CHAPTER 14 — Dances with Dire Wolves #2
Namak?ga looks a little sick. “No one’s ever seen one, and it’s said that’s because they keep their wives locked in dungeons, and breed on them constantly to get dragon sons.”
“I’ve heard that they drown the daughters,” Joktepitha adds.
“Buuut if they all did that, they’d go extinct,” I point out.
Roarg stays out of the discussion but rubs my shoulder. I offer him honey from my spoon. He declines. Instead, he takes my hand, takes away my spoon, and dips my finger into the honey jar. Then he sucks my finger into his mouth.
Ulda ignores what he’s doing to me, still carrying on this conversation even though I’m starting to get a bit dazed.
“Who knows what’s true. What they do to their women and girl brats is a mystery.
You’ll only ever see Dragonkind sons. Evidently, the dragon traits pass only to male children.
They say the females are born freakish and featureless. ”
“Who says? The Dragonkind?” I manage to ask. Roarg dips my other hand’s finger into the jar and starts sucking that one. He makes a purring sound that has my knees clapping together.
“No,” she replies. “‘They’ as in other Orcs.”
“Huh,” I contribute as thoughtfully as I can. These Dragonkind sound a bit like sex-linked chickens. I’d say that, but I’m having trouble forming words.
And Roarg is done listening to chatter. He stands me up, takes me by the hand, and slows only long enough to give the sisterwife crew each a kiss before he escorts me out the front door.
He takes me straight to the woodshed where he collects an axe. But not before he pins me against the door and fucks me hard enough to make the hinges rattle.
When he lowers me to the floor, I sweep my skirt down my trembling legs, my sides heaving, my lips bruised.
Leering at me like he’s up for round two when I am, Roarg opens the door and steers me out ahead of him, fondling my ass before he takes my hand and takes the lead, heading for a footpath that trails deeper into the woods.
So much for my idea of finding Zuldana today, I think as the woods swallow us up, the trees a light-blocking canopy high, high above us.
Still linked by our hands, we’re silent for maybe fifteen minutes, following a trail that soon only Roarg can see. Until suddenly, he stops us.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
Roarg pans a narrow-eyed look around the forest. “I don’t know.”
Anxious that something’s pinging an Orc’s spidey senses, I edge a step closer to him.
Roarg glances down at me and his face clears. “It’s likely nothing.” He raises my hand to his lips. “Come. You clean the small deadfall while I split logs.”
“Got it,” I tell him and leave his side to march around doing exactly that. He attacks a towering pile of sawn tree parts, chunking them up then stacking the cords neatly outside a small shed.
As I clear up my area, I move further and further from Roarg, making the forest floor shine—not really, but it isn’t littered with dead treefall anymore.
Branch after branch go I, humming to myself as I traipse back and forth. The limbs make dry clacking noises as they land on the growing pile of their fallen brethren, so at first I don’t discern the difference between wood and bone.
I’m bent over, brain pleasantly numb at the monotony of stick collection. My fingers stretch for a big barkless white branch.
Only it’s not a branch. It’s a massive antler.
My eyes follow the length of it, and at the base of the antler is a giant wolf.
I freeze.
Snowy white fur is trimmed in jet black tips, giving the massive animal a reverse frosted look.
Its paws are positively huge, with high-arched, webbed toes.
Even its dewclaws are webbed, attaching to thick wrists that angle up into impossibly long legs.
Its chest is slim in width, comparatively speaking, to the creature’s overall size.
Its eyes are an intense golden yellow, rimmed in striking obsidian lids that would do credit to a Maybe it’s Maybelline campaign.
And they blink at me once, slowly, roaming over my face with what feels like an unsettling level of perception.
As I stare, the wolf bows and noses the rack of antler until the pointed tips nudge my frozen fingers.
Then it wags its tail like it wants to play.
It must be domesticated. Or maybe it’s actually a dog, not a wolf at all.
I back slowly away from it. Only barely turning my head in his direction, I keep my voice super calm when I call out, “Hey, Roarg? Are there dogs that look like wolves here?”
I break my stare with the lupine—err, canine and glance back at Roarg for reassurance.
“No,” Roarg replies, equally calm—even as he sets down his armload of logs and snags his axe by its handle. “There are wolves that look like wolves though. Stephanie, don’t move.”
I do exactly as he says. I don’t even turn back to look at the wolf—I just watch Roarg, my mountain of an Orc storming to protect me.
