Page 4 of Orc's Possession
With my father’s callous words still ringing in my head, I stare at the approaching riders. Tall, with tusks protruding from behind their lower lips, and weapons strapped across their chests, at their waists, and slung over their backs. They display hard muscles and even harder expressions.
If I manage to escape the orcs, I can return here… conditionally.
Spy for my people.
No one cares that the orcs will use me in the process.
No matter how I look at this, my own people,my own father, are selling me. I still can’t grasp that notion.
When he first told me my colony would be trading me for the orcs’ protection, I cried for a full day. Then I got mad at myself for wasting time when I could have been planning my escape. Except there was no escaping. My father locked me in my room like a prisoner, with bathroom privileges twice a day. No chance to say goodbye to friends, or to beg anyone to help me.
No one even visited me. My sisters returned home this morning.
Ten minutes. That’s all I had with them. Not enough time to say good bye, let alone sift through all the lies they’d been told.
Camila, Marta, and Renata are still inside our house, ordered to remain in their rooms until my father says otherwise.I don’t want you anywhere near the orcs, he’d told them.Don’t watch from the windows either, unless you want to risk the beasts taking you.
He’s concerned aboutthembeing taken. Where’s his concern for me?
They had stayed with friends for the past several days. He’d told them I needed time and space to prepare for my new life, the bastard.
The truth is easier to control when you limit access to the only one willing to speak it.Me.
I’d foolishly thought my sisters had come to save me. When we put our heads together, we can figure out anything.
Except how to save me from being sold to monsters, apparently.
Renata told me that Dad said I’dvolunteered. I saw the pity in her eyes. My sisters figured out the truth, but not how to save me.
I’ll never see them again.
“Did you hear me, Paloma?” My father’s belligerent voice tears me from my thoughts. I choke back my tears as I look at him. I want to wipe that stoic expression off his face. Even a tear, a trembling of his lip… I’d take any sign, no matter how small, that shows he’s sorry for what he’s doing to me.
The ground shakes beneath the heavy hooves of the orcs’ mounts and cart. They’re almost upon us.
“Do you care at all what will happen to me?” I ask, my voice barely audible.
“The orcs need females. They’ll keep you alive.”
“But at what cost to me? You’re sending me there to be a baby maker… with monsters!”
“Just one orc. The orc who you’ll be given to will be responsible for you. You’ll answer to him, so don’t think throwing a tantrum like you are now will help you. You can’t always get your way. That’s life.”
Tears stream down my face. He doesn’t know for sure what’s going to happen to me. No one does.
“I could be passed around from monster to monster, used and kept in a dark cell for the rest of my life. How could you do this to me?”
“You’re going to an orc who needs a wife. Arranged marriages are part of our history.”
“Humanhistory. These areorcs. And this isn’t a marriage. I’m beingforced. Don’t you get that? You’ve sold me!”
“Enough! It’s done.”
The orcs stop thirty feet from us. My father straightens his back and keeps his eyes on the beasts as they dismount. They’re huge, and ugly as sin. How will I survive this?
“Why me?” I whimper, not sure what else I can possibly say to stop this.
“Because you’re strong, like your mother. Thick and sturdy. Not fragile like your sisters.”
