Orc’s Prize by Mina Carter
ChapterTwo
The little elf was terrified, fear leaching out of her pores and her tiny body trembling so much she practically shook the tree behind her.
He looked down at her, curling his lip. Although she was tall for an elf, she was still tiny compared to him, as well as skinny and pathetic, like most of her species. She was so thin he could snap her in two without thinking about it. He should. He should snap her neck and have done with it before they could get more spelled chains on him. Fool elves for not protecting their females. They’d only protected the queen and left this one without a guard—easy pickings for him.
Her wide, green eyes locked on to his face, and he expected her to flinch from him... To look at his tusks with disgust.
But she didn’t. Instead, she pressed herself back against the trunk. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head to the side in surrender. Her entire frame was tense, waiting for the killing blow.
Confusion rolled through him as he looked down at her. Both at why he wasn’t moving and at the fact his body had flooded with heat, his cock hard and heavy in his loincloth. An image of her baring her throat for him in submission rather than surrender filled his mind, and the blood in his veins became an inferno. He imagined her naked and on her knees before him as she did it, those plump lips parting as he slid his throbbing, turgid length between them—
Another length of heavy chain looped over him, and he snarled as he was forced to his knees by the spell on them. His claws kissed the curve of the woman’s waist on his way down, not ripping into her soft stomach as he could have, but simply slicing the ribbons of her gown.
“More chains!” the arrogant little prick who claimed to have captured him shouted, and the guards piled more on until Gudvar could barely breathe. “Get him out of here! Take him to the dungeons!”
He locked eyes with the woman as the guards dragged him away, her expression shell-shocked. He could have killed her, but he hadn’t. She knew it, and he knew it.
The trouble was… he didn’t know why. He should have cut her throat from ear to ear, letting her blood desecrate the queen’s pretty throne room. Instead, he’d wanted to fuck her more than he’d ever wanted to fuck a woman in his life. He’d wanted to ruin her pretty little throat with his thick, orcish cock before stuffing her tight, elven little pussy full to bursting. He’d wanted to rut her and then fill her with his seed, marking her as his…
“Filthy beast!” the guard nearest to him snarled as they dragged him out of the throne room and through the corridors.
Even with all the spelled chains on him, it took eight of them to control him as they took him deeper and deeper into the bowels of the castle. He fought them every step, using snarls and grunts to cover the fact that he was counting his steps and noting each change of direction so he could find his way back. And he would find his way back, if only to slit the throat of that bitch, Oonais. She was the biggest threat to Orckin and had caused more deaths for his kind than anyone else in history.
He growled in the back of his throat, ready to slam elven skulls together and storm the throne room right now. The pull of the spell on the chains weighed him down, each step harder than the last as they moved deeper into the earth. If he were fully orc, they’d have rendered him immobile. Only the troll blood that surged through his veins enabled him to keep moving, albeit slowly. He made it seem worse than it was, stumbling from side to side, crushing one of his guards when the asshole wasn’t quick enough to move out of his way.
He ignored the crunch of bone and the scream of pain. How many orcs had that elf killed? All elves were blood-thirsty little fuckers who couldn’t leave any other species to live in peace. Instead, they had to rule… to conquer and subjugate. A favorite elf game when they came upon any of his mother’s kind in their daytime slumber was to smash them up. It was why the trolls, normally peaceful forest dwellers, had joined the orcs years ago for survival. Today there were very few full-blooded trolls anymore. Most were half-breeds, their mixed blood granting them protection from the need to sleep in the daylight.
He curled his lips back in a snarl as the remaining seven elves yanked him along the corridor and down into the dungeon. It was dark and dank, just as dungeons were supposed to be. Brackish water dripped down the stone arches as rats and other less savory things scuttled in the shadows. Prisoners chained to the walls moaned softly as the guards dragged him to a cell at the end and flung him in.
The chains rattled, unwinding themselves from his body and snaking back through the open door. His energy and ability to move restored, he threw himself that way with a blood-curdling battle cry. He wasn’t fast enough, though, the iron-spelled door slamming shut in his face and almost taking his nose off.
“Fucking monster,” the head guard snarled from the other side of the bars. “I hope you fucking rot in there.”
Gudvar flicked him an offensive gesture and stalked backward, his eyes boring into the elf until he was shrouded in the shadows. He didn’t break eye contact, waiting for the elf to crack. He did, scoffing something to cover the scent of fear that rolled off him in waves.
Gudvar chuckled as the elf walked off, all bullshit and bluster as the guards left the dungeon. Only when the heavy doors clanged shut somewhere above him did he open his fist to look at the ribbon he’d stolen.
It was pale green, the same color as the little elf woman’s eyes. He grinned and wound it around his thick fingers. It would look good around his cock, matching her eyes when he took her as his prisoner and made her take his cock in her pretty little mouth.
Heartened by that little fantasy, he folded his arms and settled back against the stone to sleep. He needed to be well-rested for his escape.
Adharian hadn’t thought of the past in many years, simply accepting the ache in the center of her chest every day. It was her secret, one she knew she’d have to take to her grave, and one she had thought was in the past.
