Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 32156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
I’ve got her here. Alone. With me. And my new mating instinct. We are safe and in close quarters.
I climb back down the ladder and meet her eyes, and shrug with a grunt of frustration.
“Great,” she hisses, throwing her arms upward, but there is a spark behind those dark eyes and I plan on turning it into an inferno.
Chapter
Three
Aleena
I’m stuck in an underground bunker with a monster.
He’s not just an orc. There’s something different about this one. His face is crooked, he has a dent in the left side of his skull and he’s missing a couple fingers. The slash across his chest is crusted in dried blood, tattooed words I don’t recognize torn and ragged inked into his sage green flesh, but the wound, I swear, it’s healing before my eyes.
The puncture wound in his thigh is hidden behind the straps of his kilt, but I know it must have hurt like a mother-f’er pulling that broadhead tip out. He’s a primitive, that’s clear. Leather, check. Kilt, check. Definitely no manicure, check.
Nice tusks though. He must brush regularly because they are like gleaming.
I haven’t spent all that much time around orcs. It’s true, my father gives me more leash than my sister but he still never allows me outside the compound walls without him and a legion of bodyguards. It’s been years since I explored anywhere other than our walled-off island in the middle of the badlands.
Still, I know orc culture varies. There are those that have adopted more human customs and style. We have internet, although again, my father doesn’t give me free access, but I’ve seen pictures of orcs in suits, talking on cell phones, even riding modified Harleys and getting law degrees. The world is a psychedelic trip these last few years. Some of it good, some of it funny, but a lot of it bad.
“Are you going to eat me?” I hiss, as we stare each other down. “I ask, because you are eyeing me like a sizzling ribeye straight off the grill.”
My shirt is soaked, my nipples front and center as rivulets of the rain that drenched me drip from my hair, down my forehead and off the end of my nose.
We’re both wet and covered with mud. He ignores my question but licks his lips, and I try to decide if that’s a good sign or if I’m taking my last breath.
Now that I think about it, he hasn’t spoken at all. Grunts, yes. Growls, yep. Some other, rumbling and painful sounds when he was holding his head, sure. But words? Nada.
Of the three orcs that barreled into my father’s office, he was the only one that didn’t speak. Maybe he’s missing a tongue as well.
What a shame that would be…
The thought rattles around between my ears as I try to make sense of why my first thought was of this broken beast’s tongue lapping at the warm, soft center that is pulsing between my legs.
He makes a sound deep in his throat as my heart does battle with my sternum. He tried to kill me, or did he?
The other orc, the one he killed in the office, gave it a shot, but this one? I can’t quite get a read on his intentions. He made quick work of the other orcs outside too, after they threw that ax at me. There was a sense he was protecting me but that doesn’t make sense.
Are we enemies or allies against the same enemies?
Either way, I don’t feel I’m in immediate danger. Quite the opposite. I feel…safe. As though, if there was another threat of harm toward me, whoever was the aggressor would end up like the other three he ended in short order.
I shake my head as he clenches and unclenches his massive fists, knuckles cracking and nostrils flaring. He’s wet too, making his skin shine and the musculature underneath more obvious. I’ve never known orcs to kill their own clan mates. He’s odd for sure and my reaction to him is even more puzzling.
He’s watching me with eyes the color of January frost. Most orcs have red eyes in one shade or another. I’ve never seen eyes like his, although I’ve read about them. It’s rare, but there used to be a clan around here with that as a family trait. First born son to first born son. They bore into mine as though he’s reading my thoughts.
I’m not afraid, which is probably dumb but I’m not going to try to talk myself into fear that’s not there. I trust my gut and my gut is saying some pretty strange things right now.
“So,” I start, still a little out of breath and my ankle is throbbing as he shoots me a look that’s so intense, I feel it down in my soft center. “You going to kill me?”