CHAPTER 13 — Daddy Orcs are Dangerous
STEPHANIE
Ulda collects Opkug from Joktepitha and heads out of the house. Namak?ga follows me to the kitchen, thoughts seeming far off as she absently watches me refill my next-to-last bucket.
“Let’s talk about the geese a second,'' I say as I ladle. “Why do you guys keep them? I noticed they crap everywhere. That seems like a con. Plus they pinch everything, and they’re really loud. Also, the hissing. They don’t seem to like anybody. They definitely hate me,” I add with heavy emphasis.
“Feather beds,” Namak?ga replies easily. “They adore Ulda. And they’ll grow used to you. Although you may never grow to like them. Goodness knows, Roarg never has.”
“Then why does he keep them again? Are the pillows really that good?”
“Because.” Namak?ga smiles sadly. “Ulda lost her first baby. She went through a terrible time.”
“Oh gosh—sorry,” I say, grimacing.
Namak?ga nods. “There were no babies in the house then, and she had a fierce need to simply hold something. She needed to mother something. Roarg’s mothers told him to get her a gosling.
So he did. He brought his grieving wife a frilly-feathered baby goose.
Geese imprint strongly, and Ulda was soothed as best as she could be. That bird became her world for a time.”
“Wow. I could… I could almost hate them less,” I venture.
She nods. “Roarg decided the same thing. Ulda kept her baby goose in the house. She diapered it, loved it, raised it in her baby’s place.
When the gosling became a goose, it was lonely for its own kind, so the next spring, Roarg brought home another gosling.
Ulda mothered it too. Mothered every goose Roarg brought home for her.
And Ulda loves them still. Because of that, Roarg may dislike them, but he would never take them away from her. ”
***
When I’m squeaky clean and dressed in a fresh outfit, all three sisterwives corral me in the kitchen and teach me how to cook and can mutton (because Orcs have glass jars and metal lids—a fact that, upon learning, I may have expressed surprise over.
Which prompted Ulda to give me the most withering wide-eyed glare), and how to bake and smoke mutton into jerky.
All evening, the air is thick and misty with sizzling meat.
I probably smell like a burnt sheep, but if I do, I must prefer the smell over chicken because it doesn’t bother me.
It doesn’t bother Roarg either. After dinner, he kisses his wives and children goodnight and leads me to his room. He looks like he wants to attack me, so he’s taken aback when I push him against the door and tell him I need to take off his pants.
Intrigued, he bids me to do exactly this and even crosses his wrists above his head, signaling that he’s at my mercy.
...Whereupon I show appreciation for him rescuing me from the geese, paying particular attention to the memory of how he made me feel when he sincerely called me his fair lady.
When his knees and thighs are done twitching, and his roughened breathing has returned to normal, he kicks off his pants the rest of the way and hauls me up over his shoulder, stalking to his bed and throwing me down on the nicely made covers.
He’s aggressive, he’s tender. He’s sweet and insatiable.
And so when Roarg takes my face in his huge hands and stares deep into my eyes, I blurt the stupidest thing. “I’m afraid of falling for you.”
His body tenses all around me.
Unbidden, my hands steal over his impossibly broad shoulders, sliding a soothing touch over the developed muscles of his strong back. “You know I’m going home. That’s my whole goal in life right now, and you can understand that, right?”
Wordlessly, he swallows, eyes searching mine, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
So I keep talking. “We’ve known each other for twenty-four hours. I’m just… I’m getting freaked out at how much I’m feeling for you.”
He draws back—but he doesn’t let me go. He releases my face and slides his arms under me, cradling me to his front as he stares into my face with crackling intensity.
“You have no reason to fear, my Stephanie.” He makes a point of looking into my left eye, then my right.
“I will not fail you. I will always care for your needs, provide you with my affection, and give you my loyalty.”
All of a day ago, I would have scoffed about a concurrently thrice-married man uttering the word loyalty. But in a mere twenty-some hours, I’ve seen enough of Roarg with his wives to believe that this man, this Orc, somehow manages complete loyalty between his three women.
And now… with me.
I shake my head wildly, hair swishing over the covers. “This is just a game.”
“No,” he insists with force. “This isn’t.”
“I’m not staying,” I whisper, mostly because I think I need to hear it.
