Chapter 2
TWO
Red coats my vision. “Get your hand off me, Hatthar!”
Hatthar pulls up a chair, drops into it while dragging me onto his lap.
“It’s been a while. Missed you, but your arms are still puny.” He squeezes my bicep and nuzzles my temple, tusks grazing my cheek. He inhales. “You’re—ah, shit. Bad timing, ankle biter.”
I’m distracted now because the others arrive. Noise in the tavern dips. We’re the show.
Lathhan, settling silently into a chair as he watches me, lean and graceful with his Aeddannari grandsire three gens back. His hair is still long and blue-black, his pale green skin a few shades too dark for him to be called a halfling.
Iloni, who yanks her chair out like it offended her and rests her elbows on the table, her bright dark eyes predatory. Like her brother’s eyes. She’s filled out her beaded leather vest, a typical busty Uthilsen female with toned arms and shoulders, her hair a wild mess of beaded braids. She’s stained her lips a deep red, like dried blood. It looks like she feasted on someone’s throat and saved the remnants for a snack.
“Hey,” she says, voice bored despite her eyes. She used to practice sounding like that.
Lathhan glances away, his silent greeting done. He doesn't talk unless he’s plotting a rival’s downfall—he’s the one who taught me to be watchful of quiet males.
They’ll come out of nowhere.
My heart is racing, and I rub my palms on my trousers. My leather waspie seems too tight now. There’s one more who hasn’t shown up yet. The worst one. The one I’m dreading to see.
“I’m here to pick up a meal, and be on my way,” I say, breaking the now tense silence. “I don’t want any trouble.”
Hatthar settles me against his chest. “Nope. Rath’s home soon. I’m not telling him we had you and then let you escape again.” He starts toying with my hair. “You’re wearing beaded braids now.”
“I earned them,” I say, insulted by the implication I’d beaded my braids but not killed to earn the right. “I’m Uthilsen, even if I’m not clan.”
“Who?” Iloni asks.
Pressing my lips, I don’t answer. I’d killed because I’d had to, not for sport. A birthing female has no other protection but her midwife sometimes, and a lot of Human males think childbed is the perfect time to either get rid of an unwanted problem or sell it.
I’d gotten away with those deaths because being half-Orc, I’m stronger than the average Human. I won’t be able to defend myself so well against these four if they decide to stash me somewhere to wait for Rath.
“Well, I’m glad you came to your senses and returned,” Fiuthen says, watching me with his keen gaze. There’s gold at his wrists and on his fingers too. “The Cities are no place for?—”
He pauses, but I know what he’s not saying. For a runt. For a timid girl. For a tuskless girl. My lips curve down as I glare at him.
“He missed you.” Fiuthen signals to a server and raises his voice. “A bottle. None of the swill you give travelers.”
“Wouldn’t do that to you,” the barkeep mutters.
“Not if you want to remain well supplied.”
“Stop throwing your weight around and fucking order,” Iloni says. “Mother’s tits, you’ve been insufferable for a decade.” She raises her voice too. “Food, Mitchell! Hurry up. I’m hungry.”
Fiuthen turns back to me. “He’s been in a foul mood since you fled.”
“I didn’t flee,” I bite out.
“If you say so. A strategic retreat. Anyway, Rathhur’s foul mood. . .I hope you don’t expect a warm welcome home.”
“Since when has Rath ever been warm?” No, he’s grim, fussy, controlling. “Has he grown a spine?”
They go silent, four sets of Orc eyes narrowing at the insult.
Iloni shrugs. “Ma’s gonna want to see you. You ready for that?”
“Don’t threaten me, Iloni. I’m not a scrawny girl anymore. I’ll rip your throat out.” I’ll try, anyway .
She gives me a long, slow, vicious smile. “Sounds like foreplay to me. I’ll kneel for you if you kneel for me.” She sniffs. “Smells like you need it too.”
Hatthar groans. “I’m trying to ignore that. Just let me watch.”
