7
Tanis
Dhane stood still, glowering, arms crossed over his broad chest, as the orc camp moved around them, busy with the day’s work. Tanis stood by, hands on his hips, pretending not to notice.
It didn’t look much different from his father’s normal fearsome expression. The camp’s stitcher had grudgingly left his loom and taken the few orcs and halflings injured by the huldira to the bathing springs to clean their wounds, and pack freshly pounded herbs into their bandages. Bianca had gone with them, to keep her troupe comfortable with their newly made acquaintances.
“A Halfling,”
Dhane grumbled after what must have been an hour of contemplation.
Tanis closed his eyes instead of rolling them. So it was settling in, then.
“Never in all history has our kind taken a Halfling as a mate.”
Tanis chewed the inside of his cheek a moment. He didn’t think that even Dhane knew all of history, much less every orc that had ever taken an unusual mate. But he did not contest his father’s thinking out loud. It might interrupt an epiphany forming.
“Then again, a fierce halfling.”
Tanis could have smiled with pride at that, but he kept it to himself. His mate was terrifically brave, putting herself on the line for people she cared about with barely a second thought.
He watched his father’s expression from the corner of his eye, as Dhane’s face became contemplative. “How would that work? It wouldn’t. They’re too small.”
“Do not concern yourself,”
Tanis tried to answer dismissively, and that was his mistake.
Dhane wheeled around, turned his scrutiny fully upon Tanis. “What do you know?”
“Nothing. I… believe that it would not happen if it… wasn’t possible,”
Tanis replied, truly reaching for one word at a time as he built an excuse out of thin air.
“You don’t seem overly annoyed by this development.”
“Well. It’s like you always say. Can’t get upset at what you can’t change.”
Dhane grumbled and returned to his silent glowering.
The problem with having a predecessor known for unwise decisions tended to overshadow any choice Dhane made. It did not often aid the quality of those decisions, Tanis had noticed. Rarely did Dhane ever change his mind from his initial course of action.
“But… who says a halfling has to accept our ways?”
There it was. The seed of doubt growing in the pit of his stomach. Tanis remained quiet.
“If she does not stay, the bond will fade,”
his father continued, sounding very much as if the was the outcome he wished to see. “I spoke with their leader about sending a scout to lead them out of the forest in exchange for food and supplies. We send them off tomorrow.”
The Halflings had felt oddly gratuitous towards the orcs for taking down the huldira, and Dhane seemed to be embracing that narrative.
Tanis pushed off the wall, taking a few steps away. He nodded dutifully, though he wished for nothing more but to snarl back that his father had no business in what happened with his bond, and the Blood Fever’s decision of who was his mate was beyond reproach. Such a retort would not be well received. Dhane had grown too accustomed to deference from others to allow it.
He stopped a few steps away, and looked back at Dhane.
“Her name is Bianca, kin to mushrooms,”
he said pointedly, toeing the line of disrespect. He held Dhane’s stare to emphasize his meaning: Do not call my mate ‘halfling’ again.
With that, he turned on his heel and headed away.
The stitcher had returned, and all of the orcs that had been wounded were already retelling their fight with the huldira with dramatic embellishment to everyone who had already witnessed it anyway, about a dozen Halflings listening intently. But Bianca was not with them.
She likely had stayed behind with her troupe, he reasoned. He wasn't sure how many Halflings there were in her troupe.
Tanis set off, passing the returning orcs, not paying mind to any of the looks they gave him. They likely thought the same as Dhane, but he didn’t care. He had to be near her. It wasn’t just the dawning effects of the Blood Fever, that his skin felt warmer just thinking of her. He wanted to make sure she was ok, to remind himself that she hadn’t been hurt in the commotion.
And to make sure she wasn’t about to get lost in the woods again.
The heat of the springs beat back winter from its banks only a few feet or so, melting the snow. It pooled lazily near the edge of the cliff, where fallen logs dammed part of the river before it joined again with a much colder stream.
