Wed to the Orc Warrior (Orc Wed #1)

Chapter 1

A WEDDING NIGHT

Ipulled in breath, willing my heart to still. I couldn’t let fear cloud my senses when I was, once again, the only rescuer I could rely on. The heavy door swung open, and I saw him for the first time, bile rising in my throat.

The orc stood at least six feet tall, the olive green of his skin typical of their kind.

Cut muscle and leather armor under furs.

My eyes reached his face and his gaze arrested me, golden-amber eyes piercing through me.

I had expected someone stupid, but this orc wasn't stupid.

His square jaw clenched, those white lower incisors- fangs?

- grinding. He was angry. He was angry and I was even more likely to die.

Father's minister shoved me forwards. "There's your payment, orc. She's blood of the baron, as you were promised."

The orc chieftain glared. The guard to his left- of course the orc had guards, and I hadn't even looked at, hadn't counted them- murmured something in their speech, rolling and liquid.

My groom spoke. "Do you think I'm a fool?

" He spat to the side, dark sputum on the earth floor. Blood? "This is not your princess."

"You dare argue with me?” The minister flushed. “You have received the terms of your—"

"There are rope burns on her wrists."

I pulled my hands further inside my sleeves.

"You want me to believe your lord bound his own daughter?"

"Discipline within the lord's household is not your concern—"

"It is if you're trying to pay me with a fake bride. I didn't bleed for you across two battlefields for you to trick me, field-man."

No, no, no, I couldn't let him complain, couldn't let them switch us now. Thea had to be safe. Damn the baron, damn all of them.

"My lord." I took another step forward. "I am his daughter."

He eyed me, silent.

I took another step, towards danger, towards annihilation. "The baron is a hard man, but he is not a liar." Because he has me to lie for him.

The orc king switched to the old language of Ka Morth. "If ye be royal, then you speak their old tongue." There were gasps behind me.

I answered in the same. "A little, and not well. I was a poor student. I will make a better wife." My throat constricted. "Please."

His glare, judging, appraising, seared on my skin. I begged with my eyes.

"I accept," he growled. "When will your priest come?"

The minister spoke impatiently. "It was assumed you would marry her under your own customs."

"I will not give your lord the chance to invalidate this ceremony.

Two times your knights have come to steal our brides, in Denethon first and Scarsbad.

There is no credit between us. You value oaths made in your own way.

We will be married by your rites and pass the night in your walls. You will not trick me, human."

So he meant for me to survive longer than a night. I did not know if that was reassuring or more frightening.

"A priest will be procured."

He looked back to me, used the old tongue. "We are using the ways of savages, but it is customary among my people that you ask something of me. What will you ask?"

My mind went blank. I forced my voice. "Your…your name. What is my husband's name?"

He blinked. "Khal. Drahza's son."

"Khal," I repeated.

I had no magic, not anymore. This had been proven, horribly, time and again. But when I said the name his shoulders stiffened, those amber eyes peering down as if they measured a spell.

More words were exchanged between the orcs and the frustrated minister. I was pulled away to prepare for a wedding to a monster. But I remembered that look.

Khal Drahza's-son expected me to survive this night in some form. If I learned his patterns, the thoughts that went with the movement of those eyes, there was a chance I could escape.

There was a chance I'd reach the freedom I had been fighting for so dearly, if only I could break this one lock.

Thea entered through the door the soldier was guarding, her hair a messy halo of gold, smudges under her wide eyes. "Rue!"

She fell into my arms. She was a year older than me, this delicate sister, but so much smaller. Maybe because her blood was finer. "They said…I could help you get ready."

I laughed at that, too harshly, and her arms tightened around me.

"Sorry, Thea," I got out. "I'm glad I get to see you again."

She pulled back. The shadows under her eyes were dark. She looked so frail. "I brought some things. They said…there would be a wedding. You are a baron's daughter. You should have something."

I gnawed my lip. Pillaging Thea's meager jewelry box turned my stomach, but if I did escape, far from these walls, it would be better to have something I could sell. “I will accept one thing. Something you don't like."

Her face was chiding. "Rue—"

"Your own mother didn't control her dowry. I'm not letting you send your treasures to orcs."