Lathhan stirs and shakes his head, strong disapproval in his cool gaze. “Rathhur will feed you his ax. Do not touch her. Or you, Lon’a.”
Iloni rolls her eyes. “He needs to learn to share. So. . .where you been, ankle biter?”
“The Outlands.”
So far no one is threatening me, tugging my hair or publicly humiliating me. Hatthar won’t stop nuzzling my braids and when I try to squirm out of his lap his arms tighten, but he’s always been like that. He likes to cuddle.
He also liked to chase, and push, and play drown me under the guise of teaching me to swim. I wriggle against Hatthar again, more for the principle.
“Keep doing that and Rath is going to fight me over my response,” he murmurs in my ear. I hiss and elbow him. Hard.
Full blooded Uthilsen males are predators—well, females are dangerous too—but the males have muzzles on them for a reason. These boys are no longer actual boys.
“The Outlands?” Lathhan prompts, eyes sparking with curiosity.
Once you’re stupid enough to give the oath, if you run, Orc males hunt.
If Orc males catch you, they take.
If you make the mistake of bleeding ?
They devour.
It’s why any male who steps out of line is severely punished, and depending on his infraction, even killed. It’s also why unblooded females are off limits—we’re prey, and they’d wipe us out if they were unleashed.
“I’m a midwife.” I try to remember that. A midwife and a self-possessed adult , damn them. “There aren’t many trained midwives out there. The mothers have made do, but birth outcomes are better when someone trained is present.”
Iloni’s eyes widen with feminine respect; I’m ashamed it warms me. “You must have seen many battles.”
The Uthilsen like to pretend they’re nothing like the Aeddannari, or the Icarians. That they’re this clan loyal, family loving, humble race of warriors who live by a strict code of ethics. They are.
But all of that honor hides their darkness.
“Birth isn’t a battle,” Fiuthen says.
“Cunts who ain’t pushed out babies don’t get a fucking opinion.”
He frowns at her, but she’s female and the Matriarch's daughter, so that’s all he’ll do.
Convincing Humans Orcs are the lesser evil between the three Immortal species on Gaithea has been the con of generations. They're as bad, but Fae don’t care about hiding their evil, and the Icarians keep to themselves so it’s not as evident.
“You haven’t pushed out young,” he says.
She lifts her fist, flashing her tusks.
“But I can see your point.”
She lowers her fist .
A pretty bar lad brings a tray laden with plates. Meat, bread, pickled vegetables, spiced grains. I’m as hot blooded as any female, so since he has his upper body on display—I bet it increases the tips—I look my fill.
He gives me a shy glance, his cheeks darkening. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” Fiuthen says. “The little fried donuts with honey Kyona prefers.”
“You can’t have him, Ky’a,” Hatthar croons, pinching my thigh. “No, don’t sulk.”
“I’m not hungry.” For food or for pretty boy.
Lathhan flicks his gaze towards me. “You are weak. Eat, female.”
Fiuthen’s gaze is measuring. “You’re scrawny. There are circles under your eyes. If I thought I could keep Rath away from you for a month, I’d fatten you up first. He will pitch a fit when he sees you looking like this.”
“I’m unconcerned with Lord Rath or his fits .”
Iloni cackles, already eating. “That’s how you’re gonna play this? Great. This’ll be the best fun I’ve had for three raiding seasons. They don’t make bandits or monsters like they used to.”
Fiuthen picks up his wine and tastes it, then sniffs. “Did you consider how you would handle Rath? Or did you decide you’d pretend nothing’s happened?”
“Do you all want to explain to me what you think I’ve done to Rath ?” Besides stabbing him before I left, but to Uthilsen, that’s no more than a display of feminine pique.
They all stare at me now. “You left, Ky’a,” Hatthar says .
“I was supposed to stay and let you all humiliate and assault me for the rest of my life?”
Iloni frowns. Fiuthen looks away.