Tanis paused for a moment, boots crunching the snow as he looked around. He spotted Horse first, tethered to a tree branch, happily munching on grass. He patted Horse’s neck as he passed him. How strange, he thought, that she’d never bothered to name this creature.
He spotted Bianca’s cloak hanging just off the ground on a tree branch. And then her tunic crumpled up on the side of the bank, and Bianca treading water a little ways beyond it.
It felt like stepping into the hot spring several yards before he even reached it.
She had heated his skin before, but with the Blood Fever, just catching sight of her felt like fire in his veins. Seeing her bare in the hot spring made him want to take her on the mossy carpet of the forest floor, to fully drink her in.
He glanced around. Probably not a good idea if anyone else was watching. “Where are the others of your troupe?”
She turned around, her face lighting up when she saw him approach.
He remembered the moment he’d first spotted her, muttering to herself in the woods. He’d felt drawn to her then, too.
Every little thing about her caught his attention, the thick, coily ringlets of her wet hair, the sweetness of her smile, the light catching against her dark skin, her nipples pointing through the water’s surface, the way she pressed her knees together.
“Oh, them,”
Bianca waved a hand as if it didn’t matter. “Re-packing their caravans. I think they’re putting together a party as a thank-you with the whole huldira thing. And since it looks like we’re not getting to our next performance on time, anyway. I hope your friends are ready to be drunk under the table. We brew our wine with poisonous mushrooms.”
He did hear what she said, but mostly he heard that they all left, and she stayed behind, knowing he’d come find her.
Tanis unfastened his cloak, folding it over a low tree branch along with Bianca’s outer layers. He kicked off his boots and sat down on the edge of the bank, dipping his feet in the spring.
She swam up beside him, and he tried not to notice too much that she was naked in the water. He couldn’t have a hardened cock desperate for her attention during the conversation they needed to have.
“How’s your face?”
He lifted his chin, showing her the freshly stitched slice that she had nicked his jawline with. She frowned, and covered her mouth in remorse.
She flicked a little water at him to disguise her discomfort. “So the whole kidnapping you plan was really…”
“Unwise,”
he finished for her, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes. I promise I won’t suggest it again,”
she nodded, wincing in empathy. “I just panicked, I didn’t know what to do. I mean, for Silvansakes, his name is Dhane the Bloodthirsty. I thought I might not have a troupe to return to.”
“Oh,”
Tanis’ eyes could have rolled out of his head. “No. It’s. That’s a whole… it’s like a joke.”
“A joke?”
He sighed and buried his face in his hand for a moment. “If I don’t want people to find that little meadow I showed you, I’ll mark it on a map, Barren Field. And then if I know where a huldira’s nest is, maybe I’ll write that there’s treasure there.”
He was met with an unblinking stare.
“Or, with people. We name the biggest, scariest berserker you’ve ever seen, Rurin the Softhanded. A smaller, frailer man, Sildt the Bonecrusher.”
If memory served, there was an orc who left the camp many years ago, Silvertongue, who had a penchant for never shutting up.
He watched the comprehension slowly dawn in her face. He hadn’t really thought that would be the kind of thing that needed explaining, since it was fairly obvious among orcs.
Bianca slapped a hand against his knee, splashing him in the process. “You said orcs weren’t tricky!”
“And you believed me?”
She rolled her eyes and made a terribly aggrieved sort of noise, but it made him grin all the more. It made the only-just-stopped-bleeding cut on his jawline nearly open again, but he couldn’t help it. She winced in sympathy and reached to touch his face.
“I will treasure this always,”
he said, lifting an eyebrow as he gestured to the cut.
It was the mark that started their bond. But maybe it didn’t mean the same thing to her. By his mother’s tusks, she had been taking names by their face value.
“Or. I mean. If you want me to, that is. You don’t have to.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Bianca asked, eyes sweeping over him with a flutter of her lashes.
Everywhere her gaze crossed lit up with heat under his skin, his heart rate ticking up. “Should I not?”
