CHAPTER 3 — Where’s the Harm ? #8
I blink at him. “Oh. Well, that’s okay. Here, reading probably isn’t as big a deal as where I’m from.”
Roarg swallows and scans my face, his gaze calming slightly as he takes me in. “Reading is indeed a… great deal,” he says, attempting to find a matching approximation for my phrase. “But here, only those of noble birth are taught to read.”
He regards me with a very considering look.
Dismissively, I snort. “I’m not of noble anything.” My eyes fall to the paperwork I’m holding. I shuffle through the sheets, baffled.
“What do the parchments read?”
Frowning, I meet his gaze. “It’s about horses. And some operation called Three Hotshots Ranch. There’s also a map.”
He’s suddenly crowding my shoulder, his skin cooler than when he was on top of me a bit ago, but not by much. “Show me.”
I shuffle the papers until I reach the map, and tip it for him to see. It depicts two peninsulas and an island, with some very alarming location features identified. It’s like Michigan if Michigan were a fantastical place with magic realms and monsters.
Roarg’s brows pull low, and he points. “This is us. Right here.”
He indicates the uppermost shore of the lower peninsula, not far from what’s identified on the map as the ‘Orc Toll Bridge.’
A forest starts near the bridge and fills the peninsula from one side of the broad bank to the other. Deep into the heart of the woods is a little cabin and shop. It’s labeled ‘3.’
“If your home is three, what are the others for?” I murmur. Because there’s a 1, 2, 4, 5—all the way up to a 302. The numbers are scattered all over the landmasses.
One of them is even in the water. That’s one of the scary ones. Because this is an ancient-mariner type map, and drawn with crazy detail is a sea monster that looks like part savage water dragon, part vicious panther.
Roarg’s hand flattens against my toga-wrapped back—and his touch feels nicely reassuring. “That one,” he points above the sea monster, “is the Dire Wolves’ island. And that,” he draws his calloused finger to a fortified-looking place on the upper peninsula, “is the Mishipeshu’s copper castle.”
“What do the numbers mean?”
He looks as troubled as I feel. “I don’t know. What did that bindlestiff throw?”
I raise my head. “Yeah, that’s right, he—” I look up at Roarg, bemused. “Bindlestiff?”
“A vagrant. A tramp. In this case, an intrud—”
“Gotcha,” I say. “Right, he chucked something. What was that about?” We both turn and look in the direction we heard the unknown object land.
Roarg moves for the vicinity it dropped, but his search is hampered by the dimness of the room.
He takes a lantern off the wall to assist in his quest, sweeping his hand over the floor and holding the lantern out so that the light source moves with his gaze.
The light cast by it doesn’t seem to go far.
A modern flashlight it is not, that’s for sure.
But his efforts aren’t in vain. Light reflects off of a round, coin-like object.
“What in all the kingdom…” he mutters, peering down before carefully picking the thing up. “It is a coin. I almost thought so.” Unexpectedly, he bites it.
My eyes are wide on his mouth, but when he moves to show it to me, angling it to hit the lamplight, it’s not his tusk and teeth impressions on the metal that I take note of.
Because on the face of the coin is the word ZULDANA—which is the name of the game Lisa, Esther, and I played. The same one that landed me here!
“Whoaaaa,” I breathe, eyes darting around the room as I consider what’s just happened.
“That coin appeared after we—after we, you know, joined. And that guy’s shirt—he was a game guide!
I know what this means! I’m freaking stuck in an actual game.
In games, generally, you have to complete a quest to obtain the level’s prize.
” My eyes jump back to Roarg. “Challenges and quests give tokens and advance you, and we just…” Had sex. “‘Joined.’”
I was challenged to join with an Orc husband, and I did, and the universe gave me a token for it. THIS IS CRAZY!
“But wait, why did my game guide appear? What was he here to tell me? Game guides give direction, which I desperately freaking need…” Crap, how do I get that guy back???
Roarg is stuck on other things. “This is no token. This is gold,” he points out. His face looks troubled, and he’s frowning.
“How much is it worth?” I ask, hope filling my chest—and my voice. “Maybe it’s enough to pay you back, and I can—”
The coin makes a loud thunk as it drops unceremoniously back to the floor.
I don’t know it yet, but I’ll realize later how insanely out of character that move was for Roarg, an Orc man as obsessed with gold coins as the rest of his countrymen. It’s telling, that he would abandon gold in favor of snaring me with his sexual powers.
Roarg stalks me, and I back up from him in a rush, landing unhelpfully on his squeaky rope bed.
