The younger orc snaps to attention on the other side of the chamber. “What?” he calls.
But Steagor doesn’t respond. He seems beyond reason and charges forward like an enraged bull. Neekar looks around as if searching for exits, then jumps the fence, landing between the two warriors who have quit their sparring to stare at the commotion. Without pausing, Neekar snatches the long wooden staff from the male’s hands and turns toward Steagor, bracing himself.
“Oh, fuck.”
The king lets go of Dawn and sprints after Steagor, but he’s several steps behind. Steagor clears the fence and barrels on, apparently oblivious to everyone but Neekar, who has gone gray in the face but is standing his ground bravely. As Steagor reaches him, Neekar swings the staff, but either he’s not skilled with it or he’s hesitating over hitting his friend, because Steagor ducks under the blow and tackles him, wrapping his arms around Neekar’s chest.
I yelp in horror, but the sound is lost under Steagor’s bellow, Neekar’s surprised cry, and the calls of onlookers who are either yelling at Steagor to stop or egging him on.
The two orcs sprawl on the floor, dust flying, and roll around, wrestling, until they stop with Steagor on top.
“Why is your scent all over her?” Steagor bellows, his face close to Neekar’s.
He swings his arm back—whether to smash a fist in Neekar’s face or do something even worse, I don’t know—but then King Gorvor is there, hauling Steagor off the younger orc with brute force.
“Calm yourself,” the king snarls, locking Steagor’s head in a tight grip that has his muscles popping.
Steagor struggles, trying to throw him off. “He touched Poppy. I’ll kill him!”
That—the thought that Neekar might get hurt because of me—unsticks my feet from where I was standing, and I rush forward, calling out to Steagor. “Stop it! He didn’t do anything!”
The sound of my voice must finally cut through Steagor’s fury, because he goes still in the king’s headlock and turns to me, his dark eyes blazing.
“Then why does my shirt smell like him?” he demands.
I reach the fence but stay on this side of it because I don’t want to embarrass myself by trying to clamber over it in a dress. “He helped me find Mara and Dawn,” I explain. “He escorted me through the corridors.”
Steagor stares at me for a long moment, then taps the king’s thick arm twice. The king hesitates, then releases him. Steagor draws a shaking hand over his face, smearing dirt and dust on his skin, then turns back to Neekar, who is still sitting on the floor, looking more than a little shocked.
Steagor offers him his hand. “Forgive me.”
Neekar glances from him to me, and a mischievous grin lights up his face. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but the king makes a cutting motion with his hand, and the younger male clamps his mouth shut once more. Instead, Neekar takes Steagor’s hand and allows him to draw him to his feet.
“No harm done.” He dusts himself off. “I guess I’ll have to work more on my long staff skills.”
Steagor shakes his head. He doesn’t say anything, only looks at the king, and some sort of silent communication passes between them. The king’s stern frown morphs into an expression of resignation and disappointment when Steagor shakes his head.
What is going on?
Then Steagor climbs over the fence, more slowly this time, and lands right in front of me. Before I can either berate him for attacking poor Neekar or do anything else, he grabs me by the waist and swings me over his shoulder. I yelp and try to find something to hold on to, but all I touch is warm, damp linen, and underneath it, unyielding muscle. I lift my hands off Steagor’s back as if burnt.
“Put me down,” I cry, kicking, but all that gets me is a tighter grip around my thighs.
Steagor marches from the practice hall, and my face burns in humiliation from Dawn’s amused expression, which I can only partially see through the mess of my loose-hanging hair. She gives me a cheerful wave, and I want to yell at her for being a bad friend—who on earth lets her friend be carried out like a sack of grain?
But Steagor enters the corridor before I can shout at the gathered crowd who seem to think nothing of this. It’s a different path than the one I took with Dawn and Mara, and it doesn’t take him long to reach his room. He kicks the door open, carries me inside, and bolts the door behind us, locking us in.
“Steagor, let me go!” I kick again, then pummel his back with my fists, but it does about as much as if I was hitting a rock.
The big male stands completely still, only his rapid breaths testifying to his state of distress. He grips my legs, and the way he wraps his large palm around the underside of my thigh has my belly flip-flopping in a strange way.
