Rathgarr snorted, but also gave a mollified-looking nod, and soon they were indeed entering yet another inn. From the outside, it looked like any other inn, with a busy drive, and warm lamplight spilling out its small windows. But instead of Rathgarr sending her in first to make the arrangements, and then meeting her afterwards, this time he just pulled his hood low over his face, and walked through the front door beside her.
There were only two other orcs obviously present in the bustling dining-room, and Rathgarr was already earning a few wary glances from other patrons — but the elderly human barman was looking over too, and giving a curt little nod. And soon he was ushering Geva and Rathgarr into a cozy little back area, which was mostly shielded from the rest of the room by thick, dark oaken dividers. And in the smattering of booths, there were indeed multiple other orcs and humans — men and women both — dining and talking together, as though this were a perfectly ordinary thing to do.
Several of the unfamiliar orcs nodded at Rathgarr, some of them pressing their fists against their hearts, clearly in some kind of greeting. And Rathgarr made the same gesture in return, bowing his head toward each of the orcs, before sliding into the empty booth the barman had indicated, and waving Geva in opposite.
It meant that he and Geva were actually sitting across from each other at a table, in a public inn. And it was a surprisingly lovely feeling, and Geva felt herself relaxing back into her booth, and even giving him a small, genuine smile across the table.
“This is nice,” she told him, once the barman had brought them both frothing glasses of ale. “Back in the capital, there were places like this for Ezirans, too. Places where we could go and just… be ourselves. Pretend like we belong.”
Rathgarr’s head tilted, his brows furrowing. “Ach, you humans,” he said, taking a long swig of his ale. “I cannot fathom howyoudo not belong here, poppet. You look human. You smell human. You speak a human tongue and wear human clothes and know human ways. What more can the other humans wish for?”
Geva gave a humourless little smile down toward her ale, and attempted a careless shrug. “Well, I know I still have a lot to learn about orcs,” she began, “but I’m beginning to realize that maybeyouaren’t really that different, either. You speak the language, you dress beautifully, you’ve apparently lived among humans for sixteenyears. Should it matter that you have some different customs, or different skin and fingernails? But yet” — she met Rathgarr’s eyes, her brows raised — “here you are, hiding, fearing for your life, only able to walk on the road for the past three years? Relying on suggestivepamphletsto keep us from killing you?”
She’d lifted her chin a little, holding his eyes — but to her genuine surprise, Rathgarr inclined his head, and raised his glass toward her before taking a long, gulping drink. As if he’d believed her, or even conceded her point, and Geva blinked blankly toward him, before taking a bracing drink of her own.
“And at leastyoucan walk to your home,” she continued once she’d finished, with a sigh. “There’s a wholemountainfull of people who share your culture, and look just like you. WhereasIneed to go off and take an appallingly expensive sail into the unknown, across the damned giganticsea.”
Rathgarr had set down his half-empty glass with a thunk, his eyes flinty and narrow on hers. “You have not gone to Ezira before?” he asked, his voice suddenly sharp. “And they would not be expecting you?”
Geva couldn’t suppress a deeply betraying flinch, but she gripped her glass of ale, and raised her chin higher. “No,” she said thinly. “But what else do you expect me to do? I’m a criminal now, remember? Andyouwere the one who didn’t want me to risk going back to the capital!”
Rathgarr visibly winced, and then took another long, sustained drink of his ale. Again clearly choosing not to argue her point, and Geva rubbed at her eyes, and let out a slow, shaky breath. Gods, why was she getting into this now, when they’d finally managed to pass such a pleasant day together? When they’d almost begun to feel like… friends?
“And look, I’m very capable of taking care of myself,” Geva continued, steadier than before. “I have a plan. I have a job. And my employer” — she gave him another too-sweet smile — “isn’t even quite as horrible as I’d first supposed.”
She was rewarded with a telltale glint in Rathgarr’s eye as he knocked back the rest of his ale, fully emptying the glass. And then — she blinked — he slid the empty glass down under the table. Wait, under thetable, where his other hand had begun purposefully… stroking?
