Page 24 of Agor the Merciless
Agor walked to the wooden trunk in the corner and lifted the lid. He searched inside, his back to her. This was her chance to speak up, but it was as if her voice refused to listen to her. She found she couldn’t utter a single word.
First, Agor removed the rest of his clothes. His leather pants pooled around his ankles, then he stepped out of them and bent down to remove his boots. Zoe’s eyes widened as she saw his heavy sack hang between his powerful thighs. Before realizing what she was doing, she licked her lips. The orc captain straightened his back, his joints popping satisfyingly. He let out a groan, and the sound seemed to reverberate through the room and seep into Zoe’s core. She closed her eyes and shook her head. What was happening to her? Sure, she wanted him. But she was mad at him, too. That had to count! She opened her eyes because she couldn’t refuse herself the raw, rugged beauty of her orc mate’s body. Not when he was only a few feet away, naked and hard all over.
When Agor finally turned, she saw he was holding the clay jar. Her emotions were confusing. She didn’t want it, yet she did. She hated that contradiction. As he approached, she didn’t move away.
Their eyes met as he sat beside her. The ointment’s scent reached her nostrils, and her skin responded in anticipation, goosebumps prickling from her hairline to her toes.
Chapter Thirteen
A week passed since Agor dragged her from the garage. Zoe sat outside the cave, legs stretched in the dirt, and watched the orcs move up and down, up and down, chatting and laughing, or working in silence. Hestra walked past with three hunters, quivers on their backs, while Roric the Smith hammered a blade and sparks fell onto the ground. Zana the Tanner bent over hides, scraping each one, and in general, everyone was thoroughly busy, except for her.
Pira the Forager came up the path, a bowl in her hands with steam rising from the stew inside, smelling of onion and herbs. She knelt next to Zoe and offered the food without speaking. Zoe hadn’t finished a meal in days but took the bowl anyway and ate a spoonful without tasting anything.
“Berry patches are ready on the southern hill,” the female orc said. “Tomorrow, we gather, and you can join us if you want.”
Zoe took another bite, eyes fixed in the distance on nothing in particular. When she didn’t answer, Pira stood and walked away. After a few steps, she looked back at Zoe, her dark eyes soft with something worse than pity, then hurried off when Hestra the Huntress called from across the clearing. Zoe ate every bite despite not tasting it, watching as the others only came close to her to bring food or messages from Agor. When she tried to mingle with them, they walked around her and stopped talking whenever she came near because, apparently, being the captain’s mate meant being alone.
She set the empty bowl aside and looked at her clean hands. She was used to having grease on her knuckles and dirt under her fingernails. Who would’ve thought that marrying an orc would turn her into some sort of lady? Orcs were clean in general, so it made sense why the captain wanted his bride to beclean and freshly bathed all the time, but still… Zoe thought it was a serious exaggeration.
Through the trees, she could see the garage roof, a place she hadn’t gone near since Agor had forbidden it. She’d thought about disobeying his order, but then she’d create trouble for the two orc mechanics, and she didn’t want that. She was the kind of person who avoided drama at all costs, even at the cost of her own happiness.
As the sun rose toward the center of the sky, the heat drove Zoe into the forest, where she walked on pine needles and twigs, following a path between trees that blocked most of the sun, while birds called above her, their song mixed with the sound of rustling leaves and moving water in the distance. She followed the noise downhill, ducking under branches, until she reached the most beautiful stream she’d ever seen. Sparkling water ran over rocks and curved around boulders with foam. Zoe sat on a rock, untied her boots, took off her socks, and put her feet in the water.
The cold shocked her skin and numbed her feet, cutting through the heat that stayed in her body from the ointment. She and Agor used it every night. It had become a ritual, and she’d stopped fighting it at some point. Now, all she felt was a deep, penetrating craving. The magic that remained in her blood after the wounds he inflicted healed, made her skin feel wrong, her thoughts jumbled, and her body wanting things she couldn’t have during the day.
She sat for hours, moving her toes on the sandy bottom as water splashed on her ankles and dried. She didn’t leave until shadows filled the forest. At sunset, she put her boots back on and walked back to the camp, her body burning with need already. A fleeting thought came to her: maybe it wasn’t that the orcs didn’t want to be around her and talk to her… maybe it washer. She was the one who sought solitude, unless she could be with the captain.
Agor waited in their gallery, where he did the same things every night: tied her wrists to the iron bolt, hit her with the belt, and put the salve on her skin. Zoe’s body moved toward him without her even thinking about it, her hips pushing against his crotch until he stopped teasing her and entered her, and fucked her into oblivion. She made noises she didn’t recognize, her skin burned, and the orgasms were so mind-blowing that they made her forget who she was for a few minutes. Who she was and what she wanted to do with her life… What life? It didn’t feel like the future belonged to her anymore. It belonged to him, her orc husband, her torturer and protector, and in fact, it was actually easy to let him have all the power, all the control. She only had to breathe and exist, not forget to eat and drink. Simple.
