CHAPTER 4 — No Nooseman’s Knot for Me
ROARG
I quenched the lamp wicks when she began to fall asleep. Now I hold Stephanie close in my arms, gazing down at her in the muted light provided by the lone guttering candle.
I’m enthralled with her. She’s so soft. Inside and out, she’s as sweet as sugared cinnamon, straight down to her soul.
Caution has no quarter in me; although I know I should be careful with my heart, I’m besotted. Orc men love easily, which makes it difficult to trust our instincts when it comes to determining if we’ve chosen well where mates are concerned.
That’s why parents generally arrange a man’s first marriage, and it’s his wife who chooses a sisterwife, one she knows she can get along well with. It’s always the wives who see what a man blinded by love—and lust—often can’t.
But I feel down to my marrow that this, with Stephanie, is a good match.
Namak?ga has an excellent sense of a woman’s ability to be a good sister, and when Stephanie hesitated to reveal her bride price—then outright refused by firmly ordering me to talk to Namak?ga directly—she showed herself to be protective rather than vicious toward her new sisterwife.
Right then… It was right then that I was smitten.
This woman I’m holding is a good woman. She’s clearly of another station and from a far-off place.
She knows nothing of our ways, isn’t comfortable with our traditions, and yet she has shown bravery.
Gamely, she began to make love, and open-hearted, she finished.
I can attest to this. The way she stared up at me as I held her face tonight and moved inside her…
it heats my blood, even now, after I’ve taken her again and again.
Gently, I set her into the mess of our blankets, fixing them as best as I can without waking her, and leave the bed. A male Orc can chase his wives all night and work all day; we require very little sleep. But even if I were tired, I can’t settle just yet.
Having a stranger enter my home—let alone magicking into the room with my new bride—has shaken me more than I care to admit.
What the hellfire had that been about? If Stephanie’s theory is one I understand, whoever is responsible for casting the magic that sent her here surely sent him after her. Why? Would he have taken her away?
I’m supremely unsettled at how easily he might have been able to.
How can I protect against warlocks who can appear and disappear at will?
He brought with him the finest sheets of parchment I’ve ever beheld—it’s easy to believe he could catch Stephanie and haul her with him, to wherever he hails from.
Stephanie claims they hail from the same land, although she doesn’t have his gift of powers.
A good thing, or she would leave me. Oh, I wrung another vow out of her that she is my wife, but she’s not convinced, not yet.
I’ve heard of this, of brides who need taming.
All women do, to an extent. But Stephanie is like no woman I’ve met before.
She admitted tonight that she’s never wanted to be married and obeying her husband’s will and settling into his care is completely foreign to her.
What wild land is she from?
Or rather, what refined land is she from? She is a lady. Her speech, the fact she can read. She can probably write too. I’ll buy her quills and an inkwell. Expensive, and so is paper, but she might like being given as many of the comforts she was used to having as I can provide.
I may have to spend more time at the forge than ever to afford the finer things, but by the Eternal, I will try to provide them.
Not bothering to dress, I take hold of one of my swords and make a careful circuit of my home. I check each room, give each of my sleeping wives and children a kiss, and I check on the animals for good measure.
There’s nothing amiss.
Feeling more relaxed, I mull over tonight’s visitor and Stephanie’s claim that she made a gamble with some power that sent her here.
I wish I’d killed the intruder. If she made a bargain, that pup or more like him will come after her again.
That bothers me much. In this land, if you don’t pay what you owe, you forfeit yourself.
To my knowledge, that’s a rule that’s true everywhere.
Stephanie is enchanting, and they’ll be back for her, and they’ll take her as a wife at best or a slave at worst.
Neither end is an option I’m willing to allow. I don’t know what she owes the bondsmen, but I’ll send the word around and any humans found on our shores will be brought to me. I’ll offer to pay whatever debt I must. If her bondsmen won’t accept, I’ll kill them.
I wonder if that knowledge would upset Stephanie.
I know nothing of humans. Before tonight, I would have said I’d never want such an otherworlder, but the moment I locked eyes with her, I was done for.
If I’d gazed on her anywhere, I would have chosen her myself if Namak?ga hadn’t.
Stephanie showed herself to be a sweet lover, a playful lover, and a wonder tonight, and the way she would seek my eyes—the way she stared up at me as I took her. ..
She looked at me like I was the biggest, greatest male she had ever seen. She cried out under me in pleasure-soaked wonder, as if no male had loved her like I was making love to her.
And the way she eventually submitted and called me her husband… I liked that maybe most of all.
I’m enthralled with her.
Stalking back into the house, I make my way into my bedroom, store my sword, and climb back into bed with my new woman.
She doesn’t stir, not even when I climb in facing her, and drag her tightly to my chest.
Unconscious, she snuggles her face right over my heart and sighs with what sounds to me like contentment.
She hardly knows me, but she likes to touch and be touched by me. That’s a fine start.
...But will it be enough?
Troubled thoughts weigh heavy on my heart, because I knew an old Orc once who bought a wife he loved very much.
He said she was from a faraway land, a land with metal horses, even iron horses, he’d claimed—which appealed to the blacksmith in me, even though he wasn’t able to describe her horses very well.
She’d told him they drove a little different than a flesh horse.
Grogmar, was his name. He was mad for his strange bride; affectionate, full of praise—he constantly lavished her with attention.
It was clear he loved her. But she seemed sad. It ate at him, and he did everything you’d expect a man to do to please his woman: he took her to every silly event he could attend, he had her fitted with the nicest wardrobe he could afford, and he bought her every bauble her heart desired.
All in vain. For one day, she simply disappeared.
And that old Orc couldn’t tell a soul what happened. Grogmar would open his mouth, but nothing would come out from between his tusks.
High and low he searched for her. He searched for a year, until the anniversary of their wedding. Then he killed himself.
I’m no stranger to grief. No man who walks under the sun escapes it. But I’ve never felt a pain so bad yet that I’ve tied a nooseman’s knot in a rope. I hope I never do.
I look down at the woman in my arms. I have three other wives and two brats who need me. And now this woman has agreed to become my wife. I have too many responsibilities to go heartsick and off myself. Thus… Stephanie simply can’t be allowed to leave.
Staring down at her hard, appreciating her strange features, I bury my fingers in her hair and bring my lips to her ear.
“You aren’t going to return to your former life, Stephanie.
I’m going to make you safe, and then I’m going to win you, body first, until you let me reach your heart.
When I have that, you’ll be mine. And that’s only fair, kwa?ara… because I fear I’m already yours.”