Or maybe it’s that I’m hanging upside down and about to throw up everything I’ve eaten today. I’m not sure what to do with these sensations, and I can only brace myself against Steagor’s muscles, waiting for him to come to a decision.
The orc presses his face to my hip and inhales deeply. The groan he lets out is the sound of someone in pain, and I struggle again, worried now that he’s been hurt—either by sparring with the king or by tussling with Neekar.
“Please,” I beg, “let me down.”
That word finally gets his attention. More carefully now, he holds my waist and slides me down his body. I flail, trying to find purchase on his still-damp shoulders, but something stops me.
I might be imagining it, but surely the male anatomy isn’t always this…hard?
My booted feet hit the floor, and I sway from the sudden rush of blood from my head. Instinctively, I claw my fingers into Steagor’s shoulders, clinging to him. That thick ridge jutting from behind his leather pants presses against my belly, and my mind goes blank.
Completely and utterly blank.
Then my heartbeat speeds up, thundering in my ears, and that strange fluttering sensation returns to my belly, then sinks lower, to parts of me I’ve never dared think about. I tip my head back to look at Steagor, because I need someone to explain what’s happening to me—and he’s the only one here.
His dark eyes burn with intensity as he takes me in, sliding his gaze from my eyes to my mouth and lower, to my neckline. I wasn’t sure Mara and Dawn were right earlier when they insisted Steagor would want to see me in this dress, but he seems arrested. Captivated.
His right hand twitches from where he’s still holding my waist to brush the underside of my breast. I’ve never been touched there, and that slight contact sends goosebumps blooming all over my skin. My nipples tighten like they did earlier in the hot bath, and I drag in a deep breath, which only strains the fabric of my dress more.
I need something, but I have no idea what, or how to get it. I shuffle my feet restlessly, trying to get closer to Steagor, because he seems to be the one inciting these sensations in me, so maybe he can help—
But the scuff of my boots on the floor seems to snap him out of the moment. He steps away and releases me, and I barely keep myself from pitching forward, caught as I am in his presence.
“We will start tomorrow,” he rasps.
I blink at him, frustration and confusion warring inside me. “What?”
“We need to find you a husband,” he says. “So we start tomorrow.”
“B-but wait,” I say, “you can’t—”
“Your father made a request of me,” he talks over me. “I intend to honor it.”
The way he speaks is different from what I’ve heard from him so far. I hate that he has gone cold, that he’s drawing away from me even though I want him close. My body is demanding something, and I don’t know what to do to make it stop. But I’m certain it has everything to do with this orc—and not with some human man he wants to set me up with.
“I don’t want to find a husband,” I say, jutting out my chin.
He glowers down at me. “What do you mean? Of course you do.”
I glower right back. “Well, maybe I do, eventually, but I don’t want to marry some stranger.”
He crosses his massive arms over his chest, and I try to keep my gaze on his face, I do, but his muscles are just so big and green, it’s very hard not to stare at them. And I am a weak woman, at least where he is concerned.
I’ve learned more about bodies in the scant days I’ve been here in the Hill than I have in all my previous twenty-two years.
“How will you meet the right man to marry if you refuse to meet with them?” he says, his expression smug.
All right, he has me there. But something doesn’t sit right with me, especially given the way my body is responding to his—and his to mine. Or do men walk around all day with their cocks hard and straining against their pants? Surely that would be uncomfortable?
But Steagor is backing away from me as if he doesn’t want anything to do with me. What is going on?
“Why did you attack Neekar?” I blurt out. “Why did it bother you so much that his scent was on me? Mara’s was, too, and Dawn’s, but you didn’t try to smash their faces in.”
He drops his chin to his chest. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry you had to witness it.”
“But why did you?” I insist, taking a step forward.
“I thought he hurt you,” he mumbles, but his gaze darts sideways as he says it.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Are you lying to me?”
He presses his lips in a stern frown and remains quiet.
“Neekar wouldn’t hurt me, would he?” I ask softly and close more of the distance between us.
I’m drawn to the male in front of me by some unexplained force. With him, I’m safe, and I don’t have to worry about anything in the outside world. No more cold nights in the woods. No more running from my stepmother.
“No, he would not hurt you,” Steagor agrees grudgingly.
I cock my head to the side. “So why can’t I choose him to be my husband?”
Steagor’s skin pales to a strange greenish-gray tone, and he looks like he might be sick. “You cannot take an orc husband.”