After, when they caught their breath, Agor cleaned the sweat off her with a wet cloth, rubbed her back, and whispered over and over, sometimes in English, sometimes in a harsh, brutal language she didn’t understand:
“Mine alone. Perfect. Mine.”
She never responded because she wasn’t really listening to his words, anyway. It didn’t seem like he wanted to hear her opinion, so she didn’t bother.
Every morning started again with sitting, watching, going to the stream, coming back for the night, letting Agor fuck her brains out, and falling asleep in his arms.
On the eighth day, she woke up feeling empty, and thought about the night before – how her body had tensed before Agor touched her, and how she’d bitten her lip to keep from asking for more – realizing she didn’t just want the sex anymore, but exactly the way they did it. If he didn’t reach for the rope first, she would. Last night, she’d actually been the one to push it into his hands, and when he didn’t immediately take off his belt,she nudged at it with her foot. Her stomach turned at how she needed the thing that kept her trapped. She reminded herself that Agor the Merciless was her husband, the man she chose, and his body against hers, and the way he made her feel weren’t bad things. This was just a transition. Once she made him understand about the garage and working with her hands, these nights would be better. They wouldn’t leave her feeling so empty.
Zoe sat on a rock at the edge of the camp until she felt someone looking at her. She turned to see who it was. This orc stood taller than the others, and thin where they were thick, wearing a long, blue dress with small bits of glass and beads that caught the light when she moved. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, and her face looked young. Her eyes, however, looked old and wise as they studied Zoe, holding more than a young person should know, and Zoe realized this must have been the horde’s mage, the one who made the ointment she used every night and who hadn’t come near her since she’d arrived. She tried to remember her name. She had heard the other orcs talk about her, and how the mage rarely left her workshop, how she was a loner. Lyra, Zoe thought. Yes, her name was Lyra the Mage.
Zoe averted her gaze and shuddered. For some reason, when Lyra stared at her like that, it was as if she could see inside her.
***
From beneath the cedar’s shadow, Lyra studied the human female. Zoe perched alone on a rock, eyes empty, body still. Days of the same routine had worn paths in the dirt: sitting by the cave, walking to the stream, coming back at sunset. None of the other orcs noticed what Lyra spotted right away: how Zoe’s eyes shone too bright in the sunlight and her hands shook when taking food from Pira.
Zoe turned suddenly, catching Lyra watching. Their eyes met across the clearing. The human dropped her gaze first and hunched her shoulders.
Lyra slipped away from the cedar and walked through the side tunnel that led to her workshop. She pushed aside the curtain that separated her personal space from the other orcs’ sleeping quarters and struck flint against steel to light a hanging lamp. Yellow light spilled across shelves crowded with jars of dried leaves, roots, and powders. Books and scrolls covered every surface, stacked high toward the ceiling. Smoke from the lamp filled her nose with the scent of burned fat as she crossed to the back wall, where an iron-bound chest sat on a stone ledge. Her fingers touched the old wood. This was the chest of Grak the Bitter, the former horde mage who had taught her everything she knew. Grak had been her teacher for years, but in his old age, he made choices Agor didn’t agree with. The captain and the old mage had a falling out, ending with Grak leaving to live alone in the woods. No one had seen him since.
She knelt and opened the lid. Herbs and tools filled the top part, and she reached past them to a small box hidden under a false bottom. Inside were his strongest spells.
When Agor the Merciless started looking for a bride, he’d asked Lyra for the healing salve Grak had created years ago. She’d given the captain exactly what her teacher had taught her – herbs and magic bound together to heal torn skin and stop pain. But now the mage realized that Grak the Bitter had built more into his recipe than just healing. The magic that threaded through it stirred desire, and twisted pain into pleasure strong enough to keep an orc female willing even after punishment. This magic was meant for green skin, not human flesh.
Lyra chewed her bottom lip. Grak never used small spells when big ones would do. He packed power into everything he made. A dose right for orcs might burn through a human too fastand too strong. Zoe’s behavior showed all the signs – foggy mind by day, desperate need by night, body craving magic it couldn’t handle. Humans had no defense against orc magic. Their bodies processed spells differently, without the resistance orcs built over generations. What gave orc females warm pleasure might eat through humans from within.
Her mouth went dry. She should have changed the formula before giving it to the captain. She should have cut its strength or warned him about using it on a human. Instead, she’d followed Grak’s teachings without question, just as she’d had as his student.
