Page 33 of Her Orc Blacksmiths

“I can help,” I say quickly. “I’m good with numbers, and I used to run inventory for my father.”

“This is Jasmine,” Rose supplies helpfully. “I used to work at her father’s inn, and it was a neatly run place.”

I smile at her, grateful that she didn’t mention being thrown out on her ear.

Mara purses her lips. “Very well. You may accompany me today, and you’ll do your records and sums on a separate paper. I’ll do mine to be sure, and we can compare them at the end of the day.” She extends her hand across the table. “Welcome to the Black Bear Clan.”

Rose leaves me with Mara soon after, and I hastily finish my breakfast of eggs and sausages, washed down with a cup of scalding-hot tea. Then I follow Mara to her office, where she gives me writing supplies and explains that Dawn, the queen, has been learning the job of running the Hill as well.

“But she’s busy with her baby,” Mara adds, “and until the little one goes to school, Dawn doesn’t have as much time to help. I can manage usually, but at times such as this, the tasks seem to pile up too quickly for one person.”

“I’m happy to help,” I say as we hurry down a corridor I’ve never taken before.

It’s cooler here than in the rest of the Hill, and it makes sense—we enter a series of chambers with low ceilings, connected by wooden doors, each one colder than the previous one. These are the larders of the Hill, and they are filled to the brim. Several orcs are working down here, dressed in much heavier clothes than us, so Mara takes a pair of jackets off a hook by the door and offers me one, shrugging the other on herself. Mine is too big, so I have to roll the sleeves several times, but it does the job of keeping me warm.

We spend several hours in the depths of the Hill, noting down the quantities and prices paid for all the items in the pantries. There are sacks upon sacks of wheat and barley, salted fish by the barrel, and whole rooms filled with crates of apples, pears, and winter vegetables. I think of the mass of orcs I saw at breakfast today. It must be an incredibly difficult operation, keeping them all well and fed through the long winter in the mountains.

I mention that to Mara, and she gives me a weary nod. “Aye, it’s not easy, but we manage well from year to year. We’ve got hunters supplementing our food stores, though, like Korr and the others.”

At the end of the workday, we still haven’t recorded even half of what’s stored in those chambers. But when Mara and I return to her office and she studies the numbers in my columns, which I tried to make as neat as hers, she hums, apparently satisfied.

“You did a good job,” she says. “You may join me again tomorrow. It’s always nice to have someone to check over your work, and you’ll learn fastest if you’re working with me.”

I beam at her, tired but happy. “Thank you. It feels lovely to be useful.”

I leave her office quite late. We had a quick, improvised lunch of apples and some salted meat in the pantries, but it’s not quite dinnertime yet. I could search for Morg or Torren and spend the time with them, but I need a wash and a change of clothes, badly, so I follow the signposts to Ritta’s corridor and take my spare day dress from her room. Then I find the baths all on my own, feeling very accomplished when I sense the damp air.

It’s so luxurious to soak in a bathing pool all on my own. The water is just as perfect as I remember, and I scrub myself well, even washing my hair this time. Then I wash my dirty clothes in one of the troughs by the wall and carry them back to Ritta’s room to dry.

I wish I had some way to tell the time because it’s impossible to know how late it is so deep underground. But my stomach tells me it might be time for dinner soon, so I leave Ritta’s cozy room and set out down the tunnel leading toward the great hall.

I barely take a couple of steps when someone wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a shadowy alcove.

Chapter

Twelve

I squeak in fright, then recognize the now-familiar scent. It’s Morg, and he presses a kiss to my neck, under the damp curtain of my hair.

“Mm,” he rumbles. “I missed you.”

I twist in his arms and put my hands around his neck, having to go on tiptoes to do it. “You scared me half to death.”

He nuzzles his cheek over mine. “I’m sorry. I forgot humans can’t hear as well as we do. I thought you heard my footsteps.”

I kiss him, feeling very bold as I do so, and tease my tongue over his lower lip. He groans and opens his mouth for me. Our tongues touch, and a bolt of lust shoots through me. My body is demanding things, and I’m not sure how to give it what it wants.

But Morg knows, because he pushes me up against the wall and lifts me, supporting my ass in one large hand. I spread my legs for him, the skirts getting in the way until he shoves them up impatiently and fits himself between my thighs.

The sensations are incredible, even though we’re still separated from each other by the fabric of my underwear and his leather pants. He rocks slowly, his kisses turning carnal.

“Anyone could see us,” I pant—but I grip him tighter instead of pushing him away.

Morg sniffs at my temple, then bites down lightly on the shell of my ear. “I’ll hear if anyone comes close. I won’t let anyone see you, love.”

I hook my ankles together behind his back, clinging on to him, and kiss him again. Morg’s biting, demanding kisses wind me up like nothing else, and I need him desperately. I’m not even worried about us being in this fairly public space because I trust him to protect me—to protect our privacy.

But when he reaches under my skirts for the strings of my underwear, I freeze in his arms. Morg stops immediately, unhooking his fingers from my waistband.

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