Chapter 6
GRAT
She was a curious little thing, that wild thing of mine. Nothing about her fit into a neat, perfect mold.
Laying in my bed, I listened to Khala’s soft breathing coming from the bottom bunk bed by the opposite wall. I no longer thought it had been a mistake for me to feed her. A mistake would’ve been leaving her hungry and alone in the woods, defenseless against the wildlife she wasn’t familiar with.
As a wild woman who was used to sleeping in a cave or in a tree, I expected Khala to balk at spending the night in a bed.
I offered her a blanket on the floor instead.
But she seemed happy to get into the bed and under the covers.
Her face relaxed, and she stretched in it with a soft, peaceful smile as I tucked the covers around her.
My tunic—the smallest I could find—reached down to her knees, with the long sleeves completely hiding her hands. But she appeared glad to be clean and had settled in bed quickly. It wasn’t long before her breathing deepened, with sleep claiming her quickly. But sleep was evading me tonight.
I wondered what had happened between Khala and her tribe. She’d said she had no family. She didn’t even want to return to her people. And it puzzled me.
A clan was everything to a bog orc. The people in the small human settlement we had in the Wetlands also seemed to be a close-knit bunch.
Like all families, we’d had arguments, and even fights, both in the human settlement and in the orcs’ keep.
But no one was banished without a fucking good reason.
What could Khala possibly have done to be left behind by her people? What crime did she commit?
I struggled to think of her as a criminal. There was a vulnerability in her small frame and her large, guarded eyes that made her look more like a victim than a perpetrator. She had tried to steal from me. But I would probably steal food, too, if driven to starvation as she clearly had been.
It gave me a deep sense of satisfaction to know that she was no longer out there alone in the woods, starving and afraid.
She whimpered in her sleep, turning.
“No!” The word tore from her lips with terror and desperation.
Tossing the covers aside, she sat up, panting heavily. In the moonlight filtering through the cracks in the shutters on the cabin windows, she glanced around wildly, as if trying to remember where she was and how she got here. Then she slapped her hand over her mouth and glanced my way.
I rose on my elbow. “A bad dream?”
She nodded.
“Sorry I woke you up,” she blurted.
“I wasn’t sleeping yet. What was the dream about?”
She cast her gaze downward.
“Bad things…” she muttered so quietly, it was barely a whisper.
“About the swamp?”
“That too,” she sighed.
“You’re safe here, Khala. I won’t let any bad things happen to you anymore.”
She snapped her gaze to me, peering through the darkness as if trying to peek inside my very soul. I didn’t know what she was searching for, but I wanted to give her whatever she needed. I’d never had anyone depend on me this much before. It raised a strong sense of protectiveness in me now.
“Go to sleep, my wild thing,” I drawled, trying to soften my deep voice to sound more reassuring and less growly.
She remained sitting, crushing the covers in her fidgeting hands. Her eyes darted around the room as if searching for hidden dangers in every corner.
I heaved a long breath and lifted my cover, exposing the unused side of my spacious bed.
“Fine, you can sleep with me tonight. But just until you get used to this place,” I added, remembering that it was important to set boundaries early on when training hunting dogs.
Khala wasn’t a dog, though. And I’d given in to her every single time so far. I sighed. It just proved so hard to say no to those large, sad eyes of hers.
She didn’t wait for me to invite her twice.
Jumping out of her bed, she padded over to mine promptly, then climbed under the covers and stilled awkwardly.
It didn’t feel like she took any space at all, balancing precariously on the very edge of my bed.
There was no way she was comfortable like that, and by the sound of her rapid, shallow breathing, she wasn’t falling asleep anytime soon.
“That dream really scared you, huh?” I asked.
She nodded, tucking the covers under her chin. Her shoulders tensed, as if she was taking extra effort not to look at the room behind her, terrified of the imagined horrors lurking in the shadows.
“Fine. Come here, you poor little thing.” I lifted my arm, freeing the space next to my chest.
She gave me a cautious glance.
“I don’t know what scared you,” I assured her. “But you don’t ever have to be afraid of me. Alright?”
She nodded, scooting closer, and I tucked her against me. She exhaled a long, shuddering breath, finally relaxing a little with her nose pressed into my chest.
“Thank you, Grat. Thank you for being so kind to me.”
“Kindness costs nothing,” I waved her off, but she wouldn’t let me dismiss her appreciation.
“In my life, kindness has been rarer than diamonds, and I treasure it more than any riches in the world,” she said softly.
I ran a soothing hand down her hair. It was still damp after the bath. She smelled of soap with a hint of pine. My fingers slid over her spine, and I could count every single vertebra through the tunic she was wearing.
“You’ll never have to go hungry again, Khala,” I vowed. “I’ll take care of you.”
While stroking her back, my hand strayed too far down, gliding over the slight curve of her backside. She didn’t react to the touch, breathing evenly and probably already falling asleep again. But I promptly moved my hand up to her back again.
The awareness of her little tits pressed against my chest sent a bolt of arousal to my cock. I couldn’t help it any more than I could stop my heart from beating or my blood from pumping through my veins. But I sure as fuck wasn’t going to act on it.
When she came on my fingers in the tub, whimpering so sweetly, I’d nearly lost it.
But she hadn’t come to me looking for a good time between the sheets.
Her lust felt more like an act of desperation, a feral need to be close to someone after a lifetime of loneliness.
And I took care of it, just like I’d taken care of her hunger for food.
I’d drained the sorrow from her soul with an orgasm, just like I’d washed the dirt and grime from her skin with a bar of soap.
Now that peace had finally settled over her, fucking her was the last thing I could do, no matter what ideas my cock might have.
And my cock seemed to like her a lot. Even the rash on her skin and the dirt in her hair wouldn’t calm the keen interest that my eager member had taken in this woman.
The sight of her perky tits and her naked bottom had stirred my blood, heating it with lust. I had to hold back with all I had from impaling her on my cock right there in the tub.
But she was so frail and looked so delicate, I feared I’d split her in half if I tried to shove anything thicker than my finger inside her.
The orc women, whom I normally fucked, easily matched me in size and vigor.
With them, I never had to worry when grabbing their hips, squeezing their tits, or thrusting inside them with abandon.
I enjoyed the rough, powerful fucking that left us struggling for breath and covered in sweat, with muscles aching from bliss and exhaustion.
Khala wasn’t an orc, though. She wasn’t even a human. Her folks were barely above monkeys in intelligence and awareness. In more ways than one, it simply didn’t feel right to fuck her. It’d be like taking advantage of a scared, desperate being, not a consensual act between two equals.
“Sleep sweetheart,” I whispered, drawing the covers over her skinny shoulders. “And you, down, boy,” I ordered to my hardening cock, forcing it to whither and droop in disappointment.
There was peace to be had without sex, I told myself, breathing in the scent of Khala’s hair as sleep finally claimed me too.