21. A Hunt and a Challenge #5
“I mean it this time. I promise.” His breath chuffed against my neck.
“You’re nice to look at, but I can make you stop thinking later.
” He lowered himself onto the bed beside me, white teeth flashing, dark lashes shuttered as the torchlight played over his skin.
“Am I allowed to touch you? Is that ‘fair?’”
I couldn’t remember what my point had been, tried to think. “...I think so. Yes.”
“Tell me if something feels wrong, then.” He found my shoulder, my hip. “May I kiss you again?”
I was breathless. “Yes,” I said. “A thousand times, yes.”
It was both foreign and right, getting to touch, to rest and wonder over each other's skin, whispered negotiations and smothered gasps.
I'd forgotten how large he felt when he entered me, the pleasant totality of that stretch, the slowness of coming together, ginger and gentle, and then the force as the speed of his breathing caught up with mine.
And he did kiss me. His mouth was against mine as I cried out, as the tension inside me shattered into heat and light and the walls lit around us, glowing symbols travelling up the rock.
And his face was buried in my neck when he gave himself to me.
We lay in the rippling light, panting, both of us.
“That…was good,” I got out. “S’nice.”
He rolled his head to rest against mine. “A good start. Yeah.” His chest rose and fell.
“You liked it too.”
He nodded. “Yes, barbarian, that was me liking it very much.”
I was nodding. It felt like I’d melted, like I was a pool of butter with all the sharp bits taken away. “...I’m going to have to learn Orcish.”
He chuckled again, the sound echoing in that tight space, refracting with the light off those walls. “That’s what you’re thinking about now?”
“I just realized we get to be together. And your mother was right, if we have a child…”
His hand on my thigh stilled.
Had I said the wrong thing? “You did want one, didn’t you?” I whispered. “A child?”
He was quiet, and I felt my hopes squeeze into something tight and small. “...I’ve thought about it,” he said, husky. “I’d like to be the father I was denied. …and they would be beautiful. Once they weren’t babies. All babies are ugly—"
“They are not!”
“Yes, they are, they’re all cheese-covered and swollen and smashed-faced—"
“No, you listen here, I apprenticed with a midwife—"
“So you should know this—"
“No! Because sometimes they’re breech and they’re not smashed-faced at all and they’re just pretty—"
“Annora, I’m fine with them being ugly.”
“—and even when they’re ugly they’re still cute—"
“I never said they weren’t cute, I said ugly—"
“They are not!”
“We are going to have to disagree on this.”
“No, I’ll just have to show you…” and then my face went hot, and the room went quiet between us.
The side of his mouth twitched. “Is that your plan, then?” he said. “Are you going to show me?”
How could I be so bashful still, after what we’d just done? “...maybe,” I mumbled.
“Maybe?” he grinned.
I had to be scarlet, my face was so hot. “Maybe.”
He leaned in to kiss me again.
When we pulled apart I breathed out, “But you’ll teach me?”
“To make a baby?” His eyebrows were raised high.
“No. Orcish. You’ll teach me?”
“Yeah. Of course.” He leaned back in to kiss. “Let’s see if I can make you light the walls up again—"
“Wait. Wait.” I covered his lips. “I’m serious about this. I’m already on the outside, if we have a child they can’t speak mostly Common. What if they look…”
“Khal is half-human, Annora. His kids are going to be three-quarters.” That did nothing to assuage this fear. “I will teach you. I promise. You’ll speak Orcish.” He nudged my hand out of the way.
“Then teach me something.”
He breathed deep, closed his eyes. Maybe it was nice, that I wasn’t afraid to annoy him. That I knew I was safe to be annoying. “Alright,” he said. “T’thriss alakh.”
“T’thriss ah—
“—alakh.”
I repeated it. “What does it mean?”
“Kiss.” His lips brushed mine, and I forgot my argument. I forgot everything till I was crying out in his arms. And we did light up the walls again. This time I saw they were runes that sputtered and glowed, that they circled the ceiling and traveled up the one podium under the torch.
“Your voice does that.” He lay stretched out, that self-satisfied smirk on his face again.
I curled into him. “Is that normal?”
“I don’t think so. Let me try.” He shouted, an imitation of my yell. The walls stayed empty. “Try it again.”
He reached for me again, and I shoved his hand away, “No, wait!” I sent out a trill, sang a run, watching the symbols glow and the light travel.
“See?” he said. “Even the stones know you belong here with me.”
There was probably more to it. The runes had to mean something.
That my voice lit them had to, too. Whatever that connection was, it wasn’t necessarily good.
But he was smiling, pushed himself up onto one arm, and none of that felt important anymore.
“Are you ready?” he said. “I have…so many words to teach you.”
He was teasing. I knew it. There was so much ahead of us that wouldn’t be this sweet. But I nodded, because suddenly it seemed like I couldn’t imagine anything better than long nights learning with him, his voice in my ear, his words on my stammering lips. “Yes,” I said. “I’m ready.”
It was a long night.