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To all the oldest daughters who take the world onto their shoulders. You deserve your own hunky green halfling.
In a camp full of big, loud kin, Orla had had to get good at sensing danger coming. They were never truly safe, even being the mother of the clan chief’s child.
As chief, his father Ulrek boasted the biggest tent, though Orek and his mother were rarely allowed inside. Orla never wanted to go inside, anyway. Orek didn’t like when she went, either. It always ended with her crying for days, miserable and in pain.
Although Orek’s father was chieftain, Orla wasn’t the chief’s mate. She was a human slave, bought almost ten years ago for Ulrek and kept here ever since as his servant and sometimes bedmate.
But the tears kept coming, and he sobbed, “Mama…mama…” again and again, as if that would summon her back, as if he could make her change her mind and take him, too.
Orla had been right. That night, Krul challenged his father for leadership. And won.
“They bought you?” he asked in his mother’s tongue. She gasped around the gag, gawking at his mouth. He cleared his throat and tried again; it had been so many years since he’d used the human words.
Gracelessly, she clambered onto his back and hooked her legs around his waist and arms around his neck.
Piggyback rides!
His wide lips pulled back across big teeth, mostly human in shape. No orcish tusks, but his lower eyeteeth were almost twice as long as a human’s, jutting up like fangs. They set evenly when his mouth clicked closed, hidden again behind lips twisted in discomfort.
“They named you Orek the orc?”
Her thighs were thick with muscle but curved in a markedly feminine way, and her breasts… He had to stop noticing and thinking about those.
Their nearest neighbors, the Sharp-Tooth and Green-Back clans, were also their hated enemies.
She’d heard whispers of other half-orcs, as well as dragons and manticores that used their magic to take more human forms in order to take human mates. There had even been stories of half-fae, when the ethereal beings had still roamed the kingdom.
Around the next tree, they found a little grizzled gray body wriggling on the forest floor not far from a sprawling oak tree.
“It’s a raccoon kit,” he said. Sorcha came up behind him to see the poor creature. Perhaps a few weeks old, its eyes were open and staring wide at them in its black mask markings. It held still in the face of bigger animals, but its little body quivered with terror.
When the kit calmed a little, he pulled his jerkin away from his chest and placed the baby between the leather and his tunic. Kept warm but somewhat immobile, the kit’s nose twitched and it made a little squeak, but it didn’t fight to free itself.
“I will care for him,” he said. “Perhaps I can return him later. They heal quickly.”
The kit squeaked happily and flexed its little claws in grabbing motions, demanding more. Orek pulled bits of meat and carrot from his bowl of stew, waiting until they were lukewarm to bite them into smaller portions.
Running a finger down its head and back, the kit yawned and squeaked happily, rooting into the warmth of Orek’s chest.
“Darrah.” “Is that orcish? What does it mean?” “It is…little acorn.” Another blush crept up Orek’s neck. “Because he fell from a tree.”
That smile could ask things of him no one else had or would. It was terrifying to realize he’d likely give whatever that smile asked of him.
Even if Orek hadn’t brought Sorcha here, if he’d parted ways with her that first night, or even if he’d merely cut her bonds and sent her on her way, he’d still be blamed in full. They’d say he’d stolen her for himself. A dark, ugly voice inside him wished that were so. Take her, hide her, claim her.
Don’t leave her, keened the beast. What could it hurt if he stayed? Just for a little while. Just to make sure.
“No one’s gonna help you here,” spat a woman to Sorcha’s right. “Get out of here, orc-slut. Run while you can,” hissed another.
gloaming
Dusk
distance. To his amazement, a smile blossomed across her face as he neared. To his frustration, his cock gave an interested kick in his braies.
And worst of all, she’d found one of those contraptions human women wore to support their breasts and middles. It emphasized the dip of her waist, lushness of her hips and thighs, and of course the generous swells of her breasts.
She’d done that thing with her hip, pushing it to the side and angling it up. Her arms were gathered under her breasts, pushing them up to devastating effect, though he didn’t think she did this part on purpose.
