Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thea had been about to blow out the lamp when the knock came, soft and almost hesitant.
It wasn’t a servant. They knocked quietly but briskly, already moving on to the next task before she’d fully answered. And it certainly was not Lasseran. He wouldn’t bother to knock
She set the lamp down and crossed to the door, her bare feet silent on the cold stone.
“Just a moment!”
Khorrek had never returned to the library and Vorlag had finally insisted on accompanying her back to her rooms. She’d promised to sleep and obediently changed into her nightgown, but her attempt to sleep had failed.
Her mind kept circling back to the library and the ancient text with its infuriating half-meanings and deliberately obscured truths.
Someone wanted the knowledge preserved but hidden. The question was why, and from whom.
She opened the door.
Khorrek stood in the hallway, his massive frame filling the doorway.
“Khorrek? I thought you were—”
The words died.
Oh my God.
His hand was ruined. Blood dripped onto the floor in slow, steady drops, but it was his eyes that stopped her breath. He looked devastated, lost and broken in a way she’d never seen before.
“Your hand!”
“It’s nothing. It will heal.”
“It’s bleeding all over my floor.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside with a strength born from years of hauling artifact crates and moving furniture when budgets didn’t allow for proper help. “Sit down and let me look at it.”
“I’m fine.”
“No you’re not. You’re injured. Now stop being stubborn.”
She pulled him to the chair by the fire and pushed him into it. He didn’t resist, which worried her even more. He never just… gave in.
She hurried to the bathing room, and grabbed some thin linen towels, along with a basin of warm water, and carried them both back to where Khorrek sat staring at nothing.
“What happened?” She knelt in front of him and started carefully cleaning away the blood.
His knuckles were shredded, the bone showing through in places. He’d hit something. Hit it hard and many times.
“I hit a wall.”
“I can see that. Why?”
“It was there.”
Despite everything, warmth flickered through her chest. Even devastated, he still had that dry edge to his voice.
“Khorrek—”
“Leave it, Thea.”
She looked up at him and met those golden eyes, seeing the anguish he was trying so hard to hide.
“Something happened when you reported to Lasseran, something terrible.”
“It’s not your concern.”
“The hell it isn’t.” She went back to cleaning his hand gently but thoroughly. “You’re here in my rooms and you’re clearly devastated, which makes it my concern.”
“I shouldn’t have come.”
“But you did. Why?”
Silence. She kept working, cleaning away the blood and assessing the damage. She suspected he was right about it healing, but it was going to hurt for days.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly, his voice raw.
She set aside the bloody cloth and started wrapping his hand with the clean linen.
“Liar.” She kept her tone gentle and affectionate. It wasn’t an accusation, but an invitation.
His throat worked, his jaw clenching and unclenching.
“He’s going to kill them.”
The words were so quiet she almost missed them.
Her hands stilled. “What?”
And then it came out.
Haltingly at first. Then faster. Like a dam breaking.
Lasseran’s ritual. The failed attempt with Queen Jessamin. The need for orc sacrifices. The casual, horrifying way he’d discussed murdering loyal soldiers. Being ordered to choose which ones would die.
She forced herself to listen quietly, her chest tightening with each word. By the time he finished, rage burned so hot she could barely breathe.
“I’m going to kill him.”
Khorrek’s mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “You?”
“Me. Vorlag. An army of angry orcs. I don’t care. But that man cannot be allowed to continue.” She gripped his uninjured hand. “Khorrek, you can’t let this happen.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“Not for me. Not for what I am.”
“And what are you?”
“A weapon. A tool. What he made me.”
Hearing the absolute certainty in his voice threatened to break her. He believed it.
“No.” Her voice came out harder than she’d intended. “You’re a person. You have thoughts and feelings and worth beyond what that monster decided.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand perfectly. He broke you when you were a child. Conditioned you to obey. Made you believe you were nothing without him.”
She rose and stood directly in front of him, looking down at this massive orc who could break her in half without effort, and who sat before her like a lost child.
“But conditioning can be broken, Khorrek. You don’t have to be what he made you.”
“I can’t disobey. Can’t even think about it without—”
He stopped. His entire body tensed. There it was—the chains he’d talked about.
“Without it hurting? Without feeling like you’re betraying everything you were taught?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the chains talking. Not the truth.”
