Chapter 2 #2
“Good morrow,” I murmured, although I wasn’t sure why I bothered with niceties. I set my tray near the orc’s knees and forced myself to edge closer to him.
“I have brought you food.”
“I smell it,” he grunted quietly. “Why did ye send away the guard?”
Had he noticed that? I glanced at the stone corner, around which I knew the man was savoring the pottage I’d helped make this morning.
I was surprised to hear myself admit, “Because my father says he wants me to keep you alive, but he did not give me permission to heal you.”
The orc’s remaining brow rose. I couldn’t tell if it was surprise or challenge. “And is that your intent, Lillian?”
I shivered at the sound of my name on his lips.
To distract myself from his dark gaze, I turned to my tray, squatting to reach my supplies. “I brought you yarrow tea to ease your pain.”
He still watched me. I turned to face him, cupping the tea in both my hands. He rose on his knees, lifting himself from his haunches. I hesitated, but realized his hungry gaze had dropped to the tea.
Of course. He must be thirsty.
This time when I held the cup to his lips, this new position allowed him to drink greedily without missing a drop.
“Ah, Malla the Beginner,” he murmured, dropping back to his haunches with a sigh. “I thought my throat was made from sand.”
Was that a joke? I flashed an uncertain peek up at him and found him watching me again.
“You are still fevered?” I blurted.
“Aye, delirious.” His tone was almost teasing. “I have imagined you in my cell many times these last hours, Lillian.”
My hands shook as I turned back to the tray. Why did his attention make me so uncomfortable?
Because you have never had such attention before.
“You were merely thirsty,” I told him as I poured him more yarrow tea. “This will bring down your fever and heal your insides.”
This time he didn’t drop my gaze as he drank and I found my own throat dry.
His skin might still bear the marks of my father’s men’s blades and cudgels, and fever might still battle in his chest…but there was something different about him today. Stronger.
Had yesterday’s weak broth and meager sunlight caused that?
Or had I?
I wished I could drink some of the tea to force myself to swallow. Instead, I scooped up the bowl I’d hidden beneath a cloth to keep it from the guard’s eyes. I did not want him to see I planned to feed the prisoner the same pottage I’d given him.
“Y-you will need to…” I forced myself to stop shaking. “Your strength. My father expects you to stand in front of his guests on Hogmanay, so you will need to get stronger.”
The orc made a show of flexing his arms…but the chains allowed him to move only a few inches. I nodded—satisfaction that he couldn’t hurt me? Or agreement?—and inched closer, my knuckles white around the handle of the spoon I gripped.
“I will feed you,” I whispered.
Was it my imagination, or did his lips twitch before he obediently opened them?
His tusks gleamed.
I couldn’t look away, remembering the stories I’d heard of how they were used as weapons.
What did my sisters and cousin endure even now, as prisoners of these beasts? Had their husbands used these weapons on them? Poor Effie, who had endured so much pain and horror here at Tarbert…
I shuddered.
“Lillian,” he whispered, and my eyes closed.
“I am sorry.” Why was I apologizing to a prisoner? “I was thinking about my sisters.” Why was I explaining myself?
“The ones Mated to Bladesedge orcs?”
Mated. Was that their equivalent of marriage?
I shook my head, forcing myself to my task. Scooping up a spoonful of pork and vegetable pottage, I offered it to him.
“Sorcha is married to their chief,” I managed to say before his tongue snaked out toward the spoon.
Gasping, I almost spilled the spoon’s load as I jerked away from the sight, but recovered enough to shove it closer to his mouth.
The orc’s tongue was a pale green, much wider than a man’s…
and ridged. His tongue was ridged, with concentric ribs flowing from the tip, and flexible, considering how easily he drew the pottage into his mouth.
I’d never seen anything like it.
I also hadn’t expected him to groan in what sounded like pleasure, his eyes fluttering closed as he chewed.
“More,” he croaked, opening his mouth, his eyes still closed.
I spoon-fed him the stew bit by bit, watching in astonished fascination at the way his mouth and injured jaw moved, the way that tongue lapped up the drops from his lips and tusks and the spoon itself.
The poor male must be starved.
Nay, not poor male. He was a prisoner, aye? A violent beast.
A wounded beast, mayhap, but he has a name.
Aye. Kragorn.
His head jerked up and his eye opened. The right one was still swollen shut, angry and purple…but the other eye gazed right at me. I startled at the spark of green in the center.
“What?” I bleated stupidly.
“I thought ye said my name?”
I blinked. I’d thought it, but there’d been no way he might have heard my thought…could he? Was he a mind-reader as well?
Shaking my head, I dropped the spoon into the empty bowl and pressed my fingertips to my temple. His gaze followed, and I read concern there.
“Thank ye, Lillian. The stew was the best I’ve had since I left home. Ye flavored it the same way my grandmother does.”
“Really?” Despite my certainty I needed to remain aloof, I realized I was falling back on my lessons of politeness and deportment, and I forced myself to turn, to deposit the bowl and occupy my hands with pouring more tea.
“I learned that spice combination from my mother.”
“Then she must have been from Sterling.”
I whirled, eyes wide.
“She was,” I croaked. “How did you know?”
He lifted one shoulder—the one without the weeping wound—in what might have been a shrug. “Because that’s where Nan is from.”
I stared. “Your grandmother is…”
His lips twitched ruefully.
“A human? Aye. She was Mated to my grandfather for many years, ruled as his partner, until his death. The clan still looks to her for guidance until I take a Mate.”
I dropped the tea.