Roarg shakes his head slowly as he stares into my soul. “You gave me your word.”
“Where I’m from,” I start, “saying something in the heat of the moment doesn't mean—”
He drills into me with his look. “Don’t. Don’t try to tell me that. A man or a woman’s word is all he or she has. That’s true of anywhere, any time, any place.”
“Hypothetically, if I stayed, I’d never bring you a fifth wife,” I share faintly. Stupidly. “You’d have to be happy with the four of us, because it turns out four is my limit.”
“If you stayed,” he repeats softly, picking this out from what I’ve just said.
“If you stayed.” He sits up, and his huge hand wraps around the front of my throat, making me suck in a breath, making my eyes go wide, before he drags his grip down between my breasts, splaying out his fingers along my belly, petting me.
Then his touch moves lower. “I am the most pleased Orc in all the land with the four of you. I know I’ve been blessed with each of you.
I need no others. You can always be sure of your place here.
With me.” He stares into my eyes, and his hand moves to my throat again, softly caging it. “Stop telling me you’ll leave.”
“Roarg,” I start.
His heart is in his eyes. His voice is husky but forceful. So is his grip on my throat—although it doesn’t hurt, he’s simply holding me, subduing me. “No. You made a vow to me. You’re my wife, my helpmeet, my mate. It’s done. No more talk of leaving, Stephanie, I beg you.”
“I have to leave. I barely know you—”
“You know enough. Give me a chance to woo you, and you’ll know more. We have time, because you’re staying.” And he leans down and kisses me before he slides his hand from my throat to my legs. “Open for me,” he commands.
And I do.
***
Sometime in the middle of the night, I wake up not because Roarg is reaching for me again, but because he’s leaving the bed.
Faint light spills into the room from an oil lamp, and holding the lamp is Joktepitha. Whimpering in the crook of her arm is Crushosh. And that whimper is an angry, unhappy sound.
Roarg doesn’t bitch. He draws Joktepitha into the room, relieves her of Crushosh, and she stumbles her way to Roarg’s bed and climbs in with me.
Naked, clutching my half of the covers to myself, I sit up. “Um,” I mumble, “this is a big bed, but I’m not comfortable sharing it with a sisterwife.”
“Shut up and share with this weary mother with a pillow,” she orders.
Blearily, I pat around, find one that’s cool to the touch, indicating it isn’t Roarg’s pillow and it isn’t mine, and I hand it over.
“You don’t have to lie on the edge of the bed,” Roarg comments—and because I’m not on the edge of the bed, I realize he’s talking to Joktepitha.
She looks between us meaningfully. “I don’t want to lie in any of the wet spots.”
“Ah,” says Roarg, a smile in his voice as I hide my face in my hands. “Then the edge of the bed is a safe decision.”
“As I well know. Just because I haven’t been under you tonight doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what you’re like.”
“This is so uncomfortable,” I murmur.
Joktepitha reaches over and pats me. “Only because you’re making it so. Relax.”
Roarg sends me a quick smile, then returns his attention to his fussy son.
Crushosh calms down to contented coos, until finally there’s no baby sounds at all.
Roarg turns down the oil lamp, which is now hanging on a wall hook, and climbs into the bed with the grace of a panther.
And with Crushosh carefully cradled to his chest (forcing him to climb in one-armed), he’s a sexy daddy panther.
I bite back a gasp and have to snap my knees together at the sight.
Because it doesn’t matter that it’s what-o’-clock in the morning. It doesn’t matter that Roarg’s an Orc: watching him take care of his son is the absolute sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
And then he tops even that. He tucks Crushosh between himself and Joktepitha, and then Roarg lowers himself to his stomach, leaving the beauty of his back muscles exposed in the soft, soft lamplight. He reaches over, tips Joktepitha’s face up, and kisses her forehead softly.
“Sleep,” he tells her.
“Shhh,” she warns. “Someone’s talking to me or I would be.”
“I’ll beat you for being lippy,” he promises. And then he rolls to me, takes my face, and kisses me on the lips. It’s a very long, very thorough kiss that leaves me blinking and staring at him, wondering what the heck he’s just worked me up for.
“Later,” he mouths, and he stares at me hard enough I might be able to orgasm purely by the power of his gaze.
It’s a long time before I can drift off to sleep.