Page 19 of The Fall of the Orc

Olarr still didn’t reply, his eyes still flashing with that anger, that rebellion — and Gerrard’s own rebellion flared higher as he shoved the blade harder into Olarr’s thick neck. “Right, Olarr?” he demanded. “You remember what you promised me?”

He could see Olarr’s jaw flexing, could feel how his body stiffened — but then, oh hell, a nod. A curt, angry, bitter little nod, as Olarr’s sweaty, shaggy head turned away, his eyes squeezing shut.

“Ach, human,” came his reply, hoarse beneath the press of Gerrard’s sword. “Do with me as you wish.”

16

Do with me as you wish.

It seemed to scatter something, shake something awake, deep in Gerrard’s chest — and he blinked down at Olarr’s face again, at the tightness in his jaw, his eyes, his mouth. At the way he looked… braced, somehow, rigid and coiled all over, as if anticipating some harsh, painful blow.

As if he was… dreading this.

Gerrard blinked again, as his thoughts skipped back to that match, to the way there’d been no ease in it, no fun this time. Because Olarr had been like this then, too. Fighting against this, dreading it, maybe evenfearingit.

And why the hell would Olarr fear Gerrard, surely Gerrard couldn’t actuallyhurthim, right? — but wait, curse him, he was still looming up naked over Olarr, pinning him to the ground, driving the flat of his wooden blade into his neck with both hands. Digging it in so hard his fingers felt numb, and Olarr’s grey skin had gone pale on one side of the blade, and red on the other, and —

Gerrard belatedly yanked the sword away, shoving it aside with a shaky hand — but wait, Olarr’s hand had gripped his wrist, his eyes catching blank and strange on Gerrard’s face. “Use it, should you wish,” he said thickly. “Or your steel blade. I shall not… fight back.”

Wait. What? Gerrard stared down at him, blank and unmoving, while Olarr’s chest filled and emptied. “You won, human,” he continued. “I swore to… submit, as you did to me. It is only… fair.”

Fair. It took Gerrard another instant to find his breath, and it came out in a laugh, loud and incredulous. “You think I want to — to hurt you?” he demanded. “To… punish you? What, in retaliation for last time?”

Olarr’s expression was unreadable, now, but he slowly nodded, his chest again hollowing. “Why should you not?” he said, very steady. “We are enemies. I stole your win from you last time, and then took what I wished from you — as I did the time before, also. And then, even when I promised you freedom with me, I yet forbade you from using your prick or your seed. So why should you not wish for… other pleasures, instead?”

Other pleasures. Like roughing Olarr up? Like taking revenge, usingsteelon him? And damn it, had that truly been what Olarr had meant last time, when he’d teased at Gerrard about using his cunning? Olarr had volunteered for that, expecting this? And then he’d done all that travelling, done all that work and plotting to get himself back here, to bring an actualpicnic, knowing he might be facing Gerrard’s brutal beating in return? For hispleasure?

“You ken orcs also heal far easier than you humans, even without any tending,” Olarr continued, speaking faster now, and then he snapped his own arm to his mouth, and —bit into it. Hard enough that Gerrard could hear it, could see the blood spattering across Olarr’s cheek — and as Gerrard stared, still frozen, Olarr turned the arm back toward him, showing him the bite-marks. Not dissimilar to the ones he’d made in Gerrard’s own neck, but the blood trickling out from Olarr’s grey skin was already slowing, thickening, and… stopping. Healing.

“So there is no need to — hold back,” Olarr’s voice continued, rough and low. “I wish to grant you — all that you wish. All that you deserve.”

Damn him.Damnhim. And Gerrard couldn’t stop looking at Olarr’s arm, at his uncertain face, at that dread and resignation still simmering in his eyes.You have already won, and taken all.

“Oh,captain,” Gerrard whispered, a low croak in his throat, as he bent down, and pressed a brief, fervent kiss to Olarr’s neck, to where he’d shoved that hard wood into his skin. “Slagvor hasn’t fucked with you that badly, has he? How could youpossiblythink I would —”

He couldn’t even finish, pressing more urgent, frantic kisses against that ugly red line he’d left on Olarr’s throat. Even though he could see it already healing, too, fading back into grey, he just kept kissing, tasting, trailing his tongue against it. Feeling the way Olarr twitched and swallowed, the sound so loud and close, because he really had thought that, he maybe still thought that, and…

“You really think I’d go straight to steel, if I can’t use my prick on you?” Gerrard breathed, as he kept kissing, kept tasting, drinking up the musky sweetness of Olarr’s shivery, sweaty skin. “What kind of rubbish cunning is that? Not the kind you’d tolerate in your bed, is it, captain?”