“If it wasn’t us,” he says, “it would have been the Matriarch and clan leader. You wouldn’t have survived them, Kyona. They—what happened twisted them. We tortured you enough to make them look the other way.”
The laugh starts deep in my belly and works its way up through my throat and bursts free, filling the tavern.
“That’s your excuse? I’m gone for twenty years and that’s what the four of you came up with? You were—” I’m still laughing “—protecting me?”
“Keep it down,” Iloni hisses. “Fuuuuck. You had to come skipping into town sipping tea and buying pastries a whole day before Rath got home. Ma probably already knows you’re here by now.”
“She’s right. Eat so we can leave,” Hatthar says, sighing. “Pick up the fork and shove some food in your mouth.”
“I’m not hungry.” I’ll be damned if I let these males feed me.
“Hells, I forgot how difficult you are, but my brother likes that shit.” She jerks her chin at Hatthar. “I hope you’re ready.”
He picks up a piece of bread sopping in stew juice and shoves it in my mouth. I start to spit it out, and there’s a brief tussle involving my blunt teeth, his fingers with talons he hasn’t bothered to retract, and I give in because it’s good, I don’t waste food, and I don’t particularly like the taste of my own blood.
They give me time to eat then Hatthar hauls me up with him. I come up to his shoulder—tall for a Human, petite for an Orc. I’m going to have to get used to being the small one again, if I stay.
They drag me out the back door.
“Maybe we should hide her in the woods until Rath gets back,” Hatthar says.
Iloni is gnawing on her bottom lip. “My brother is going to be—we should hide her, give him a few days to calm down before he sees her. I don’t trust him alone with her ’til he’s thinking with his head and not his tiny cock.”
My unease returns. “Didn’t he mate?”
They stop walking and look at me. “Are you a fool?” Lathhan says.
“How can he mate when he’s already mated?” Fiuthen asks, speaking slowly as if uncertain I’m entirely right in the head.
“You can't be serious. That doesn't count.”
Iloni glares with feminine outrage. “Blood was shed in front of witnesses, oath made. It counts. Or do you plan to ruin my brother’s reputation as well as publicly humiliate him?”
“We were children.” I sound like a squawking bird. It’s undignified.
The boys exchange a look while Iloni glowers.
“We were all youths, and we were all there,” Fiuthen says. “We don't care that we were children. Blood was shed, an oath made in front of witnesses. We are the same people now that we were then, even if we're older.”
“And no better,” I snarl, losing all patience. A part of me had wondered if Rath would see it like that, but most of me assumed he’d moved on. Why wouldn’t he? I was nothing .
Fiuthen sighs. “You can choose to repudiate your oath. Rathhur can choose how he responds to provocation.”
“I’ll fight.”
“Resistance,” Lathhan murmurs, giving me one of his chill, malicious looks, “is a pleasure.”
Iloni smacks him upside the head. “ One Fae great-grandparent, and your bloodline is fouled for generations.”
That sentence right there decides me. I want a partner who sees me as an equal, not as prey, not as some thing he craves or owns. Rathhur has always been possessive, territorial.
“I'm not staying,” I say. “I can't see anything between us ever ending well, and he'll always only see me as the weak half Human he has to protect or cage or terrorize.” I turn and start walking away.
Iloni grabs my upper arm. “Where do you think you're going to go then?”
“I'm out of money and supplies. I can't go back to the Outlands.” Not with Maezii, who I more or less stole. “I'm going to the Sorting.”
They surround me. Like old times.
“No one is going to let you run, Ky’a,” Hatthar says. “Rath’ll hunt you down.”
“Let her go,” Iloni says, and the males back away, stiff with protest.
I turn and stride down the street.
“Don’t leave,” she calls after me. “You don’t want him to hunt you down. He haven’t changed that much.”
When I reach the cabin, I slam the door shut, hating the shudder that runs through me. My tormentor wants to hunt me down, I’ll show him that a midwife can do more with a knife than open a female’s belly to get out a baby.
I can open a male’s too, except all he has inside is guts.