Page 1 of Wagered to the Orc
Chapter 1
Effie
When the orcs came, I was dreaming of a man’s tongue between my thighs.
Despite my cousins thinking me naive, I was no innocent when it came to men’s pleasures. My status as the laird’s poor relation—too high-blooded to find honest trade, too low-born to make an alliance—had made me vulnerable. I had learned young that the only way to stave off unwanted advances fromallmen was to findonestrong enough and offer myself to him.
Him, and all his degrading, painful desires. ‘Twas better to endure his blows and pinches and thrusts quietly, then cry after as I wiped the blood away.
So, nay, I was no stranger to a man’s touches. I just had no urge to prolong or encourage them.
Which is why my cousin Sorcha’s prized possession—a carefully inked copy ofA Harlot’s Guide to the Forbidden and Delightful Arts—had been so surprising to me.
On the way to her betrothed’s castle, our escort made camp for us in an abandoned crofter’s hut, too close to the stone circle the attackers used. But we knew none of that, and instead sat on the single bed and giggled like silly lassies as we examined the scroll’s repertoire of erotic imagery and descriptions.
The Burning Bush.
The Soldier and the Crucible.
The King’s Gambit.
The Clinging Vine.
In each of them, the woman…wasenjoyingthe act. The unknown author wrote of the pleasure found in each act, not just for the man—ormen—but for the woman as well. She—for certes the author was a female!—described how to milk one’s own ecstasy from a man’s cock, how to makeherpleasure paramount.
‘Twas something Ihad never imagined.
Long after my cousins Sorcha and Roxanna had prepared for sleep, I found myself breathlessly reading those descriptions and imagining what it would be like to meet a man who might care aboutmydesires.
When I finally tucked the scroll against my chest and curled up against Roxanna, I fell asleep dreaming of such a man.
This imaginary male had his mouth on my cunny, his tongue driving me to distraction, when I heard the screaming. At first, I thought it was myowncries, cries of pleasure…but I soon learned differently.
The old legends were true.
For a few hours every full moon, the ancient circle of standing stones becomes a sort of pathway, through which horrible monsters might swoop down and steal human women for their own depraved amusement.
And tonight, they’d come.
We ran, of course. My cousins and I linked hands and ran, until we were yanked back. I did my best to block out the clash of steel and the cries of wounded, to focus only on the sound of my own pounding heartbeat…but ‘twas too much.
I could feel my chest squeezing and I wanted to wrap my arms around myself and curl into a ball andpray for death. This violence is what I had avoided for so long by selling myself to a single man. It had been all for naught, because I was in the midst of it again.
Headstrong Roxanna was at my side, protecting me as well as she could. I wanted to burrow into her safety, even knowing she could no more protect herself than me.
And then I was pulled away.
John, our escort, the man tasked with our safety, the man who had hurt me so often in the past…held a knife to my throat.
“I can bargain!” he screeched. “I want more gold!”
Part of me wanted to squeeze my eyes shut, to hide, to protect myself. But I was surprised at the surge of wistfulness which washed over me. I was about to die, murdered as a bargaining chip by a man who had promised to protect me if I would just be a good girl and take him all and not scream. Another lie.
And that wistfulness is why I kept my eyes open.
I wanted one last look at the world.
The moon was bright enough to see the Tarbert men kneeling on the ground. Wounded, weaponless…but alive. The orcs had let them live?