He’d pulled back enough to angle a brief, searching look at Olarr’s face, because he wouldn’t… would he? Or maybe he would, based on how he’d purposefully glanced away again. Or maybe — Gerrard studied him for far too long — maybe he hadn’t been given a choice in the matter.

“Well, if you have, fuck all those fool pieces of stinkingcarrion,” Gerrard growled, with more viciousness than he meant. “And when you overthrow Slagvor, I hope you’ll kill them all, too.”

Olarr’s gaze darted back to Gerrard’s face again, uneasy and searching this time, because they hadn’t once spoken about that degree of treason, had they? And maybe it had been a lucky guess on Gerrard’s part, or maybe… maybe Olarr had already said it, if not out loud. Maybe he was still saying it, by lying here beneath Gerrard’s naked body like this, next to a damned picnic.

And wait, Gerrard had almost forgotten about being naked, and his half-hard bare cock was pressed against the waist of Olarr’s trousers — so he belatedly groped sideways for his nearby undershirt, and stuffed it down between them. And then, after a brief twitch of a smile at Olarr’s stunned-looking eyes, he bent down, and fastened his mouth back to Olarr’s sweaty, salty-tasting neck.

And this — not steel, not pain — was what had kept Gerrard hard and awake for so many of these past nights. This uninterrupted opportunity to taste Olarr, to touch him, to taunt and tease and tantalize him. To trail hungry fingers down that broad chest, to feel the rapid thud of that heartbeat, to stroke over the stunning strength of those shoulders and biceps. To feel all this raw power, tamed and quivering beneath him, caught in his thrall, awaiting his command.

He angled another glance up at Olarr’s face, at where Olarr was still staring back down at him, his eyes still dazed, disbelieving. And Gerrard kept touching him, kept stroking, as he cocked his head, gave him a crooked little smile. “This all right?” he asked, husky. “You’ll tell me if you don’t like something, right, captain?”

He didn’t miss Olarr’s full-body shudder at that meaningful wordcaptain— damn, that had been a good guess on Gerrard’s part — followed by a jerky nod, his dark eyes oddly bright. “Ach,” Olarr whispered back. “Ach, warrior. Whatever you wish.”

Well. Gerrard let his smile tug a little wider, almost jaunty, revelling at the way Olarr shivered again as he stared — and then he bent down, and again set to work. Stroking that huge, powerful body all over as he kissed and lavished his way down, just the way Olarr had done to him last time. But Gerrard was taking it even slower, dragging it out, making it last. And even the first light brush of his tongue to a deep grey nipple had Olarr groaning, arching up into it, and Gerrard chuckled as he eased off again, keeping it light and teasing, keeping Olarr unsettled, hungry, desperate for more.

He took even more time kissing down Olarr’s hard belly, trailing his tongue into the ridges of his scarred abdomen, tasting the musky salt of his navel. Feeling the roughness of thick hair against his tongue, now, and Gerrard’s eyes fluttered as he slowly kissed lower, lower, lower. Until he ran into the waistband of Olarr’s trousers, and he rapidly untied them, yanked them down to his thighs, and kept kissing. Intentionally avoiding the too-close bulk of Olarr’s cock — now lying thick and straining against his belly — in favour of trailing his hungry mouth down Olarr’s hip, to his hair-dusted thigh. Skirting dangerously close to those bulging bollocks, enough that Olarr jerked and spasmed, his steady gasps deepening to groans. And in another burst of reckless craving, Gerrard yanked down one of Olarr’s trouser legs, all the way, until he could pull it off his large foot altogether, and spread those big, trembling thighs wide apart.

But Olarr still wasn’t resisting or protesting, not in the slightest, and Gerrard’s searching glance up at his face found it still deeply flushed, his eyes shimmering, his black tongue brushing out again and again. Looking almost rapt, reverent, as Gerrard shot him another jaunty grin, and slowly slid his wandering hand down below those heavy bollocks, seeking into his hot, hairy crease.

---