My gaze is trained on his face, so I see the moment something bad happens behind me. I know because Roarg’s brows jump up, his eyes flare wide—and instead of hurling the axe he’s gripping in his hand, he lunges forward and jerks me into the circle of his protection.
Only then am I brave enough to look behind me.
The wolf is gone. In his place is a man.
Thankfully, he’s not stark naked. He’s dressed in an all-black arming doublet and trews.
His boots look like they’re made to smash in ribcages, and he’s wearing an honest-to-God cape over his shoulders.
With a shocking head of short white-blond hair, he looks like some sort of medieval-fantasy knight from the Netherlands.
“He’s a Dire Wolf,” Roarg says low.
I slide my hand up the back of Roarg’s rough-woven tunic and curl my fingers around his belt. “Stupendous.” I wasn’t interacting with a playful wild wolf in a magical gameland; I was being invited to play with a deer bone by a shapeshifter man.
The wolfman looks at Roarg. “I apologize if I’ve caused any offense. I mean you and yours no harm. I’ve been following you, trying to learn if this human you’ve taken as your wife is happy.”
“Hey,” I start, surprised. “You know what a human is?”
“And why,” Roarg asks, in a low growl, “is my wife’s happiness any of your business, wolf?”
The Dire Wolf knight doesn’t look concerned in the face of Roarg’s fury.
Which, if anyone asks me, I’d say isn’t very smart.
My Orc beats metal into shapes all day long.
By the strength of his hands alone, he must nearly be able to squeeze coal into diamonds.
“Because Esther, my mate, asked me to find her friend Stephanie, and be sure she was safe and well cared for.”
“YOU HAVE ESTHER?!” I shriek, lunging forward.
Roarg catches me around the waist and hauls me against his hip. But while I shoot a questioning glance up at him, he doesn’t look away from the Dire Wolf.
The Dire Wolf gives him a smile of understanding, and the courtesy of looking down, although there’s nothing submissive in the gesture in the slightest. His words are in reply to my question.
“Yes, I have Esther. My beautiful, brilliant princess.
" He raises his eyes to me. “She told me that when I found you, I should extend an invitation to the castle.”
“Oooh,” I start to say. “She’s got a castle!” I think back to her game. “She’s uniting kingdoms, right?”
The wolf knight frowns.
“A Dire Wolf who lives in a castle?” Roarg utters on a low growl. “I know of you. Every Orc knows of you. You are the Dire Wolf who’s forced to serve the—”
The wolf turns his head away, but not before we watch his lip curl.
“No,” Roarg declares, hand covering my shoulder and pulling me protectively into his side. “We will not venture to the castle where your mate is kept.”
I look up at him, stunned.
“But,” he adds stiffly, not glancing down at me but clearly aware of my gaze and making what is obviously a big concession, “You may bring her here, to our woods, for my wife to visit. In safety,” he stresses.
And suddenly I’m worried for Esther. Why the heck doesn’t Roarg think it’s safe to go visit her?
The wolf knight scoops up the antler at his feet and stands tall to hold it out in offering, tipping his head to Roarg. “So we shall, Orc. Thank you. This will please my mate greatly. We extend to you a bit of ivory for your collection.”
Roarg accepts the antler, holding it up to admire it. “Impressive.”
“It is,” the wolf knight agrees. “And you can have its match when we next see you.” His eyes go to me. “Do you have any word I should carry back to my Esther?”
“Tell her I can’t wait to see her. Sounds like we can compare a lot of notes. And can you ask her if she’s seen Lisa?”
His eyes are sharp with solemnity. “At my mate’s behest, I’ve been searching for your lost packmate Lisa, just as I was for you. If she’s in this realm, I shall find her.”
“Thank you,” I tell him.
He gives me a polite smile. “Fair days to you until my mate sees you again.”
“Uh, thanks,” I say back.
And then the knight turns into a wolf before our eyes and whurfs once before he lopes away, his form soon swallowed up by the giant trees.
“What the heck?” I breathe. I turn my eyes to Roarg. “Is Esther in danger?”
Roarg is slipping his axe into his belt, his eyes fixed on the last point we saw the wolf. In his other hand, he’s still holding the antler. His mouth is a grim line as he heaves a quiet breath out from between his tusks. “I’m afraid that your friend is in the worst danger.”
“Tell me,” I urge, grabbing his wrist.
He lets the antler’s base rest against his leg, the points jabbing into the forest floor, and he turns his hand, threading our fingers, finally dropping his eyes to mine. “Your friend is living in the castle that belongs to our people’s greatest enemy: the Dragonkind king.”