Orc’s Prize by Mina Carter
ChapterFive
She screamed in the blackness, feeling the magic of the mists pressing against her. Panic rose, and she struggled against her captor but then was forced to cling to the huge, hard shoulder as the world tilted around her, making her ears ring and her head dizzy.
It was the orc, Gudvar. It had to be. He was the only one who would snatch her and whisk her away with magic like this. No one in the court would dare try anything with the champion’s wife lest they incur his wrath, and Naebalar… he wouldn’t whisk her away. Instead, her husband was more liable to use the chaos and darkness to stab her in the back and get rid of her. Solve an inconvenient problem with a single movement, right between her ribs.
Her captor strode out of the darkness, and she sucked a breath in as the skin of the broad back below the shoulder she was slung over came into view. It was green-grey, confirming her suspicions.
“Let go of me!” she screamed, struggling and kicking out so he’d put her down. Anything to escape. But it was like trying to fight a mountain range, her blows rebounding off skin harder than granite.
She winced as she hurt her own hands and feet but didn’t stop. She couldn’t… she had to get away from him. He was an orc. More than that, he was Gudvar the Merciless, known for crushing elven skulls with a single blow and laughing as he did it. “Let go!”
He grunted as he heaved her off his shoulder, and she was in free fall for a moment. Her furious screams became a squeal of fear as she windmilled in the air, expecting any moment to break her back on a fallen trunk or bash her head in on a rock.
Before she could hit the ground, a solid arm wrapped around her waist, yanking her up against a hard chest.
“Be quiet, female!” Gudvar snarled, baring his teeth at her. “You’re giving me a fucking headache.”
She froze, her hands braced against his chest to hold herself away from him, the pulse pounding in her throat as she looked up at him. He growled again, pale silver eyes boring into her.
“Nothing to say, little female?” he demanded, crushing her against him. “I thought you liked orc cock? At least, that’s what Braestak said.”
She couldn’t help the flinch and the burn across her cheeks as she looked away.
“That’s right,” he sneered. “Don’t like to admit that. Do you? No, none of you do. You like to ride orc cock but in the dark, where no one knows about it.”
He turned and pressed her against something hard behind her. It felt rough, like a rock, but she couldn’t look away from his piercing gaze. “Braestak was so in love with you, shouting about his love to the skies, and what did you do? Gave his son up as soon as you fucking could.” He looked her up and down again, his lip curling back. “You disgust me.”
He shoved away from her, and she sagged against the cold rock, trying to drag air into her lungs. She couldn’t look away from him as he stalked around the small clearing. She only realized she was freezing when a gust of wind hit her, the ground and sparse trees around them covered in snow.
“Wh… where are we?” she asked, wrapping her arms around herself as she stepped away from the rock before it could leach too much heat from her body. He paused at the edge of the clearing, at a line of boulders that marked where the ground fell away, looking down. She crept forward, a gasp escaping her as she looked over the edge… and saw the landscape spread below them.
They were in the mountains. High up, past the snow line. She shivered again, her thin court gown, cool in the midsummer heat, no defense against the biting cold of the cursed mountains. The sun was shining above them, but the bright bauble cast no heat, not up here. However, the dark clouds massing among the peaks above them were more worrying.
“We need to move,” Gudvar grunted, grabbing her arm in a bruising grip as he stalked off. Struggling wasn’t an option. She tried to dig her heels in, but it was a case of walk or be dragged. He walked so fast, and his stride was so long that she ran alongside him.
“Where are we going?” she asked, casting a worried glance up at the amassing storm clouds above them. The air was thin and biting, and she struggled to get enough of it into her lungs. “Shouldn’t we be going downhill? Away from the storm?”
He stopped so suddenly that she slammed into him, and he looked down at her.
“You wanna go down, you go down,” he rumbled, letting go of her arm. “Your fucking funeral.”
Her heart leaped, and she took a few steps away from him. Freedom was within her grasp. All she had to do was run… Until she realized he was still watching her, his cruelly hewn features hard as stone. Orcs loved to chase. She knew that from Braestak. The thought of her former love didn’t bring the pang it usually did, the very much alive and kicking orc in front of her stealing all her attention and focus.
She lifted her chin but didn’t take another step. “You’re just letting me think I can escape so you can chase me down.”
“Yeah, right… you think a lot of yourself. Don’t you, my lady?” He barked a laugh, his hard features surprisingly normal with the smile. “No, I’m not going to chase you. But I’m sure something else will. The wolves in these mountains have a bit of a taste for delicate, elven flesh.”
As if on cue, unearthly howls filled the rapidly darkening air.
“But if you think you can outrun them, have at it, sweetheart,” he said, giving her a mocking bow as he swept his arm out in invitation.
Another howl sent ice through her veins, and she moved closer to him quickly. She wasn’t an idiot. She’d never survive out here on her own.
“Didn’t think so,” he bit out, his hand closing around her arm before setting off again. She tried to keep up, moving closer as the winds picked up. Icy fingers sliced through her thin gown to freeze the flesh on her bones.