“The chains are the truth. They’re all I have.”
“You have me.”
The words came out before she could think better of them.
Do I mean that?
She examined the thought. Turned it over like one of her artifacts.
Yes. I do.
When had this orc warrior become someone she’d risk everything for? Maybe it started at the stone circle. When I looked up and saw someone just as lost as I was.
Khorrek looked up at her, his golden eyes holding so much pain that her chest ached. “You’re not mine to have.”
“Maybe I want to be.”
She leaned down and gently pressed her lips to his. It was an offering. A promise.
I see you. Not the weapon Lasseran made. But you.
Khorrek froze. She could feel the tension in his body, the war between what he’d been taught and what he wanted.
Then he pulled away.
“I’ll hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
“I’m broken. Damaged. I don’t know how to be anything but what he made me.”
She cupped his face, gently stroking her thumb across his scar.
“Then learn. You’re already different than you were at the stone circle. Already questioning. Fighting against the conditioning.”
“It’s not enough.”
“It’s a start.”
She kissed him again, and this time, he surrendered. His hands came up, gentle despite their size. One cupped the back of her head, and his damaged hand settled lightly on her waist.
The kiss deepened and her heart hammered against her ribs. Her skin felt too tight.
I’ve never done this.
Academic life hadn’t left much room for romance and the few times she’d come close, she’d always ended up overthinking it and spoiling the moment.
She’d decided sex wasn’t for her, and had filed it away with other things she didn’t understand—modern art, the appeal of reality television, why anyone would voluntarily eat cilantro.
But this. This was different.
Khorrek’s mouth turned demanding. His tusks pressed against her cheeks, but his hands trembled with his attempt to restrain himself. As if he were terrified of breaking her, of losing control.
She pulled back slightly, and looked into his eyes.
“I want this. Want you.”
“Thea—”
“Don’t argue. Don’t think. Just… be with me. Please.”
She watched him break. Saw the moment the conditioning lost its grip, and he chose her over thirty-five years of obedience.
“All right.”
Relief flooded through her.
She took his good hand and led him to the bed. Her hands shook as she climbed onto the mattress and pulled him with her.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
But Khorrek touched her with aching gentleness, as if she were infinitely precious.
He kissed her again, slower this time, as his good hand traced her side over the thin fabric of her nightgown, mapping her body with careful reverence.
“Tell me if I hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
“I could. Easily.”
“But you won’t. I trust you.”
She felt him shudder.
When was the last time anyone said that to him? When was the last time anyone trusted him with something other than violence?
His lips moved to her throat, her collarbone, and she gasped, arching into him.
Oh.
Oh that’s…
Her nightgown disappeared. She wasn’t sure how and she didn’t care as his mouth found her breast. She tangled her fingers in his hair and tugged him closer. He growled, and the sound vibrated through her. Primal. Right.
“More,” she demanded, and he gave her more.
He found places that made her gasp, made her mind go blissfully, wonderfully blank. She’d spent her entire life thinking, living in her head, he forced her into her body, into sensation and need and feeling.
His clothes vanished as well and she lost the ability to speak.
Muscles, scars, and an enormous green cock cock, glistening in the lamplight.
He should have been intimidating, but all she could think was that she wanted to touch all of him.
To map his body with her hands and mouth the way he was mapping hers.
He stroked his fingers through her folds, making her gasp, then carefully inserted first one thick finger and then another. He gently parted them, stretching her, preparing her, but she squirmed impatiently.
“I want all of you,” she said breathlessly.
He moved over her, his body a heavy weight that was the most perfect thing she had ever felt. He nudged against her entrance, his eyes searching hers.
“This might hurt,” he said quietly.
“I know the biology.”
Despite everything, he huffed a soft laugh. “Of course you do.”
“Khorrek?”
“Yes?”
“Stop talking.”
He kissed her again, deep and thorough, and then he pushed inside. Pressure. Fullness. A sharp sting that faded almost immediately. A startled gasp escaped her lips and he paused.
“Don’t you dare stop.”
He huffed another laugh, slowly pushing deeper, stretching her to an almost painful degree. She froze, her body adjusting to the sheer size of him and he held still, letting her get used to the intrusion, a low growl rumbling in his chest.
“Relax,” he rumbled.
“Easy for you to say,” she gasped, but her body obeyed.