Page 25 of Shackled to the Orc

“How do you expect me to get that from him?”

“I’ve found that people get creative when the alternative is…unpleasant,” he says, letting the word hang in the air. “That’s all I need from you. A few vials full, and I will release you from your contract.”

The memory of my home tortures me. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

The sun is setting, a strange, gloomy tint that makes the weight of his words sink into me.

“You saw my value as a medic. Why would you throw that away?”

“Because I do my homework. And I’m not going to have someone in my estate who knows how to make it look like I had a heart attack. I’ve already gone through one food taster in my life, and I’m not eager to go through another.”

He whistles, and the guard appears from the doorway. He’s got a burlap sack with him. “Take her back to her quarters.”

“Yes, sir,” says the guard, and he cuffs me, slinging the leather satchel over his shoulder with the burlap sack in his other hand.

“You can never be too careful,” says Shug, as he watches the handcuffs clip around my wrists.

I’m marched down, and only once I am back in the gladiators’ quarters does the guard point to the white bag. “Clothes,” he says, and leaves.

I open the bag. A worn linen shift, a woolen skirt, frayed, and other mismatched clothes, but it’s better than the stinking vestment I’ve been wearing. After the conversation with Shug, I have the overwhelming urge to get clean.

I walk towards Khan’s bedroom, pressure mounting. What do I do?

It’s a way out.

All I need to do is fill three vials, and Shug will let me free. Khan’s raging, barely repressed need will not wait much longer. He’s on the verge of snapping, each moment with me torturous, our bodies aching for each other, holding back by sheer will alone. In my moment of weakness, I craved him, meeting his kiss, running my hand over his huge, throbbing cock.

I pause in front of Khan’s door, and it takes a supreme effort to open it.

Khan is pulling himself from the bath, his huge cock swinging between his legs, grabbing a towel. He glances at me and sits heavily on the bed. The green skin under his arm has turned a dark purple, and he sits with his right leg outstretched, to relieve the pain from it.

“What did you discuss with Shug?” he asks, his eyes flitting to the leather satchel then back up to me.

“He set me up with supplies for the hospital,” I say. “I really need a bath.”

He motions to the bathtub, still filled with soapy, hot water.

He’s already seen me naked once. He’s sitting with the towel barely covering his legs and cock, his wet, muscled body exposed, his arm so tired that the movement of drying himself would be agony.

I open the leather satchel, looking through the contents. The doctor, though a drunk, still had the sense to fill it with everything I’d need. I pull out a vial of dark brown liquid. Distilled stillroot. “That arm of yours is going to keep swelling up. You’re going against an orc. You might as well tie your arm behind your back, because it will be useless if you don’t let me give you something.”

Guilt seeps through me. The strillroot is just one of the ingredients I’ll give him to help his arm stop swelling…

But it will also make him sleep, deeply. He won’t hear anything. All I have to do is get him to snap, to fill me with his seed, then once he is asleep, let it slip out of me and into one of the vials.

His emerald eyes stare through my soul.

“There’s going to be a dozen more Peters who will die if you don’t survive this next fight. Maybe you’re ready for the grave, but they don’t deserve that.”

I’m sick to my stomach, knowing how to manipulate him. “You might not think you’re a chieftain anymore, but these gladiators look up to you like one.”

“Alright,” he growls, his voice deep and rumbling. I take a cup from the table and mix up a concoction that will soothe him, that will help his left arm heal…

And give him a restful sleep. He downs the glass in one gulp, his face unchanged at the foul, bitter taste, and leans forward, his hands on his knees, a wounded titan.

I reach up to my clothes. If I’m going to go through with this, I need to master myself.

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