Page 24 of The Outcast Orc

“Not to ask too many questions…but is there anything here I can treat this with?”

“I’ll allow it,” I said, and showed him where I kept my herbs and tinctures.

He sniffed one, then another. “The barkberries,” I said. “No, the other pouch. Rub them fine and dust it over the wound.”

He poured a handful into a bowl and began breaking up the dried fruits. “Wow, this packs a punch,” he said, flicking a scrap out of a hangnail.

“It does sting. But it’s better than an infection.”

Quinn was unfamiliar with our customs, but his mind was quick. He knew some of my herbs, though by different names. And his touch was somehow both gentle and sure. “Normally, I’d stitch this up,” he said. “But it’sstillbleeding, three days in. Almost like your body is trying to…. Wait. Hold up that lantern.”

As I raised it over his head, I realized that if Quinn really wanted to seize the opportunity, this would be the perfect time to disable me. You don’t need a weapon to take advantage of an injury. He could take me down with something as harmless as a spoon if he jammed it in there hard enough.

There was a short, sharp pain….

“Look,” he breathed, holding up a small shard of rusted metal, slick with my blood. “That goblin left you a souvenir.”

If whatever the goblin had coated his blade with didn’t fester inside me, the hunk of metal would. “Good,” I said simply. “Now the barkberries.”

As Quinn worked, treating the deep wound, I rolled the small shard between my forefinger and thumb. An orcish healer would not have seen it. Too small. And they wouldn’t have felt it, either. Our skin is too thick. Only a human has such a fine, deft touch. Or a dwarf—but you’d never find one outside their mountain. And if you do, chances are, they’re drunk.

His fingers had been beneath my skin—if only for a moment. To bring me to my knees, all he’d had to do was cram them in. No doubt he was fully aware of the opportunity. But he hadn’t taken advantage of it.

Barkberries are astringent, but they don’t give off much of a smell. They did nothing to conceal the lingering traces of the human scent his nearness had left on me.

Nor did they obliterate the way he picked up my own scent by being in my house and handling my things. And my blood.

“I could bind the wound again,” he said, “but given how spotless this place is, I’d take the opportunity to let it air out.”

I agreed. Though I was disappointed that I wouldn’t feel his arms around me.

Hmph. I’d been too long without coupling if I was hungry to slake my want on a human.

Quinn washed at the basin to clean the blood and bark from his hands, but instead of rinsing away my scent, the water just softened it and drove it deeper, mingling it with his. It was a peculiar smell, this combination of orc and human. Though, I supposed, not unpleasant.

No. He belonged to the chieftain, and once he was purified, I’d be rid of him. I’d gone an entire turning of the season without sex. I could go another night.

He peeled off his shirt to wash away the dust of our travels, and the scent of his musk welled up around me. What was merely tolerable before was now a stark enticement.

Quinn took down a soft sheepskin from the shelf and pulled it around his shoulders. Our scents melded and merged.

I considered…. If I was careful not to spill directly on him, Ul-Rott might never know it was anything more than the smell of my house on the human. Maybe. Maybe not. I ignored the way my want was pooling low in my belly, creeping down to my groin.

“So…sleeping,” he said. “Am I allowed to lie down? Or is the orcish way to do it standing up, with one eye open?”

“You talk too much.” I dragged a heavy cabinet in front of the outer door just in case either of them tried getting away despite my warnings, then grabbed the bearskin from the highest shelf.

My sleeping chamber was dark, which made its familiar scents wrap themselves around me. It used to smell like Akala and me…but not anymore. Not for many moons past. The bearskin, though…it had been her favorite. I stretched out in my usual spot and brought the pelt to my face, searching for any remaining traces of my wife. But I couldn’t be sure if I actually scented her…or if it was only my imagination.

14

QUINN

I’d love to think I could truly manage to sleep with one eye open—but the orc’s home was not only scrupulously clean, but warm and quiet. Back in the Fortifications, I was used to the sounds of my neighbors carousing. But here, carousing—like sitting cross-legged—must not have been allowed.

Maybe there was no mattress, but Marok had more pelts than a fur trader. The bed I made for myself was more lavish than any mattress I could afford, and before I knew it, I was deeply asleep.

“Quinn?”

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