Page 9 of Wed to the Orc Captive

He snorted. “Most orcs don't believe being an orphan robs you of sentiment. I'm not going to call you heartless.” Water splashed. “I'm low on kin as well, but my kith will tell you I'm not a total asshole.” Kith. The orc had kith. I don’t know why that felt wrong.

“The orc you helped escape,” I got out. Keep him talking. “Was he your family?”

The splashing stilled, started again. “No. No, I met him a week ago.”

I remembered his threat, the feeling of his grip on my throat. “You seemed to care about him.”

“He had someone waiting for him.” And for the first time tonight his voice was cold. “If he'd been offered this ‘merciful chance,’ he'd have been choosing between death and oath-breaking.”

And now he was angry. Now I’d done it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Don’t be. I highly, highly doubt you were the mastermind of this.”

The splashing had stopped, a sound like cloth. And suddenly, in the dying light, I wanted very badly to delay what was coming any way there was.

I shouldn't be learning about him. The more human he was the harder he would be to kill. But no, that couldn't be true. I wasn't going to be a weakling trapped by sentiment. I could ask a question to delay the inevitable and still finish this. “You speak a lot of Common,” I rushed out.

He grunted. “My brother’s father spoke it.”

“You have a brother?” I whispered. I don’t know what I’d expected. They didn’t pop out of the ground.

“Shield-brother,” he said. “We worked together as mercenaries.” A gulp. He was drinking. How long had he not had water? “I picked it up for the cursing, and then…it was useful.”

I was nodding, in the darkness, my back still to the orc. “Useful for me,” I said.

He sounded wry. “Yes. You’d have had a much harder time manipulating one of the locals.” A deep breath. “Now then. To business.”

The cot moved behind me, and I felt myself turn to water and stone, the strips of dried seaweed heavy on my thigh.

A touch brushed my back, as he started at the ties. His voice in the cell sounded careless, bored. “Have you done this before?”

“No,” I whispered. A little kernel of rebellion twisted in my gut. “Have you?”

“I've had people use me for pleasure. I've never sealed an oath.” He didn’t sound annoyed. The stiffened bodice fell off my shoulders. He was talking. “‘A good time, not a lifetime,’ I think they say.” I crossed my arms, and he added, archly, “Not that I'm questioning your judgment in randomly choosing a husband based on looks. I'm sure you could have done worse.” He tugged at the shift. “I think you have to stand, wife.”

Right, standing. I was helping him. My legs were leaden, wobbly. I stepped out of the dress, stopped to hang it over the bars. “Do we have to take the shift off?” My voice didn’t sound like my own.

“Hmm?”

“The door. It isn’t locked, and…” I squeezed my eyes shut. The idea of Toddrick coming in here was somehow worse than the certainty of being punctured by this stranger.

“You don’t trust your people.”

I didn’t answer.

“Fair enough. Do you want to stand or lie down?”

I could hang onto these bars, probably, to keep my knees from buckling, and then I wouldn’t have to look at him. But maybe that was worse. Maybe it was better to see, to know at least this was my choice. “Lying down is fine.”

“Alright, then.”

The sun disappeared, and the room was in darkness. I moved back towards the deeper shadow, towards the warrior waiting on the cot, my hands out reaching for the wall. My fingertips brushed hot skin, and I gasped.

He laughed. “You can’t see in the dark,” he said. It was the closest I’d heard to a real laugh from him.

“No.” My heart was hammering in my chest. I clenched the thin skirt of my shift. “Do you?”

“When it's dark we stop seeing light, just heat. Like…” The cot creaked as he stood. “Here.” His touch grazed the hollow of my throat. “Here…” My cheek. I almost flinched. “And…other places.” He sounded like he was laughing at me. “Would you like me to help you find the bed?”