Page 19 of Daghel

“Naturally,” he rumbles and turns away from me to address the males seated on their large lounging benches in front of him. “And we shall end our meeting on that note. Return home in peace.” He rises from his throne and steps down from it. He does not make any move to depart, however, but glances at me over his shoulder as I gather Anya to my side and prepare to leave. “A moment, if you will, Daghel.”

A desire to rip his guts through his stomach and gnaw upon his tender internal organs claws deeply through my belly. I have no excuse to offer Anya for this feeling as Vorn is very much another orc, and yet my instinctive impulses that see him as nothing more than a fattened hog to slaughter are something I feel no shame for.

My female is truly mating herself to a monster, but I cannot pity her, nor can I let her go. She will be a monster’s mate in every way and will watch on as I feast on those who subdue us and the vulnerable within the clan.

Turning toward him, I incline my head in acknowledgment and wait for him to speak. He peers at him as he shoos away his females. They leave in a flurry of whispers and giggles as he picks up a rag and wipes the grease from his meal off his claws. All the while, his eyes move over me speculatively.

“I hope that I did not bring you into my innermost council just to endure your threats, Daghel. Is this the behavior I should expect from you?”

“It was not a personal threat. I was merely responding to an insinuation of what someone might do against my mate. I did not consider it inappropriate or a reflection of you,” I reply.

Vorn eyes me for a moment longer, his hand dropping to brush idly over his sword hanging from the throne, but then he chuckles as he casts his rag aside. “Quite so. I, of course, would never permit such a thing to happen within the palace. The advice was meant more broadly. I do think your warning, however, will be an effective discouragement.”

I incline my head again as if accepting what praise he offers, despite biting back my sneer. He watches me and then nods as he turns away.

“That is all for now, Daghel. Do try to make your female scream. And consider my words about prohibiting baths. It will discourage talk among your brethren.”

They are not my brethren. They are mangled, rotting filth beneath my boots, but I give Vorn a small bow as the male exits with all the expected pomp. It is only when he is gone that my hand goes to Anya’s elbow to guide her toward our rookery.

“He is absolutely disgusting,” Anya mutters, her nose wrinkling as she walks at an unhurried pace at my side.

I grunt in agreement, but a feeling of pride awakens further within me, and I give her a sly smile. My female is not only astute and possessing considerable dignity, but she has great control of herself, expertly fooling those around her. Much of that is because of her insistence on practice with us these last few days so that she would not be an open book to the rest of the clan, but it speaks volumes of the sort of female that will be at my side in the years to come. And I, for one, cannot wait to see her bloom fully into her full power.

Still, an uncertainty weighs heavily on me that I must speak upon. “Your disgust… is it weighed the most heavily against the thought of being mounted and bred?”

Her eyebrows go up but then immediately beetle as she considers my question. “In a way. Though it was more because he thought that he had some special privilege to speak on andjest about something so private. It is what you expect to see in the Pits of Zyl.” I give her a confused look, and she smiles apologetically. “The Pits are the lowest levels of the city where the foulest thieves and murderers gather.”

I mull over her words as we ascend to our rookery in silence. There is not much that I am willing to speak of in the corridors. Vorn is unworthy—a blight and stain upon the Fang Peaks that needed to be dealt with—but he is not without his supporters. And in the long halls of the palace, it is far too easy to be overheard.

“Vorn does not speak with the authority or dignity of the Cold Fang throne,” I assure her once we are secure behind the impenetrable weight of our rookery door. If nothing else, the individual rookeries are well protected against attempts at spying. “I consider him less than even the males of your Pit, because his ambitions are fed and bought by nothing more than promises that fuel the hands of his followers. He undertakes nothing himself and accomplishes nothing other than being a festering pestilence within this clan and upon the throne.”

Anya stares at me through my heavily growled outburst, her lips pursing in a silent whistle of appreciation that sends a tiny hum of pleasure deep within me. “Tell me how you really feel,” she teases, and I huff at the joke.

“More than that, he is not a gathol, and the matters of the gathols are nothing more than a joke to him and his followers. Something which Ajek encourages so that he is not held to the laws regarding gathol bonds.”

“I don’t follow,” she murmurs, her brow furrowing once more.

I brush a claw gently across the crease between her eyebrows until they relax and I smile faintly down at her. “In the old traditions, the gathols are the warriors and hunters because we are unconstrained by the mountain passes because of our bondswith our wyverns. The gathols are a necessity for the clan, and so there have long been many laws that protect both the orcs and wyverns within a gathol bond—something which Ajek refuses to take part in. And because of Vorn, he is permitted to. Vorn and his ilk have cast much of this aside, making us merely a part of an attack team designed to carry other males down to raid. Males he considers more worthy to capture mates and wealth,” I add.

Anya’s brows fly up in sudden comprehension. “The male on the train!”

I nod grimly. “Verkol is another male pledged to him but not of his inner circle, so you did not see him tonight. It is guaranteed that those in attendance will share news with their underlings, including him.”

“So the gathol—the orc and wyvern, ah, teams—you are being pushed aside.”

“And pushing our females out of their positions of honor since they have always flown with us since time immemorial,” I add. “Only a gathol’s mate can be trusted to fly with the wyvern if the orc of the pair must fight separately.”

A frown of confusion mars her lips. “But I don’t understand… How did anything about the gathols and their females even enter the conversation?”

“Because he spoke of Drisk breeding you,” I remind her. “He may have spoken of it in jest, as did the others, but it is careless and cruel when they know that being taken by a wyvern is always shocking to the humans when they join with gathols. It is something that Drisk and I have not yet mentioned because our priority was to help you become comfortable with us. The tactless way Vorn and his males handled it was not what I wanted.”

“Are you telling me that he was serious?Theywere serious?” She glances at me with amused disbelief. “You expect me to takea wyvern’s cock?” A soft snort of laughter escapes her when I again incline my head in affirmation, bringing a smile to my lips. “You first… and I get to watch.”

I take her hand in mine and gently brush my tusks and lips over the back of it—the highest sign of affection from Cold Mountain orcs—and smile down at her. “I consider it an honor to initiate you into the pleasures.”

Chapter

Thirteen

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