But try as she might, she couldn’t help stumbling… her thin slippers useless on the frozen ground. Each time she did, he looked back at her with irritation until, with a growl, he scooped her up again. But instead of throwing her over his shoulder, he held her cradled against his broad chest and ran as the blizzard opened up around them.
Gudvar cradled the shivering little female against his chest as he ran, bounding from boulder to boulder as he worked his way up higher into the mountains. The mists had deposited them far from the forest and the front line between the elven and the orc army, but that didn’t matter, not at the moment. What mattered was finding shelter from the storm bearing down on their heads.
Had he been alone, it wouldn’t have been such a problem. He’d have just hunkered down, turned his skin to stone, and waited the storm out. But the pretty little elf in his arms wouldn’t survive out in this cold. Her skin was too delicate and fragile. Already she was shivering, curled up against him as much as she could.
He tried to ignore the gentle brush of her lips against the side of his throat or the sensual curve of her breast and hip pressed against him. She was his enemy, the female that had gotten Brae killed, and he’d hated her for that for years. He hadn’t accounted for the fact she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen… nor the primal response of his cock the instant he’d seen her.
Braestak had loved her… Gudvar didn’t. Gudvar wanted to own her. Fuck her until she was whimpering in pleasure on his thick cock and ruined for all other males. He wanted to use her for his pleasure and hers. Get her completely and utterly addicted to him. The idea of her begging for his cock on her knees sent a bolt of lust through him so complete that he almost stumbled.
Quickly, he righted himself and sped up, following the faintest scent trail. There had to be a hunter’s cabin or cave nearby. No one ventured up into these mountains without some form of shelter when the weather turned bad, like now. And once he got her inside… his jaw tightened as his cock jerked in his loincloth. He could warm her up by working on that fantasy. She should be grateful to him for saving her life, and he knew just how she could thank him…
It didn’t take him long to find the cave he was looking for, his sensitive nose following the scent of butchered prey and stale sweat right to a gap in the rock under an overhang. His little prize shuddered as he ducked through it, taking them out of the biting wind.
He paused in the crude doorway, all his senses opened wide for any hint of danger from the shadows. Who knew what had been driven in here, seeking shelter from the storm? But nothing moved in the darkness, and there were no recent scents. He relaxed a little, moving further into the cave. There were no threats to his prize here, so he could relax a little.
Dumping her down on a pile of furs left by a previous inhabitant, he turned to look at the doorway with a frown. It was too wide, and even though the wind wasn’t whipping in thanks to the shelter provided by the overhang and a large outcrop in front of the opening, it was still colder than he’d like.
Stepping up to a large boulder near the entrance, he wrapped his arms around it, extending his magic into the rock to loosen it from its resting place. It gave with a crack, and he grunted, all the muscles in his body tense as he carried it a few steps and dropped it in front of the opening to the cave. There was just enough of a gap at the top to let air in and stop them from suffocating when he lit a fire.
Turning around, he found his silver-haired captive watching him with wide eyes. Her skin was pale, tremors running through her as she huddled into the ancient scraps of fur she sat on.
He ignored her as he took a few steps forward and crouched in front of a fire pit. It hadn’t seen use in years, the charcoaled remains of fire scattered in the bottom. He spotted a small pile of split logs against the wall nearby. Whoever used this cave previously had obviously intended to come back. He felt her eyes on him as he moved across the cave, grabbing an armful of wood to drop into the fire pit. Clawed hand spread over it, he reached for his magic and set the wood ablaze.
“Strip,” he ordered, looking up to find her staring at the fire in amazement and maybe even a little fear. Orc magic was a lot more destructive than elven. She was probably the sort who could only make things grow, flower, or a hundred other completely and utterly useless things. Who needed to get bumblebees to dance and shite like that?
“W-what?” Her gaze flew to his, and he folded his arms over his chest, not caring about the imposing figure he cut as he loomed over her. She was soaked through to the skin, her gown sodden. If she didn’t take it off, she would be ill, and the last thing he needed was a sick captive.
“You heard me,” he growled, hearing the deep rumble echo back at him from the cave’s walls. “Clothes off. Now. Or I’ll do it.” He looked down at his hands, tipped with lethal claws, and shrugged. “Of course, then you wouldn’t have anything to wear.”
He watched as she pushed to her feet, standing as far away from him as she could. Even though she was tall for an elf, she was nowhere near his size, and their differences hit him right in the cock. It swelled under his loincloth, as stiff as a flagstaff. He didn’t bother to hide his reaction, wanting her to see. Would she wonder what being impaled on his thick length would feel like? Or being pinned under him, hands captured above her head as he drove into her over and over?
He shook his head, snatching himself out of the erotic fantasies to focus on her instead. She looked at him, frozen like a rabbit caught in the lamplight, her pulse fluttering madly in the pale skin of her throat. He almost felt a shit for scaring her, but then he remembered she was his enemy… the woman who had caused Braestak’s death, and he hardened his heart.
“Off, now. Last warning.”