Page 43 of The Orc Outcast's Mate

Chapter

Seven

MIRANDA

Oh shoot. He didn’t actually mean that, did he? Cause what she wanted was to interrogate him about everything regarding this clan and his personal life until the sun came up. That or get him naked. It was hard to choose.

She glanced around the bathroom again. It really was nice, with smooth wood walls and a high ceiling. The torchlight illuminated the space more brightly than she would have thought three dim light sources could. Magic must have been at play, just as it had been with the twig match.

The tub was enormous, more than big enough for her and Govek to fit together.

She glanced at him and instantly knew that she needed to swallow down the bulk of her curiosity and give Govek a little pampering. He’d been through almost as much shit as she had.

His brother had been tortured to death. Burned alive.

Her stomach rolled. What he’d gone through was horrible. It was the absolute worst outcome.

The one that haunted at the back of her own mind. What if her babies...

No, breathe.

She did.

“Why don’t we take a bath, Govek?”

He nodded. “You may go first.”

“You don’t want to take one with me? I feel like I owe you a hair wash.”

His brows arched and her stomach dropped.

“Okay, if you tell me you forgot about the spring, I’m going to be very mad.”

“I certainly did not forget. But you owe me nothing. Our exchange was mutual.”

“Mutual.” From her memory, the attention was completely one-sided. All centered on her pleasure.

“Yes.” Govek’s brow was furrowed and his eyes narrowed. “I gifted you the tincture to wash, and you allowed me to touch you.”

Her gut warmed at the fact that he viewed pleasuring her as a reward, but she still protested. “Govek, we talked about this. I don’t like thinking about our relationship as transactional.”

He shifted and glanced away.

“I said this already, but I’ll gladly say it again. I like you, Govek. I want to be with you. You don’t need to give me anything in exchange for that.”

“But...” He swallowed. “I hear you. And yet, this exchange is the only way I have ever known. Will you give me time... and guidance?”

“Yes, of course,” Miranda said, breathing a sigh, a light smile playing at her lips. “That’s not a problem at all. I’ll just call you out whenever it feels like you’re trying to give me gifts for the wrong reasons.”

He nodded, shoulders sagging with clear relief even as she tensed again. Her thoughts went back to the woman at Viravia’s house. To Maythra’s warnings about Yerina.

Her stomach twisted and her mouth ran away with her. “Look, I know we’ve already covered a lot of traumatic stuff tonight, but like... I have to ask, did you do something... bad... to your ex? Yerina, right?”

His face constricted, and suddenly, she wasn’t certain she wanted him to speak, so she talked right over him. “I’m not accusing you of anything, really. It’s clear that Maythra is super biased against you, so I’m going to take everything she says with a healthy bucket of salt but like... we did just meet each other, and you do have this transactional quirk. Did you maybe read the room wrong with her and think that bringing her something fancy made you entitled to something she hadn’t fully given her consent to?—”

“Miranda.”

“Y-yeah?” Oh frick, all of that came out really bad, didn’t it?

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