She pushed off the bank away from him, twisting through the water in a little, graceful movement that made his heart flutter a little. He hadn’t been prepared to see how perfect she was underneath all her layers.
She pulled herself up on the mossy rocks that lined the bank.
He tried valiantly, not entirely successfully, not to notice too much about her bare tits, the water dripping off them. They had a conversation to finish.
But his eyes, the rising Blood Fever in him, and his stirring cock were all too focused on her. The way her breasts were not quite perfectly round, the dark, gleaming wet of her nipples against the full morning light, how they tightened into peaks in the cold air.
Then there was the way her hips, the way they rounded into her ass, her soft, heavy thighs, the little triangle of hair tucked into them. Everything about her body that has previously been too covered in too small a space to properly enjoy.
He needed to close his eyes or look away if he wanted to be able to hear what she was saying.
“If it doesn’t bother you,”
he shrugged, quickly and pointedly looking away. He needed to explain it to her. To let her know fully what it meant. He couldn’t expect her to want to give up her life to stay in the Whispering Wood with him, as unlikely as his leaving would be.
“How’s this going to work?”
“It’s um. A little complicated. Usually there would be meetings with families, celebrations…”
“No, I mean. Maybe you can finger me a little first,”
she interrupted. When he stared at her, she rolled her eyes. “Y’know, to get things started.”
The gaze of the Blood Fever in his body seemed to thicken, heat spreading through his middle.
“You did promise me a good, hot bath with you,”
she murmured, as she leaned over to stroke his cock through his pants. In moments it was achingly hard, getting harder with every stroke of her light teasing fingertips.
Tanis tried to hold back a groan, glancing over his shoulder to make sure they truly were alone.
She giggled, pushing herself back into the water. “Take off your belt.”
The way this halfling made him feel like a scandalized crone.
“And your shirt.”
Still, a smile started to creep up around his tusks, and he did as she said.
“Now the pants,”
she commanded, and he watched the way she leaned back, her hands disappearing under the waves, the ripples hinting at the way she spread her legs for herself.
Gods, she was breathtaking. What had started as an idle curiosity had already taken root in his chest. He was here entirely, without reservation.
Tanis stepped into the spring, and in a few strokes crossed it to her side.
She bit her lower lip, her eyes growing wide as his shadow covered her. He couldn’t help but grin as he crowded her against a rocky wall, taking her hands and pinning them over her head.
He pressed a kiss to her mouth, gentle at first, but with the way she nipped at his lip and invited his tongue into her mouth, it quickly became more feverish.
He held her wrists in place with one of his hands, the other dipping below the waves, skimming up her thighs. She gasped and bit her lip when he delved a finger within her, stroking until he could fit in another. She felt so perfect, hot and tight and slick. He hoped he would be able to fit his cock inside her.
“Everything just feels so much… more,”
she panted as he curled his fingers into her again, hitting that spot that made her brows draw tight together. Bianca’s face was flushed with pleasure, her soft tits perked towards the sky. “Is that what this whole mates thing is about? Are we… bonded, then? This is it?”
Tanis nodded. "Something like that. But you should know, you don’t have to be. You don’t have to stay if…. if you don’t want this.”
The words were hard to force out, nearly as hard as holding himself back from licking her to both their completions while she was so tantalizingly spread before him. But she had to know what she was getting into.
She was quiet many moments, before she offered quietly, “Do you want me to stay? You were trying to avoid this kind of situation when we met.”
Tanis sank back into the water, cupping her face in his hands. “I’m happy that it was you. But I wanted you to know. You don’t have to. You didn’t ask for it, and it’s not your way. I will… understand.”
Maybe his head would, but his heart wouldn’t. His heart would grieve and bleed for every moment that she was gone. But he tried not to show that, because he couldn’t keep her here if she didn’t want to be here. Too many bugs, or something.
She watched his expression intently for a moment, before rolling her eyes and breaking out into a grin. “Oh please. You were flirting with me before this whole Fevery Blood and mates thing.”
