Honor Among Orcs (Orc Saga) (17 page)

It was a long day spent in darkness, though not the absolute black of the tunnel they had taken from the castle. Bolthorn watched her carefully for discomfort, but when she began to lean against the passage wall, her hand pressed to her side, she still would not let him carry her.

Even so far inside, they could hear the wind howl. The crispness of the air took on a chill once they passed the last airshaft before the mouth. Winter had come to the mountain, just as he had feared. At least there would still be some sun for another month, weak and low, but sunlight all the same. He grimaced.

“Rest,” he told her, spreading the bear skin. “We’ll sleep here, where the rock is still warm.”

She sat against the wall, but frowned when he did not join her. “And you?”

“To scout ahead. I won’t be long.”

They had not spoken much while they walked, he from guilt and she from the effort it took her to keep on. Not that he did not admire her strength, or the stubborn insistence that kept her upright. Not that he did not love her silence as much as her voice.

The wind bit even through his own hide when he reached the entrance, and he stared in dismay at the thick drift of snow, blue-white in the fading sun. He would find no kindling for the blackrock he had carried bundled among their water skins, and worse, no prey. They would both go hungry this night, and had it only been himself, he would not have minded, but Arianna had spent herself to exhaustion, and tomorrow would be an even more difficult journey. He filled one of the skins with snow, for at least they would not lack water, and returned to Arianna.

She had piled the blackrock within the pale shaft of dusty light from the cleft in the rock above, and sat waiting, her knees drawn to her chest. Her cheeks, he realized, had reddened, and her nose as well. Even if he could not offer her food by magic, he could give her fire to warm herself. Perhaps.

There was only one way to light blackrock without kindling, and he had not used it since he was a boy, finding flint and steel more reliable than Elvish Persuasion. The earth did not always agree with what was required of it. He knelt beside the rocks to sort them, turning each piece over in his hands. Most were cold and sharp, but three warmed to his touch. Arianna shifted behind him and he knew she watched, no doubt with that small crease between her eyebrows.

He drew her father’s knife from his belt and pricked his thumb, smearing a small drop of blood over each of the three rocks. One gave up no soot in exchange, but two streaked black across the pad of his thumb. They were, unfortunately, the smallest. One at a time then, so if he smothered the first, he would not be without hope.

“I thought you said blackrock wasn’t magic,” she said.

“And so it isn’t,” he agreed. “It simply burns hot and long, provided there is kindling to light it.”

She moved to sit beside him. “I could cut my hair.”

The words twisted his stomach. Her hair was thick and dark and even if it were not too beautiful to be wasted for a fire, she would need all the warmth it gave her tomorrow.

He brushed a soft strand back over her shoulder. “I would cut my own, first, if need be.”

“How will you light it without kindling?”

“Elvish blood.” He showed her his thumb. “Pray to the Ancestors I remember the words.”

She sat back on her heels, tugging the cloak close around her shoulders. He ground his teeth. He would keep her warm, he promised himself. If he could only get her to the village, to his hut, it would be easier then. He could bury her beneath a mountain of furs if nothing else.

He set the first stone in the center of several others, and began whispering to it in Elvish while he struck sparks off the steel blade. One caught along the smear of his blood, and the rock sent a tiny tendril of smoke into the air before it sputtered and failed. It was one thing to take a person’s blood and use it against their bodies, another thing altogether to persuade something altogether unliving to do what was needed. Even when there was elf blood involved.

He tried again with the same result, too aware of Arianna watching his poor display. He growled, and picked up the other piece of blackrock, rolling it between his palms while he breathed on it and whispered encouragements. Was it not better, he asked the blackrock, to burn bright and warm? As smoke and cinder, it could travel much farther, be carried on the wind high into the sky. The stars were friendly, he told it, and perhaps they would share their ancient paths. New worlds waited beyond.

The rock warmed slightly in his hands, blackened now with dust.

Arianna glanced at him sidelong, then twisted a piece of her long hair around her finger and pulled a single strand free. “For luck,” she said.

He grunted, but let her wrap it around the blackrock. It could not hurt, even if it did not help. He set it in the center of the pile beside the rock that had not wished to burn, and struck the sparks.

The blackrock blazed, red hot veins bursting along the strand of her hair, and Arianna laughed in delight, warming him more than any flame. This was a much greater gift than any pleasure he might give her body. The freedom to find joy in small things, and laugh without fear of punishment. The freedom to live, however she wished.

Neither Lord Alviss nor her father would ever have offered her so much. They would have made a slave of her, lashing her to their wills until her spirit as well as her skin was flayed and broken. His jaw tightened at the thought.

Arianna looked up from the fire, now burning strong, and her smile faded. “What’s the matter?”