“What are youdoing?” Geva demanded, her voice shrill — but Rathgarr, the unbelievable bastard, only grinned lazily back toward her, and settled himself a little more comfortably against his bench. While that arm under the table just kept steadily moving, up and down and up again. As if he was — he couldnotbe —
“Showing myself a goodemployer,” he replied coolly, “and granting you a chance to earn yet more of that sweet coin you long for.”
For an instant, Geva was struck fully speechless, her eyes darting uneasily toward the booth nearest. Thankfully, its chatting orc occupants hadn’t seemed to take any notice of Rathgarr’s audacious behaviour, and when Geva glanced back at his face, he was actuallylaughing, the sound low and husky in his throat.
“Even if they see, they shall not care a whit,” he murmured. “Mayhap you might even wish to kneel beneath the table, and remind me how much you learnt from your lessons yesterday?”
Good gods, thisorc, and Geva rapidly drained the rest of her ale, willing its coldness to lower the palpable heat in her cheeks. “Absolutely not, you great menace,” she hissed. “I am not risking that in public,again!”
But Rathgarr’s eyes were still far too warm, dancing with genuine amusement. “Ach, ach, my prickly poppet,” he drawled at her, as his hand kept casually stroking away beneath the table. “Since I am such a goodemployer, I shall make this easy for you, yetagain—”
With that, his breath caught, his lashes fluttering, his body gone taut and rigid — and then he groaned, long and low, his head tilting back, his hand moving slower, slower, slower. Clearly pumping himself out, milking himself dry beneath the table, inpublic, forher.
Geva truly could not move, or stop staring — not even when Rathgarr’s movements had finally stilled, and his body sagged heavily back into the booth. His eyes gone lazy and sparkling, his lips parted, his cheeks flushed. Looking utterly debauched and sated andamused, because — because —
“Here, poppet,” he purred, as he lifted his hand out from beneath the table again. And in it — Geva audibly choked — was his previously empty glass, now filled to the brim with rich, frothy, creamy whiteness.
“Drink up,” he ordered, sliding the full glass across the table toward her. “Warm and fresh, just for you.”
Geva gaped at the glass, at his smug waiting face, and then at the glass again.Warm and fresh, just for you. And she’d agreed to this, oh gods had she agreed to this, she could do this, she was allowed to do this, right? For the scent?
Her hand snaking across the table toward the glass felt damnably willing, even eager — and oh, now the glass was in her fingers, and it indeed felt warm to the touch, for her. And as she drew it closer, she could already smell it, full-bodied and sweet, curling into her nostrils, tugging deep in her groin…
And Rathgarr was watching, he was waiting, his eyes still glittering, intent. And that was his long black tongue, brushing brief against his lips, perhaps in encouragement, or accord. Enough, somehow, just enough, that Geva’s shaky hand lifted the glass, and brought it to her mouth.
Her moan was reflexive, unthinking, unconscionable — but damn it, Rathgarrlikedit, he was still smiling like that across the table, with such wicked, insolent approval. So she just kept drinking, swallowing down his thick, succulent richness — fresh, forher— in gulp after heavy, dragging gulp.
But suddenly, they were interrupted by the presence of the barman, bearing two steaming plates of supper. Prompting Geva to hurriedly set down her half-empty drink on the table, her face burning hot — and while the barman didn’t seem to notice, it felt even more absurd to have it just sitting there, beside her damned plate, as if it were an innocuous glass of milk, and not —that.
But somehow she managed to eat, even if the excellent food tasted impossibly bland, compared to her careful, intermittent sips of Rathgarr’s sweetness. And each time she drank, Rathgarr’s eyes would angle sharply toward her, his full lips parting, his hand spasming on his fork. So much that he once even dropped a whole forkful of food back to his plate, while Geva smiled smugly toward him, and made a show of finally, finally, finishing off the glass, and licking its last sweet, frothy remnants off her lips.
