Chapter 5 Rosalind
Rosalind
EMERGENCE - SLEEP TOKEN ?
Beautiful, splendid, comfort. I'm wrapped in a thousand pillows, my entire body supported and caressed by something so soft, I dare not open my eyes in case it is anything other than the highest thread count surrounding me. I don’t remember my bed being this comfortable, but after last night and everything that happened with those men…
An involuntary shudder rolls through me, and the sheets pull tighter as if in response, until I'm pressed against something warm and solid.
The church.
The corridor.
The Gatekeeper.
The orc.
I escaped through that church and ended up… where?
My eyes fly open, and the room I'm in is dimly lit.
Shutters cover the windows, the bright light seeping through every crevice and crack it can find.
Soft linens drape over the walls, while carved furniture and porcelain decorate the space.
It all looks ornate and priceless. Not something you would find at your local department store.
I stare, transfixed at the room.
Where am I?
I sleep alone when I'm at home, door locked with blackout blinds pulled. Everything here feels right, but looks completely wrong. Movement from my waist caresses me, a large hand covering my stomach, pushing across my breasts, pulling a gasp from me.
“Mmmm, teats.” Someone says, and it gives me enough of a scare that my heart jumps out of my chest, and with it, my legs flail, arms swinging wildly, until whatever is pinning me down lifts, and I scramble off the bed.
Confronted by the sight of the largest creature I have ever seen.
Dark olive skin, tusks protruding from his mouth.
His eyes are kind, and are they two different colours?
One brown and one blue. He has no hair that I can see, and muscles so big…
I want to lick them. What is happening to me?
To be honest, he looks relaxed as he takes me in, sleepy-eyed, wiping a large hand over his face.
“Forgive my rudeness, but I did not ask your name before you fainted yesterday. I am Steve,” he says, placing a large hand on his even larger chest.
“Steve,” I squeak. The giant orc in bed with me is called Steve. Now I know I must be going crazy. My impending marriage has caused a psychosis, and I'm really strapped to a bed somewhere while doctors take my father's money, explaining there is nothing they can do, lost to my delusions.
“I am familiar with your customs, my friend is bonded to a human female.” Moving to sit on the edge of the bed, the crisp white sheets complement his dark olive skin, covering his thighs but revealing enough I can see how thick they are.
The dips and folds of the cloth covering his waist and his…
and his… good lord, is that a fire hose under the sheet with him?
Averting my gaze, I look to the ceiling when he rustles around, clearing his throat to get my attention.
Please have clothes on.
His lips move to expose his teeth, making his tusks somehow look friendly and not threatening. Shuffling forward, thrusting his hand out to me, wanting to… shake my hand?
Oh, okay, we're doing formalities. Sure, because this is normal.
“Hello, Steve.” My voice only slightly trembling.
“I am Rosalind Theodora Carrington. I'm sure you've heard of my father.” I say flippantly, falling into old habits.
“There seems to have been some sort of miscommunication. I do not believe he will pay a ransom, and I will become effectively worthless to you if I… if I am sullied in any way.”
I've said my piece. Hopefully, whoever is behind this takes the hint, and I am returned.
Surely the only reasonable excuse for what's happening is that I've been kidnapped and given some sort of hallucinogen.
Kidnapped or lost my mind, either one is likely as I stare at the gigantic orc in front of me.
“Ro-sa-aa-lin-nd. I can not say your name correctly. I do not like it. I will call you Rosie.”
“My name is Rosalind.”
“Rosie.”
“Rosalind!”
His large hand reaches out and pulls me in between his legs, where he now sits on the edge of the bed. Squealing from the sudden movement. I half sit on his forearm while simultaneously pushing him away and pulling him closer.
His head leans into the crook of my neck, slowly dragging his nose along my shoulder, taking in my smell, pausing at my ear. This is how I die, I'm going to be eaten. Swallowed whole, and my bones spit out in a pile.
“I could call you princess,” he purrs softly, his breath warm against my skin.
An involuntary gasp parts my mouth. My jaw drops, and I squirm where I half sit on his arm.
Is he flirting with me? Why did it feel…
pleasant? Do I want to be flirted with? I mean, he's a better option than Bart, not that it's hard.
So, maybe I do want to be flirted with. It's been so long since anyone saw me as anything other than my father's daughter, a pawn in his world, that it's kind of nice to be treated as my own person, even if I am in a fantasy land.
With shaking fingers, I reach out as he moves his head back.
Timidly grazing the side of his face as he waits patiently while I explore him.
“Your eyes are different colours?” I breathe.
“I share them with my brother.”
“Your eyes?”
“Mmmm, we are one person split into two.” He looks me over, analysing.