He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak lest his anger spill out and she think it meant for her. The water skin lay near at hand, and he took a long drink, letting the cool liquid quench the fire that had blossomed beneath his skin.

“Bolthorn, I am well. It was only the shock—”

He snorted. As well she thought him only concerned for her health. “Shock would not leave you curled upon your side, panting for breath. No, Princess. Let us not lie to one another. Not in this.”

She pressed her lips together, searching his face. “Come,” she said, drawing him from the fireside. “Forget this, and lie with me. Let me prove my health.”

“I would not hurt you again.”

“Then I will risk hurting you, instead.”

He almost smiled. “There is little you might do to pain me, Arianna, unless you bring a knife to your bed.”

“No.” Her fingers traced lightly over his ribs, unbandaged now, as they had been for days. “And if I tried, I would only make my own side ache. So you see,” she pushed him down on the fur, “there is nothing to fear, for I would not hurt myself, even if you had offended me.”

He chuckled and pulled her with him to lie upon his chest. Beneath the cloak, her gown lacked its bodice, leaving soft curves to press against his body.

She kissed him, just as he had her the night before, each brush of her lips on his skin lighting a spark of desire. His mouth, his jaw, his neck. She bit him gently, and he groaned, his fingers knotting in her hair.

He meant to tell her to stop, that he would wait until she was well again, all her wounds healed to scars and clean skin. He meant to draw her back up, to tell her she need prove nothing, but her tongue flicked across his nipple and the sparks of want flamed into a bonfire of need. Lower, she went, her breath tickling his stomach, and he realized what she meant to do, his body lurching. Was this what Alviss had asked of her? What Alviss had taken?

“Not like that,” he growled. “Not this time.”

He caught her hand upon the leather belt at his waist and rolled her beneath him, pinning her wrists above her head. Her wide eyes stared into his, a flicker of confusion in her features and a flash of something else. By the Ancestors, she would never look at him with fear again when he was finished. Never again.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Her cheeks burned with the sting of his rejection, and she turned her face away. She had thought only to pleasure him, to give him the release his body craved and smooth the scowl from his brow. She had wanted to give him the joy he had given her, before the pain, to show him that it could be done, before his people found them, and stole him away.

His hands slid down the length of her arms, and his lips brushed the pulse point at her neck. She closed her eyes and reminded herself to breathe.

“Look at me, Arianna.”

When she turned her face back to his, all she could see was warmth in the amber of his eyes, the anger gone as quickly as it had come. He sighed, dropping his forehead to hers.

“We go on together,” he murmured, his thumb skimming across her lips. “In this above all.”

And then he kissed her until the flush in her cheeks blossomed into shivering warmth, spiraling out from her belly where the hard length of his need thickened. She wanted to feel her skin against his again, to know the coarseness of each scar against her breasts.

“Please.” It was all she could manage against his mouth, but she felt his hand slide over her hip, gathering the velvet of her gown until his fingers met the flesh of her thigh. A breath of cold air came between them as he rose, tugging the gown over her head.

His eyes glowed golden in the firelight, devouring every curve of her body in a way she wished his hands would follow. He kissed her temple, and the bruise on her cheek, and caressed her skin with beautiful words she couldn’t hope to understand. And then his mouth reached her breast, and she didn’t care if they were curses for the pleasure that pulsed through to her core.

Her body hummed beneath his hands, her center slick and hot when he slipped his fingers inside. He had not dared to let her loose the belt at his hips before she was ready, unsure of his own control, but when her fingers wrapped around him, he could only groan. Anything, he thought, she could ask him for anything holding him this way, and he would promise it in blood. Her hand tightened, gliding over him from tip to root. But still he needed more. More of her body, more of her heat.

“Please,” she said again, pulling him close. “I need—”

He slid his hand down the smooth skin of her thigh, drawing her leg up to wrap around his hips. She was so narrow, so tight, when he pressed against her opening. So wondrously warm.

“You must guide me.” He closed his hand over hers, and steadied himself against the desire burning through him.

Slow and careful, he settled against her heat. He could not live with himself if he hurt her now, no matter the pleasure it would bring to be inside her. He listened to her heartbeat, to the hitch of her breath as he stretched her wider. Her hand tightened and he willed himself to still, his jaw tight.

“More,” she breathed, and he moved again, aching to plunge deep into her warmth. Again she stiffened, and again he stilled, but his hand was a fist in her hair, so tight his knuckles creaked. One thrust, and he could spear her. One quick thrust and she would be his, branded and bleeding. But she would never come to him again, never trust him again. He would be no better than Alviss.

He waited. He would wait forever, if she asked it of him. He would wait forever, even if she didn’t.