“Was I, now?”
Tanis lifted an eyebrow. He didn’t care if she wanted to rewrite history, he was just so hopeful that she might stay, even if only for a little longer.
“From the moment you saw me.”
Tanis lifted her up onto a rocky ledge, kneeling before her. He kissed his way up her thighs and dragged his teeth across her leg. It had already been too long since he was sated on her taste, and for all he knew this could be the last time.
“In fact, uh, actually. You should know, peeling bugs off a halfling is essentially the same thing, so we’ve been already married for a day,”
she told him between little gasps as he traced the sensitive rim of her entrance with his thumb, unable to suppress both her mischievous grin and her pleasure.
Tanis rolled his eyes. “How fortunate, then.”
His mouth met her sweet cunt, her earthy scent sending a shiver down his back as he tasted her again. Her hips jerked as he passed over that little needy bud, and he brought his full attention to it, tongue working over it as he curled his fingers in and out of her.
Tanis came up for a breath and licked his lips, chin no doubt wet with her nectar. Her insides twitched around his fingers as she looked at him and winced. He grinned, thinking he was the luckiest soul in the Whispering Woods.
Bianca bit her lip and cast a look at his cock, bobbing eagerly between them, a trail of his seed leaking down his shaft already. Their eyes met and he knew she was ready when she tried to spread her legs even wider.
Tanis threaded his arms under her knees, lifting her up against him. He felt her light touch guide him to her entrance and when he lowered her she came down on his cock, hot and tight and perfect.
“But that also means you have to swear to protect me from all bugs. For–forever,”
she managed between heavy breaths, gasping and groaning at every inch she worked her way down his shaft. Tanis had to laugh, half in admiration and half at himself for how he had already decided that on the way over. If all he had to do was kill some spiders to be worthy of her affection, then he'd take that deal. Even if it was a fool’s task, living in the woods.
Every bit she took of him he could feel her stretch tighter. He thrust into her, she rocked her hips against him, clutching his shoulders until her insides spasmed, and even after.
“Y-you also have to make me flower crowns. Daily,”
she gasped.
He would see what he could do about that.
Tanis could feel the scar she’d cut into his jaw burn with the Blood Fever, his muscles straining as he pounded into her, blood pumping, heart thudding until his release tipped over the edge. Heat flooded his body wholly as he pumped into her, slicker with each thrust, as her core quivered and milked his seed from him.
For many minutes, it was just her arms around his neck, him holding her close to his body, melting into the hot spring.
He climbed out of the water to cool off on the soft mossy ground, offering her a hand. Bianca scrambled out even with his help, and curled up against his side, laying her head on his chest. After several quiet minutes, he noticed the little clover buds growing alongside the moss. He plucked a few, winding their stems together as the minutes passed.
“No, but for real,”
she trailed off, and for a moment he didn’t think she would finish her thought. How mandatory was the flower crown thing?
Bianca looked at him, a quiet sort of openness in her face. “You heard me when no one else did.”
He cupped her cheek in his hand. That meant something important to her, and it made his chest ache to think of her feeling overlooked, and by her expression, for far longer than she had told him. He wanted her to know she made him feel the same way, that he felt more open just by being around her.
In time, he would tell her. If they had time.
“So you’ll stay?”
“The troupe does come through this way every year,”
she shrugged, watching the reservation in his face turn slowly into understanding. “I thought, maybe I’ll catch up with them next Solstice. Maybe you could come with me. We’ll figure it out. But I want to give us the chance we deserve.”
He smiled at that. A year was perfect. He finished off the knot on the chain of wild clover, and looped it over the top of her head.
Horse took notice of her edible circlet and sniffed the top of her head. Tanis shooed him away with a hand.
She scrunched her nose at him, but it slipped into a smile. “So, Tanis Halfling Eater, kin-in-law to mushrooms. How are we going to explain all this to the rest of them?”
“I told you, I don’t like riddles.”
“Tough.”