She stared down at her hands, angry, blinking. "I am sending what I love most to them. I don't care about trinkets. You should have…" She was crying.

A fist rapped at the door, and she dashed her tears away, answered. "Enter."

The soldier stuck his head in. "They found a priest. The girl will need to be in the chapel in another half hour."

Thea sat rigid. "She is getting married. She should be granted time for at least a bath."

"I don't make the orders, little miss."

Her eyes were bugging out of her head as she stared at her hands, like they did when she was fighting not to cry.

I grabbed her hand. "It’s okay, Thea. He's an orc. It won't matter."

She gritted her teeth. "Then you're taking one of my dresses. You're not getting married in that. It still has blood on the hem."

I let her have this. I didn't tell her a gown with blood was far more appropriate.

She’d brought a dress in light green. It was tight across the bodice, and the sleeves and hem were inches too short, but I didn't protest. It would just make it easier to run.

She had me sit, her nimble fingers combing through the dark mess of my hair and weaving a circlet of braids that fit a girl of her station. Of what was supposed to be my station.

"There. You look like a bride now." Her face was still pinched. "If I'm to see you given away, at least—"

"No. Absolutely not." I pulled away, turned to face her. "You are not coming to this wedding."

Her eyes brimmed. "You are my sister."

"You're not coming anywhere near them. That's why I proposed this.

That's why I did this. They're monsters.

And no one is looking out for us but us.

" Bring perfect Thea into a room full of orcs?

The moment they saw her they would know which was the noble daughter, which was the legitimate daughter.

Or, Thea was prettier than I was, by far— what if they said they'd take us both?

She buried her face in her hands. "I promised I'd take care of you," she said, muffled, this ghost of the round-faced girl I'd met in a room like this one, with different scuffs and wounds on my arms. "Rue, I promised. Till your m-magic came out."

I stopped pushing her away and pulled her into my chest.

Thea smelled like lavender and rushes, and I pressed my face into her hair. "You did. Now it's my turn, okay? Let me take my turn." A breath. "I have the best chance of getting away, don’t I? Don't worry about me. I always run away."

She pulled back. "I should have brought medicine. Your wrists—"

"I'm fine."

"They didn't hurt you?"

"I'm fine."

Her face scrunched up again.

A mailed fist banged on the door. "S'time."

"Wait." My sister rushed to the box she'd brought, pulled out a comb worked in silver, peonies etched down the side. She tucked it in my hair, and even she was wise enough to make sure that it was hidden. "For luck."

"We make our own luck." But I clasped her hand a second longer.

Her voice trembled. "I hope he's kind."

I thought of Khal Drazha's-son's snarling face, his insistence on avoiding annulment, and the attendant expectation that I would survive the night in his bed. "He is," I said. "For an orc."

The soldier actually laid a hand on me. "Time to go," he said.

Thea glared at him. "If I hear she's been hurt more, I will see to it you're punished." She was so unaccustomed to threats. My throat tightened at her trying to defend me, like a kitten facing a dog.

"Live well, Thea."

"Come on." The soldier pulled me. His grip on my arm was dismissive, not sadistic. But as we rounded a corner I still "accidentally" kicked his heel with my foot, let his movement pull his purse off of his belt into my hand to tuck into my waist pouch.

They were going to sell me. There was no need to act noble any longer.

The chapel had only the minister and the priest, a very few of my father's foot soldiers, and the orcs.

The orc warriors looked wary, antagonistic, as if they were waiting every moment for our people to pointlessly run at them and die.

I spotted Khal at the front near the small altar, talking to one of his men, a scowl etched between his brows.

The soldier kept his hold on me till we'd reached the front of the chapel. I pulled out of his grip. Khal's golden eyes caught this, and his frown deepened.

The minister's heel bounced in impatience. "All here. We can begin then."

My groom glowered. "Is your lord not attending his own daughter's ceremony?"

A tsk of irritation. "The baron has many affairs to put in order. He has sent me with his blessing."

The orc looked down at me. "And this is acceptable to you? Miss?"

His eyes were searing into me. It took me a moment to find my voice. "It's fine."

I would not think about what this meant, how thoroughly the man who’d dragged me off the Bowery streets had given up on making a daughter out of me.