Page 73 of Orc's Possession
Urik caps his water flask. “And if this human doesn’t? Then we have to wait for Atox to take the moxxel female waiting for him. They are even uglier than the humans.”
The truth slams into me like a tidal wave. I can barely breathe as my whole world crashes down on me all over again, except this time from the male I’ve come to admire and… love.
No, I can’t love someone who would discard me if I can’t conceive. But that’s exactly what the warriors said.
ATOX IM GRAK
I returnto camp after another long day of negotiations with the humans. They are eager for more warriors to guard their borders and for us to train their men. My warriors are already spread thin protecting my people and territory. While the humans have females they plan to give us in exchange, I won’t take any more until I have proof that humans and orcs can produce offspring.
Orcs are larger than humans, and our offspring might be too large for a human female to carry. Will my female survive the birth of a youngling? I could lose both the youngling and her. This worry plagues me each time I release inside her.
A fear I’ve never known strikes me so hard I lean against the tunnel wall inside my mountain, stunned by the emotion. Not even when my father killed my mother did I experience such fear.
The thought of losing Paloma… I grind my tusks. I cannot think like this. Not about her. And yet I cannot ignore the possibility. The very outcome I’ve sought all this time, to have her bear my youngling, may kill her.
I promised I’d always protect her and yet I must find a way to grow our numbers, or we will die out as a species. I must use my own female, a female I’ve come to care about, to test what is possible.
May the gods help me, I am no better than the cendagi who experiment on people.
Or my father, who’d use a female for his needs, regardless of the risk to her.
My people or my female. I must choose, but I cannot.
I enter my bedchamber, eager to hold my female and feel her soft body beneath mine as I slide into her. When I push the door open, darkness and the smell of stale air greet me. I turn on the light to confirm what I already know. She hasn’t been in our quarters for hours despite the late hour.
“My female, Daelix. Is she in the tunnels?” I ask the guard I posted at the main entrance. I still had no answers as to why a herd of yengas stampeded the base of the mountain where dozensof my people work. Yengas roam the forests and plains mostly, instinctively avoiding mountains and canyons, areas where they could be trapped.
“She entered with Ossa, Grak.”
Hearing that my female is with Ossa calms my fraying nerves. My sister is one of many who did not like the idea of sullying our race with outsiders, but she won’t defy me. My orcs understand if we are to survive as a species we need females. We will no longer be pure orcs, but we will teach each generation our ways. We live as orcs—beorcs—even if we no longer fully look orc.
The sound of younglings playing and laughing increases as I descend to the lower levels where families live. Unmated warriors occupy the upper levels, serving as the last barrier, defending our females and younglings, our most precious resources, against invaders. Not that any invader should breech our other perimeters.
But the yenga did.
The laughter of younglings is a sound I don’t hear often. My work often takes me far from camp. There are far too few younglings among us and we keep them close to the mountain for the same reason they sleep in the lowest levels. Protection.
It makes me wonder if I should take a chamber on a lower level now that I have a female. Except a grak’s place is always with his warriors.
How long before my female grows large and round with my youngling? What if she doesn’t conceive? What if she does, and it kills her?
“Ossa?” I call out as I pound on the door to her chambers. She has one of the larger chambers since she has three younglings.
The door opens. Little Evve, only eight seasons, and so striking, answers. One of the last pure orc females born to our people. My own younglings may not carry the same beautiful ridges on her forehead or look up at me with such hypnotic green eyes.
“Uncle grak, why are you here?”
“Evve,” her mother chides. “Don’t be rude. Invite your grak in.”
“Uncle grak,” Evve corrects her mother.
I hear a laugh somewhere to the back of the chamber. The breath I draw fills my nostrils with the scent of my female, both calming and arousing me. I push any thoughts of bedding her aside for now, given Evve’s presence. While public sex is common among orcs, we avoid areas where younglings are present.
“I came for my female,” I announce.
“You haven’t entered our chambers in over two years,” Ossa scorns. “Evve has given up on rides, Duvik no longer practices his knife skills, and Sojek says little because he thinks you detest him. Add to that the marks you left on his face, and?—”
I hold up my hand. My sister wields guilt as a weapon, a very sharp one. I have an entire settlement to oversee. These are not my younglings, they are hers. I love them, but I cannot favor them over others.
