Page 18 of The Outcast Orc

And yet, the chiseled bands of sinew framing his pelvis didn’t exactly call the oxen to mind.

Marok set the armor aside and squatted on his haunches, treating me to a look of bland patience. The time to snatch his knife had come and gone. Instead of disappointment, though, what I felt was mainly…relief.

The medicinal bark we’d harvested was dry and leathery now, so I soaked it in clean water while I swabbed the blood from the wound in his side to gauge how bad it was. Fresh blood was still oozing from the cut. I probed gently and my fingers came away wet, stained coppery brown. Marok didn’t make a sound, didn’t even flinch.

“It’s deep,” I told him.

“Good thing it’s still bleeding, then. All the better to flush out the goblin shit.”

Maybe so. “I’ll wrap the poultice lightly.” I pressed the moistened bark to the wound. “Here, hold it while I tie off the bandage.”

Marok’s huge hand dwarfed mine as he put it against the wet bundle. His fingers were cool and callused where they brushed against the side of my hand.

Stop it, I told myself as I circled his body with a strip of fabric.He’s just a talking beast—of course, you’re not turned on. But the act of wrapping bandages around his torso was telling my baser instincts otherwise. His waist was trim and lean, and even so, I could barely get my arms around him. And that pressed my cheek against the sharply cut muscles of his chest.

I tied off the bandage and stepped back quickly…but as I did, I found the orc watching me with a peculiar look in his eyes, head tilted, nostrils flaring as he whiffed the air.

I dusted my hands together and brusquely said, “You should get some rest.”

He held my gaze for half a heartbeat, then began strapping on his armor without a word.

That night, as I curled up by the fire with a bellyful of fresh rabbit, I tried my best not to dwell on what had taken place between Marok and me. I was being a fool…which I supposed was nothing new. But usually my foolishness had more to do with my own self-importance and less to do with men.

Over the course of my life, I was always overstepping my bounds. Contradicting my teachers. Disagreeing with my superiors. Rubbing potential employers wrong. I couldn’t seem to grasp diplomacy, to restrain myself from speaking up when I knew damn well I was right. So, feigning humility was a skill I’d never quite mastered.

But men? Men were easy.

Some men would rather cut off their own dick than let another man suck it, while others were happy to oblige—and might even return the favor…so long as no one found out. Reading a man is like reading an untrained steed. Stance, eye contact, overall demeanor. All of it adds up to a message. And knowing how to interpret that message had got me pretty far with my own hide intact.

Though, considering how badly I’d misjudged the last man to grace my bed, maybe not.

The blacksmith’s apprentice aside, I did know how to read men. But while Marok might look like a man, I couldn’t let myself forget he was very much not a man at all…but an orc.

11

MAROK

The humans bedded down close to the fire while I squatted by the bushes, listening for the footfalls of anything that shouldn’t be there. Normally, I’d be scenting the air, too. But the smell of the humans was blotting out everything else.

Compared to other scents—the oxen team, or the goblins and their cloying sandflower—their smells weren’t overbearing. More like…confusing. Because when the horseman put his arms around me, I got a noseful of something that smelled like arousal. So it was clear I knew nothing at all about how humans were supposed to smell.

Most likely I was thrown by the way the horseman had felt when he pressed up against me. He was only binding the wound. But I hadn’t been touched by anyone since I lost Akala. It took me by surprise, was all. The feel of another body. Even for a moment.

Once Borkul banked the fire, he ambled over and squatted down beside me, dusting the ash from his hands. “There’s cautious, Marok, and then there’s paranoid. You don’t need to keep watch. Those goblins are far behind us.”

“The humans might still turn on us.”

“The young one is half dead. The female doesn’t have the strength to even break skin. And the horseman, well….” His eyes danced with mischief. “I think he’s sweet on you.”

I snorted. “You’re confusing sweet with sweat.”

“Still, no one would blame you for sampling him.”

“Think about it, Borkul. If you brought home the prize boar of the first spring hunting expedition, would you take a bite out of it before you lay it at Ul-Rott’s feet? Never. Quinn is for the chieftain.”

“For the chieftain’sstable. Not his bed.”

Maybe so. Time was, I might be brazen enough to embrace that distinction and sample more of the human’s scent for myself. But after my attempt to claim the new island went so horribly wrong, I’d better not screw things up. Not again.

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