“I am not the monster your priests speak of,” I continued, my voice dropping to a lower, more dangerous register. “I am not here to slaughter you for sport. I am here to reclaim what was stolen from my people. But your fate is now tied to mine. And so, I offer you a choice.”
I paused, letting them absorb the word. Choice. It was not something a conquered people expected.
“You may remain here. You may live in your homes, work your trades. You will become subjects of the Orc nation. You will follow our laws, pay our taxes, and you will be protected under my rule. You will live.”
A ripple of shock went through the crowd. I could see the flicker of desperate hope in their eyes.
“Or,” I said, my voice turning to ice, “you can refuse. Those who refuse will be taken as prisoners of war. We will offer to trade you back to your human kingdoms. But I will tell you now… your Magistrate did not value you enough to stay and fight for you. I doubt he will value you enough to trade for you.”
The hope in their eyes died, replaced by a new, colder terror. They understood. To be a prisoner was to be worthless. To be forgotten.
“That is the choice for the men, the families, the elders,” I said, letting my gaze sweep over them. “But there is another decree. A Blood Decree.”
I looked toward the huddled group of unmarried women. Young women, widows, all now without husbands or fathers or brothers to provide for them. They flinched under my gaze.
“My people are dying,” I stated, the words raw and true. “The poisons your people bled into our soil have left most of our females barren. We need new blood. Any unmarried woman who chooses to stay… will be chosen as a bride by one of my warriors. You will be bound to them. You will bear their children. You will help us forge a new future for both our peoples.”
This time, the reaction was not shock. It was pure horror. Women shrieked, mothers clutched their children, pulling them close. The man I had left alive, the baker, stepped in front of his wife and daughter, his unarmed body a futile shield.
It was in this moment of chaos that the girl beside me spoke.
Her voice was not loud, but it cut through the noise with the clarity of a ringing bell. “What are the terms?”
I looked down at her. She was staring up at me, her stormy eyes narrowed, devoid of hysteria. Her question was calm. Practical. It was the question of a soldier, a strategist.
“Explain the rules for the brides,” she said, her voice steady despite the trembling I could see in her hands. “Will you force them? And what of the children?” Her eyes flickered to a young girl, no older than twelve, who was sobbing in her mother’s arms. “Will you take them as well?”
The crowd fell silent, all eyes turning to this one small woman who had dared to question the conquering general. My warriors growled, offended by her audacity. I held up a hand, silencing them.
Her courage was a thing of stark, stunning beauty. She was not pleading for her own life. She was negotiating for the lives of others.
A grimace, a true and involuntary expression, touched my lips. She was asking about a line I had already drawn in my own mind. “No girl who has not seen her eighteenth winter will be chosen,” I declared, my voice resonating with the conviction of my own law. “That is a barbarism I will not allow. The women who are chosen will be treated with the honor due to the mate of a warrior. They will be fed, housed, and protected. Their children will be heirs to our nation, not slaves. It will be a hard life. But it will be a life. That is more than your own leaders were willing to offer you.”
I looked back down at her. Her face was pale, but her expression was resolute. I could see the gears turning in her mind. She weighed my words, judged my sincerity, and calculated the odds.
And then she made her choice.
She took a shaky breath, lifted her chin, and spoke the words that would seal her fate. “I will do it.” Her voice was quiet, but it echoed across the silent square. “I will stay.”
A jolt, powerful and electric, shot through me. The beast in my blood, the one I had kept chained and starved, broke free. It roared in triumph.Mine.It was not a thought. It was a certainty, a truth that settled into my very bones.
My decision was instant. The general, the strategist, the nation-builder—they all vanished. There was only the male, claiming his mate.
I stepped down from the crate, my full height and presence dwarfing her. I looked down into her stormy, defiant eyes. My voice, when I spoke, was cold, flat, and absolute. The voice of a general making a decree. It was a mask for the roaring fire inside me.
“Then the choice is made.” I reached out and laid my hand on her shoulder. Her skin was warm, even through the thin fabric of her tunic. I felt a tremor go through her, but she did not flinch away. “You. You will be mine.”
Chapter 6
Kael
For two days, I was a ghost.
They kept me in the antechamber of the command tower, a small, stone room with a cot, a bucket, and two guards who stood outside the door like statues. Three times a day, a silent Orc would bring a tray with bread, dried meat, and a cup of water. It was more than I’d often eaten as a grunt, a fact so absurd I almost laughed.
I was a prisoner. A prize of war. The General’s declared bride. The words were a meaningless jumble in my head, a language I didn’t understand. I had prepared myself for torture, for a swift execution, for a brutal rape. I had not prepared for this… this quiet, unnerving civility. The waiting was its own kind of hell, a slow erosion of the defiant rage that had kept me standing. In its place, a cold, hollow dread began to bloom.
From my single, barred window, I could watch the city of Grayfang Pass slowly, painfully, coming back to life under Orcish rule. The bodies had been cleared, the blood washed from the cobblestones by a hard rain. Orc patrols walked the walls where I had once stood guard. I saw humans—the ones who had chosen to stay—timidly opening their shops, their faces pale and their movements jerky, like mice creeping out of their holes after a hawk has passed. They were alive. But they were not free. Neither was I.