It was satisfying to have her own bedding and not worry if he’d be cold or uncomfortable. Still, as she settled into her blankets, she couldn’t help but miss the nest he’d made her those handful of nights.
Orek had tied his long hair up into a messy knot, and the kit seemed fascinated, toying with it in his little raccoon hands. Once in a while, he’d feel a little wet, snuffling nose or exploring lick against his neck, making him shudder.
Awwwwwwwww
Darrah made a large, smacking yawn right in his ear, and he spread the baby around the back of his neck like a scarf. The kit squeaked happily, sniffed his hair, and promptly fell asleep with a belly full of berries.
“If you want her, come get her,” he growled, the raging beast inside sliding over his vision in a veil of red. Orek lurched forward, swinging—the man opened his mouth— The hatchet cracked open the man’s skull, blood spraying across the forest floor, and Orek let the beast reign.
“I’m not soft,” she growled, and spat in the man’s bleeding face. The slaver glared, hand trying to stymie the blood that gushed from his ruined cheek. The blade had caught him deeper than she thought, cutting his cheek down to his lip, widening his mouth into a macabre sneer.
Throwing another dark look her way, he grumbled, “Fuck this,” and turned to run back into the trees.
He'll be back
In the quiet of the forest, she saw him. Saw the little knicks and scars that patterned his skin. Saw the single gold loop pierced through his pointed right ear. Saw the lack of tusks but still distinctly inhuman shape of his mouth. Saw the freckles and finely wrought cheekbones.
His possessiveness over this human woman had awoken the beast sleeping inside him, and now that it was awake, its entire focus was her.
The sounds had wrenched at him, pulling at things inside him he hadn’t known existed. Soft, desperate things that wanted to soothe and protect and care for.
It was the fifth night after the attack, and just like all the others, Orek had found a moment to slip away into the dusk to take himself in hand. He’d mercilessly worked his cock, imagining it was her smaller, softer hands instead, dreaming what her touch must feel like. He’d grit his fangs and snarl her name as he released into the river, letting it carry away the scent-heavy spend and his sharp, aching longing—momentarily, at least.
He didn’t care that it was often to tease him—no, he actually enjoyed that, lived for her every word, even if it was at his expense. Because it meant she was easy with him. Because it meant she saw him not as a danger but as a…friend.
Now, though, all he could think of was her. What sounds she would make as he moved and twisted his hips just so, bringing her more pleasure than either of them could stand, haunted his sleeping and waking thoughts.
A larger part, though, didn’t care. That part wanted her scent in his lungs and her smiles in his life.
But when he looked upon Sorcha, he wanted all those things but so much more. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and hold her so close she became part of him, so close she could never leave nor part with him. He wanted to know what it was to be inside her, surrounded by her warmth, and hear her moans echo in his ear.
She felt herself quickening at the thoughts and turned toward the tree trunk since she couldn’t ease the growing pressure in her quim.
As their days together grew, so too did Sorcha’s notice of him. She anxiously awaited those small smiles of his, found that hint or flash of his fangs charming. While she may have at first found the breadth of his shoulders and chest intimidating, more than once she’d imagined running her hands all over that expanse of green flesh, feeling the strength of him for herself.
Sorcha needed friends. You don’t fantasize about friends taking you hard and fast against the nearest tree.
Orek tossed two gold coins down on the stall counter. The coins landed with a resounding smack, one wobbling on its rim with a deafening ring in the silence before coming to lay flat. “For all of them,” Orek said, and nothing more.
That was how, before making camp for the night a mile out of town, Sorcha took part in a great raccoon emancipation. The gold Orek gave the merchant bought the awful traps too, and they carried the animals far into the forest before releasing them.
Orek caught the axe aimed straight for his head with his knife. Sorcha screamed as Silas fell upon Orek, a flurry of limbs and sharp teeth.
Blood burned one palm, but the memory of her kiss seared the other. He still had his fist closed around that palm, keeping the feel of her lips against his skin close.
Sorcha. My mate. My female.