“Why?” I demand, my hands at my hips. “Dawn married Gorvor, and she seems very happy.”
I don’t know why I’m pushing him like this. I’m not even sure I want an orc for a husband, but if I had to choose, I suppose Neekar wouldn’t be a bad choice. He’s handsome, funny, and seems to like me well enough, which is more than I can say about any of the nameless strangers out in the human world.
“It doesn’t work that way for orcs,” Steagor growls. “Dawn and Gorvor are—”
He cuts off his words abruptly and turns from me.
“Dawn and Gorvor are what?” I cry. “Special? Different? Why can’t I have what Dawn has?”
And that’s the issue right there. I have never seen a human man kiss his wife with so much passion—and in public, too. The way the king focused on her left me with a ball of jealousy in my gut, and I remembered every ballad I’d ever heard of lovers who followed each other into death or faced insurmountable challenges to be together.
That’s what I want from my husband. A devotion so fierce, he wants to be with me no matter who is watching.
I don’t remember enough about my mother to know how she and my father lived their lives together, but I certainly know that my father would never have kissed my stepmother in public. Theirs was a cold marriage born of convenience and a misguided sense of duty, and it’s far from what I want for myself.
I want to be kissed. And cherished. And—and loved.
And if it was an orc who gave me all of that, I would accept him and love him back.
So why not Neekar?
“Neekar is not for you,” Steagor forces out through gritted teeth. His tusks flash in the low light, appearing more savage than before. “Four nights ago, you were worried he would eat you in the forest, were you not?”
And though I want to argue, I do agree with him—not on the eating part, I got over that fast, but on the fact that Neekar is not for me. Even when he had slung his arm around my shoulders and tucked me close to his tall body, I didn’t feel an ounce of attraction I feel toward—
My thoughts grind to a halt.
Heat rushes to my face, and it all becomes clear. Embarrassingly, painfully clear.
I have developed a crush on Steagor. On my guardian.
I turn on my heels, quickly, hoping he didn’t catch any of the emotions that are surely written all over my face. Because I don’t think I could stand the mortification of him knowing how I feel about him—not when he’s clearly trying to get rid of me in the fastest manner possible.
“I don’t need your help finding a husband,” I say quickly. “And I absolve you of all duty. I think Mara or Dawn might help me find work here. I-I’m good with a needle, and there’s always work for a seamstress, right? I’ll find another place to stay, too. I don’t want to bother you…”
I trail off because he’s not saying anything. I don’t dare look back at him. What if he sees the truth?
“You are not to leave this room,” he says finally, his voice low. “And be ready early tomorrow. We’ll try the closest village first.”
The door opens and closes, and I’m still staring at the wall in front of me, not able to move. Tomorrow, Steagor will drag me to some human village and try to find a man to marry me. What kind of a husband does he have in mind for me? The first one who will have me without a dowry?
I try to swallow past the lump in my throat, but then my eyes start to sting, so I kick off my boots and crawl into Steagor’s bed even though it’s barely past midday. The sheets smell like him, which is the last straw. I wrap myself in a cocoon and let the tears fall, biting my arm to muffle the worst of the sobs, because the last thing I want is for some orc with sharp ears to hear me through the door and report to Steagor or my new friends.
They have given me everything. My freedom, food, clothes, and a place to sleep, all after they nursed me back to health. I should be grateful—and I am, I really am. But something about Steagor’s plan doesn’t sit well with me, and I can’t explain it. It’s nothing that my father wouldn’t have done if he was still alive. There was always the expectation that I would marry, preferably well, and settle down with a family.
So why am I chafing so hard against this?
I dry my tears on Steagor’s sheets and settle in to think. There is no guarantee that we will even find a marriageable man who would want me as his wife. And I’m almost certain Steagor won’t force me to wed someone completely horrible. After all, my father’s letter said he should find me the right man, so if he insists on following those instructions, I will insist on following them perfectly.
And in the meantime, I will think of a way to rid myself of this ridiculous crush that will only serve to embarrass me if Steagor ever finds out. I’ll desensitize myself to him, and soon, I’ll be able to be in his vicinity without wanting to touch his skin all the time.
I don’t know how, but I’ll do it.
I have to. Because the other option—that of letting him know how I feel—is completely impossible.