Roarg climbs right over me, making his arm muscles pop by planting his fists, one beside my butt and one at my waist. My eyes have no hope of being drawn away, and oh my stars, blacksmithing should be mandatory for all men.
“Stephanie, you did not agree to become my wife because of a debt you owed—”
Maybe not entirely. It was mostly the fear of your other wife that got me into this bed with you.
All right, to be fair, even if money weren’t involved, and even if he didn’t have a slap-happy wife, my circumstances were shit and I still would have chosen Roarg.
I have no way to get home and no currency here unless I want to sell myself for sex—and I definitely did not want that.
I also happen to be sporting a new very visible tattoo, which would, if it’s true that it identifies me as belonging to the Hammerfist family unit, probably have gotten me returned to this house if I had managed to run away.
So yeah, I waited in his room for him, and when he did such a great job at sexing me up (seriously, the man is beyond skillful at seduction, his three other wives have clearly trained him right), I hastily made an agreement to be his wife.
...Which is what the game I’m stuck in wanted all along.
When Roarg gives me an extremely pointed nudge to let me know he won’t be ignored, I raise my hand to his chest and murmur, “Give me a minute.”
Dutifully, he sits back on his heels, no longer poking me or crowding me.
“Thanks.” I stare up at his ceiling. It’s a beautifully built ceiling that, at any other time and place, I’d be going absolutely bonkers over.
What I know: tonight could easily have been the worst night of my life.
I don’t understand how this—this world and situation I’m stuck in—can possibly be real, but it appears to be very real.
And instead of being damaged emotionally and physically after a terrible ordeal, here I am, fresh from the best sex I’ve ever had.
After which, my brand new thrice-married Orc husband ferociously protected me with an actual honest-to-God sword.
(That was so hot. Maybe it’s because he was resting his throbbing cock on me a second ago, but I think it’s the replay of him pulling out that sword and defending my honor.
I’ve never experienced anything like it and now I’m aching for him like we didn’t just have the most meaningful sexual experience of my existence all of ten minutes ago.)
Roarg’s hand smooths up my shin. “Are you afraid?” he asks.
“No,” I tell him honestly, angling my chin down to look at him.
He shifts until he’s sitting cross-legged, and his cock bobs in his lap, so stiff it’s nearly tapping his stomach. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
After a moment of enjoying the view of his virility, I search his face.
“Remember that you asked. Okay,” I say, assembling my thoughts, dragging a thumbnail over my brow.
“From everything I saw earlier, this weird harem setup you’ve got going on here seems to work for you people.
It seems I’m here, I’ve already slept with you—I don’t need to freak out about this—in fact, it seems like the game I’m stuck in wanted exactly this outcome. ”
“Securing a marriage between us,” he supplies.
“I guess,” I say.
His hand stops stroking along my shin.
I glance at him. “I didn’t mean it to sound… so dismissive,” I finish, sitting up on my elbows as he gains his knees.
He throws one over me and stalks up my body until his face hovers over mine.
“You still don’t consider us married,” he states.
Feeling comfortable enough with him to do it, I cover his mouth with my hand, the side of my thumb pressing against his tusk, and try for a diplomatic answer.
“I think the coin means that us having sex advanced me to the next level.” I should get an award for being so coherent.
His cock is coloring wet trails over my knees.
His pupils are huge as he watches me speak, and rather than pull away from my silencing hand, he starts making gentle love to my palm, distracting me, making my breath come faster and faster.
When my hands move to his sides, fingers digging into the insane dips and hills making up the spreads of muscles along his ribs, he peels my hand away from his mouth, then brings it right back to his lips for a kiss. “Stephanie?”
Breathily, I murmur, “Hmm?”
“Do you yet consider us married, or do you require further convincing?” he asks, voice going husky.
His cock nudges between my knees, and my legs fall open for him.
I bite my lip, staring into his open, sincere face.
In his eyes, I watch my reflection, and note with some shock that I look…
delighted at the prospect of being convinced.
But I need him to understand my position.
“We’re not really married. I know it’s hard to believe, but this is just a game.
I don’t know if you’re real or if you’re the product of very detailed and utterly convincing virtual reality—”
With a growl, Roarg grabs my thigh and hikes it to his waist, entering me with a swift, sliding thrust I feel all the way in my throat.
“Wife, prepare to have me prove how real—” he shoves in deeper, making me gasp and ripple around him “—I am! By night’s end, by God, you will feel married to me,” he vows as he draws back and plows into me again.
Breaths stuttering out of me to the tempo of his thrusts, I slide my arms under his and wrap my arms around his back, holding him to me tightly.
Spoiler: we make five more coins appear.