Slow and patient, and then he was there, they were there together, and she could breathe again. Bolthorn held himself above her, buried deep inside her body. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, and pulled him tight. Warm and hard and part of her, though for a moment she had feared he would not fit. He kissed her shoulder, then her neck, then her lips, and with his mouth on hers, he began to move.

Slow, and steady, always steady, until she moaned. Her hips rose to meet him, her body aching to be filled. Faster, deeper, and pleasure blossomed and burst behind her eyes, as she begged for more.

Bolthorn kissed her again. Her nose, her cheeks, her lips. He nuzzled the curve of her neck, tasting her skin, and his palm slid up her body to cup her breast. She arched her back and her whole body shattered beneath his touch.

“More?” His breath tickled her ear while her body shuddered in his arms. She felt his teeth graze the pulse beneath her jaw, and her nails dug deep into his back. More, and always, and forever.

“Never stop.”

He groaned, grasping her hip and pulling her hard against his body. Hard and fast and full, each stroke a reminder that she was whole. That she was his.

No matter what happened when they found his people, she would at least have this.

Arianna woke slowly wrapped in Bolthorn’s arms, his body cupped around hers. He kissed the back of her neck, his hand sliding up her hip to rest warm and rough at the curve of her waist. Her whole body ached, her skin prickling beneath his fingers and her muscles sore in places she had not realized might be strained.

“We have a long day ahead,” he said, but from his tone and the feel of his body at her back, she thought he might be tempted to delay, if she was willing.

She rolled to face him and he pulled her close. No matter how sore, she was not unwilling. Not when they had so little time to themselves.

When he kissed her, she went liquid in his arms, and when he had teased her to the point of begging and his body joined with hers, she only felt one ache. Deep and exquisite and uncoiling beneath his touch.

They found release together, a shudder traveling down her spine to where their bodies met, and he groaned her name against her neck.

The second time was even better than the first.

It was some time later, after they had left the shelter of the passage to forge their way through the snow, that she realized she shuddered still, too sensitive to even the touch of her gown against her skin and the weight of the fur on her shoulders. Her legs felt thick, aching deep in the bone, as if the frigid wind had reached inside them. Bolthorn’s lovemaking should not have made her bones ache in such a way. Dissolve, perhaps, when he peaked inside her, but not this.

She clenched her teeth hard against a shiver that threatened to rattle them, and pulled the bear skin closer around her body, following in Bolthorn’s wake. The snow had drifted higher than his knees, and the wind blew hard from the north. Arianna stayed close to his back and did not argue when he insisted he break a path for them through the snow.

How long would it be before he noticed if she fell? She reached out from beneath the warmth of the fur to grasp his belt. The cold bit her fingers, numbing them until they hurt. She stumbled. Even through the lined boots, she no longer felt her toes. Bolthorn slowed and she hid her face against his back, but his skin burned colder than ice.

Forgive me, Bolthorn.

Perhaps he had been right to fear for her, after all.

A woman’s voice carried in the howl of the wind, and Bolthorn stopped, feeling Arianna bump against his back. She had tucked her fingers into his belt, the warmth a shock to his frosted skin. He did not know how she could stand to touch him, coated in rime. If she had been looking for warmth, his body could not provide it.

His feet hurt, cut by the ice and rock beneath the snow as they had not been on forest mulch and sedge grass, but he would not freeze as long as he kept moving. Arianna was another matter, and when he glanced back, he saw her sway. He steadied her before she fell, but only just. Her body leaned into his, and he looked down into her face beneath the hoods of two cloaks and the scalp of the bear. Her hair stuck to her forehead, damp with sweat, and when he pressed his hand to her cheek, she burned.

Bolthorn cursed her father and his poisoned knife. Fever, just as he had feared. She wilted against his chest with another moan, and he had no choice but to sweep her up into his arms, cradling her as close to his body as he could manage. The warmth of her thawed the rime on his skin and the wind sunk claws of cold into his body where the ice had been. He grimaced and went on.

They needed shelter now, more than anything, for Arianna would not last without it. They were near enough to the passage yet, that he might turn back and reach safety before she froze, but with no food and no fire, she would starve instead.

Another shout came to him from a distance, and this time, he could have sworn it was his name. He squinted against the wind and the ice crystals it carried, trying to see through the glare of sun on snow. Was that a cloak, billowing against the rock? A flash of red kept his eye, and he started toward it. If he did not find the source of the calls, he would dig a burrow in the snow and bury them both. It would block the wind enough to melt the rime, and then he could keep her warm, skin to skin, until the fever broke.

He had to believe it would. To come so far and fail seemed impossible, but if the fever consumed her now, they might well both die.

It was the last secret he had kept, that her death would be his own.

“Fool orc!” the woman hissed, her eyes slitted with anger. “What did you expect would happen when you brought her over the mountain? You took her vow but did not give your own!”