“Twins?” He nods. “You're real,” I whisper.
“I am.”
“You haven't kidnapped me?”
“No.”
“I'm not losing my mind.” I look away from his gaze.
“I do not think so,” he whispers back.
The movement of his mouth directs my attention as I grow more confident in my touch.
With a firmer grasp, I wrap my hand around one of his tusks, stroking, entranced by the buttery feeling of it.
It's fascinating because I would assume it to be hard and smooth like an elephant's tusk, but it seems to be coated in the finest of velvets, which you can't see, but when you feel it, it's there.
Something nudges my thigh, and I move a little to the side, but both of his arms keep me trapped in the small space between his legs. Trapped is the wrong word because I do not feel fearful anymore. It's like my racing heart calmed as soon as we touched.
“Rosie,” he moans, his eyes fluttering shut.
Oh.
My.
God.
Clasping my hand tightly against my chest, I look down, his fire hose standing to attention beneath the sheet, some of it pressed against my thigh still, but I dare not move.
Was I giving him a hand job through his tusk?
I'm barely breathing. I don't want to accidentally rub against anything in case it's that sort of touch.
I've never even held a man's hand before.
The strict rules I had to follow would never have allowed me to be in a room alone with a man who wasn't family.
I'm not a prude, I have the internet–had.
I understand the principles of intimacy; I've just never done it.
Steve's eyes flare wide, his breathing heavy but controlled as he takes me in. I was definitely giving him a hand job through his tusk. I would slap my palm against my face right now if I dared to move.
“I'm so sorry,” I squeak.
“Your touch. My tusks are sensitive, but when you touched them, it's not felt like that before.” His heavy-lidded gaze spurs me on.
“Do a lot of people touch them?” Of all the questions I could pick, why am I asking him that?! I should be freaking out that I'm wherever I am, but instead, I'm jacking off an orc in some sort of warped reality.
“No one touches them. It is something done between bonded.”
He leans forward, closer than necessary, both of his hands circling my waist, holding me gently.
“Are we bonded?”
“The guards at the entrance to the city saw your dress and mistook us for newly bonded. I did not correct them.” He glances away abashedly. It's endearing.
“So that means…” I trail off, my thoughts racing a mile a minute.
“The Gatekeeper thought he would have the same fortune as Realm Seven and prepared an appropriate outfit for a bonding. I will call for a seamstress to dress you for your status.”
His hands gently caress my waist as he explains what happened.
“So this is real? This is real life. You’re real, and wherever this is, is real.
I haven't been kidnapped?” I ask almost hopefully because the more he talks, the more I seem to understand that wherever this is, I won't be going home anytime soon, and if I'm truly honest with myself, I'm relieved by it.
“You are in Realm Six.”
“Realm Six of where?”
“Hell.”
“Hell.” I pause, waiting for more information.
The floor should be opening with flaming pits underneath me.
The sky should be on fire. The land should be on fire.
I could kick myself for not paying attention to this stuff.
All I remember is fire, and so far, I have yet to see a single flame.
Surely there is more information for him to tell me, but he just stares, looking over my face as my mouth opens and closes without saying a word.
Okay, let's say I entertain this narrative, “There must be a mistake, because I entered a church and I'm a good person, so I'm not meant to be in Hell. I'm more of a Heaven type of person.”
“On Earth, I’ve heard there is a lot of misinformation.”
“But the church?”
“A Hell Church, no doubt. It was the Gate to this Realm.”
“But I'm alive?”
“Sure,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. What the fuck does that mean?
“The Gatekeeper?”
“Manages the Gate to this Realm. Keeps creatures in and others out.”
“But I'm good?” I say, resting my hands on his arms, thinking out loud. This is all too much to take in. “Are we bonded? Really? Is that why I'm not scared of you?” I ask.
His hands continue to caress my waist. Moving along my back, comforting me as I try to process everything he's said.
I feel fine around Steve. A part of me knows I should be crying in the corner over this, but I just don't want to.
Maybe I am broken? It could be because the life I've just left wasn’t that great, but I might not just survive here; I could thrive.
It could be the silver lining I've been looking for all along.
It doesn't hurt that my body seems to melt for him, that I crave his touch, but it's so much more than that, too. I feel connected to him somehow, that there is an invisible string between us and because I have it, because we share this string, I may very well never be alone or unsafe. The opposite of everything I had before. A whole world of what if opens up when I look at him, and considering where I just came from, I’m more inclined to trust my gut on how I've felt about Steve in the few hours we've spent together than anyone else, ever.
“We are not bonded, not yet.”
Not yet?
“My brother. I'm trying to find him.”