Page 57 of The Orc's Wife

Una sat by his side while he fell into confusing, nightmarish dreams. He jolted awake later, when Savinia came. She tutted at him when she poured the bitter medicine in his cup, and as he drank, she poked at his knee, her brow furrowed.

Finally, she wrapped it up in a bandage filled with cool-smelling herbs and left, admonishing him not to put any weight on the leg. His wounds she had seen to before, and now they were healing, his skin covering with ugly scabs.

When they were alone again, Una slipped into the bed and lied down against him. With a sigh of relief, Urgan stroked her still flat belly with gentle fingers and sank into sleep.

The following days were a blur of pain, exhaustion, and frenetic activity. He needed to be seen, and not just seen sitting on the throne. He had to be seen actively ruling.

So, he ruled, outlawing rape and slavery, proclaiming that orcs and humans were equal, bringing in laws requiring pay for work and punishments for crimes. A portion of his army was tasked with enforcing the new laws.

While he was making sure his first laws were implemented and followed, Una worked with humans, hearing out their ideas, looking for ways to make their mixed society start working on more equal terms. She weeded out the pockets of resentful human rebels who needed to be contained, too.

It wouldn’t do for humans to start attacking orcs now that the laws protected everyone equally.

The transition process was all but smooth, and at the end of every day, they both fell into bed, exhausted, he still weak from the damage sustained in the dungeons.

After two months more of living in constant exhaustion and swallowing quarts upon quarts of bitter concoctions, he was pronounced healed.

“It doesn’t mean you’re back to the way you were,” said Savinia. “That knee will never heal. You’ll be limping until you die. You still need a lot of time for your strength to recover. But you don’t need medicine anymore.”

Urgan stretched his arms luxuriously after she had left, letting the familiar ache of strained muscles fill him with satisfaction. He had trained with his sword the day before. It would take a long time until he could move as fast as before and lift as heavy weights, but he didn’t care.

For the first time, the ache of exercise was more prominent than the pain of healing wounds and setting bones. He was becoming himself again.

And the trauma left after torture, while it still filled his dreams with nightmares, was settling into something familiar. A struggle he had to live with, no longer fresh, no longer powerful. Something he could learn to cope with.

He was back to himself. Finally.

Una came soon after, sweaty and flushed with effort.

“Oriana might just kill me,” she said, stripping before she walked into the bath. “This training is lethal! At least I got her to admit she was much harder on me than any other expecting woman. She promised to relax a bit. And also…” she looked up at him, standing on the stool she used to step inside the high tub, and her eyes widened.

While Una had been stripping, he had thrown off his robe, too. He was finally stronger and calmer, with his endurance and strength slowly returning to normal. And they had time. Thankfully, there was no more urgent work to be done that day.

He missed his wife.

“Yes?” he asked, grinning at her. His cock was already standing to attention, pointing unfailingly at Una.

She swallowed hard and stepped into the water, her eyes never leaving him.

“She said… We should mate. Frequently. That it would keep me, um, open and pliant, and…”

She stopped speaking when he sank into the water with her. She had only filled the tub halfway, so it didn’t overflow even though the level of the water rose significantly.

“And?”

She just looked up at him, blushing. After two months of barely seeing each other and certainly not mating, she was shy. Her face looked fresh and dewy, with the mist of water condensation plumping her cheeks, and her smell, not covered by any potions, was thick in the air.

She was carrying his child.

And he could smell it on her. She was burgeoning with new life that had sprouted from his seed.

“Come, my mate,” he said, motioning for her to lean against him.

She scooted over and sat between his thighs, leaning against his erection, and even that slightest touch of her back against him made him hiss.

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting for so long,” he murmured, trailing his fingers up her thighs in the water. He had kept his claws trimmed down, just the way he had cut them for their first mating. He could touch her without hurting her.

“You were healing,” she breathed, already arching into him, and he hadn’t even properly touched her.

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