But as she walked into the ballroom that evening, alone as usual, it seemed the past wasn’t done with her. There, leaning against one of the pillars in the throne room, was a face she thought she’d never see again.
For a moment, she was young again, in the first flush of love, and the ballroom was a forest. But then she realized the tall, broad-shouldered man watching the dancers on the other side of the hall was not who she thought he was. He was an elf for one, not an… not an…
Orc. He was not an orc. She forced herself to think the word. Her thoughts were safe, but she’d kept secrets in her own head. But now, she couldn’t.
Keeping an impassive, pleasant expression on her face, she merged in with the crowd. She moved around the room while keeping the mystery man in the corner of her eye. She watched him without making it obvious she was watching him.
Who was he? He wasn’t an orc, at least she didn’t think so. His skin wasn’t green, he didn’t have tusks, and his hair was as silver as hers.
She flitted to stand next to a nearby pillar, a glass of strawberry champagne in her hand. The queen was in the center of the room, occupied in her favorite pastime of being adored. At first, she thought her mystery man was watching the queen, and her estimation of him took a nose-dive. Another of the adoring masses… but then she realized he wasn’t watching the queen at all but a delicate little elven woman hovering around the buffet.
Then his attention shifted, and he gave a little shudder as he watched a fairy’s wings. And she knew. He was spelled, wearing an enchantment to alter his appearance. Wearing that face, the face of her long-lost lover, and with a repulsion to wings, she knew exactly what he was.
An orc.
More than that, he was Braestak’s son.
“You need to be more careful,” she said softly, rounding the pillar nearest him to approach from the shadows. He wasn’t that much taller than her, which made her doubt her conviction that he was a spelled orc.
He turned, his eyes widening slightly as if in surprise. She hid her frown. Elves could be far lighter of foot than orcs. If he hadn’t worked that out yet, he should not be here. It was far too dangerous.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, straightening up. Okay, so maybe he was a lot taller. “I’m sorry, my lady. I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“Indeed not.” She smiled as she took a sip of her wine, looking at him over the rim of her glass. His eyes were pale green, which seemed right in his face and wrong at the same time. Trying to figure that out, she introduced herself. “My name is Adharian, Lady of Sharnwood Heights.”
He blinked, realization washing over his features. She’d seen that expression more times than she wanted to count.
“Yes, I’m the champion’s wife,” she said dully as she looked across the hall to where her husband was cuddled up with a couple of his admirers. Two younger fae women hung from his arms. She recognized both as his current bed-warmers.
She followed the tall silver-haired elf’s gaze. He was looking at the trio, his expression tight with disgust. “It was not a marriage of my choice before you ask.”
He nodded but then looked at her with a sharp gaze.
“I’m sorry, my lady. If that is the nature of your interest in me, I am happily married,” he said, nodding toward the beautiful little elven woman by the buffet table. One look at her, and Adharian knew she wasn’t also an orc under an enchantment spell. One, she was far too tiny and delicate, and two, there were very few female orcs.
“Oh, by the leaf, no!” She couldn’t help the peal of laughter as she patted his arm. “No, I am not trying to tempt you into my bed. That would be… problematic since I knew your father.”
He smiled, and his expression shuttered. “I think you might have me mistaken for someone else, my lady.”
She took a step closer, the smile dropping from her face. Her voice was low and urgent as she studied his face. “No, I do not think so. You are the very image of him, but his hair was black as midnight. His left tusk was broken at the tip.”
He froze, his gaze focused on her face. Watching, waiting.
“He was so beautiful,” she said, seeing not the man in front of her but the orc she’d loved and lost. “Fierce and brave. My father and his men were away when I found Braestak injured in the woods.”
She remembered that day as if it were yesterday. Finding the foul beast… then realizing he was hurt and not a beast at all. He’d loved to read and sing and —
“I nursed him back to health, as best I could and….” She looked away, heat burning in her cheeks. “We were in love. He promised to come back for me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out to touch her arm. His touch burned, but not in the way she expected. In that instant, she was certain who he was. “Some things are just not meant to be.”
She smiled, holding back her tears.
“I bore a babe that summer, with the most beautiful green skin and eyes. Silver hair like mine,” she whispered, looking up at him like he was the sun, moon, and stars combined. “When my lover didn’t come back, I left him beneath a willow tree on the riverbank.”
She’d left her son under a willow tree, and now he was back. She’d never expected to see him again, much less as an adult, here at the court. Before she could say anything else, before she could ask him anything else, a harsh shout from across the hall made her look up.
“My apologies. I am summoned,” she said, blanking her expression to conceal the hatred the sound of her husband’s voice always drew forth. She looked back at him. At her son.
“You don’t need to say anything. I don’t know why you’re here, but please be careful.”
He nodded warily, clearly not disposed to believe her. She half turned to go but then stopped, looking over her shoulder.
“I waited, you know, to make sure someone found you. I couldn’t leave you on your own… so I waited until someone came. Until I knew you were safe.”