at least might offer us a bargaining chip to make him take us home.” She starts rearranging the photos. “God, they’re a jumbled mess. This is going to take forever.”
I place a hand over hers, halting her frantic motions. “We’ll head for the building, and you can work on that in the evenings.”
“Evenings, as in plural? I thought this was a small island.”
“It is, but walking through the jungle isn’t fast.” Especially not when moving at the speed of a human. “It’s going to take several days.” Humans use cars and planes and subways too much. They have no feel for what distances truly mean any more.
“Okay. Get to the building. I’ll make that number one on my list.” My mate tucks the leather journal back inside her clothing, giving me another teasing glimpse of her breasts encased in lingerie.
My mouth waters.
I have a few things I’d like to add to this list of hers.