Kalfr betrayed a wince, and glanced down to where Svein had gone slack against Raye again, his eyes closed. “During the war,” Kalfr carefully replied. “Whenever orcs in our war-bands did not fight, they were expected to earn their keep in… other ways. Our drummers and dancers most of all. So they oft abandoned their old gifts, to instead offer what the bands’ most powerful warriors wished for from them. Some of them” — he winced again — “were even captured by humans, and bound to this with them, also.”
The horror wrenched through Raye’s gut, and her thoughts flashed back to that morning, to when Fengr had said he had little care for most humans, and most orcs, too. “So you… you gave Fengr a new kind of job, in your band,” she said slowly. “A different way to still be a dancer. The way it was meant to be.”
Kalfr nodded, a flicker of relief passing through his eyes, while across from them, Skirvir leaned forward, his brow deeply furrowed. “You mean to say this so-called dancer will not offer this at all, then?” he demanded. “Not even to our greatest warriors after each battle, as he ought?”
Kalfr and Gaelfr both frowned at once, Gaelfr making what appeared to be a rude gesture toward Skirvir, and Raye was grateful that Svein now seemed fully asleep, his head lolling on her shoulder. “I just said, no, Fengr will not offer this,” Kalfr told Skirvir, his voice hard and clipped. “And if you expect this of him, or any other here, you can take your blade elsewhere.”
Skirvir at least had the decency to look somewhat chastened, and he curtly nodded before rising to his feet and stalking off toward the barrel of ale. And after another long look toward him, Kalfr turned toward Raye, his eyes softening at the sight of Svein’s sleeping body sprawled against hers. “Ach, our son oughtto be in bed,” he murmured. “I will put him in the back room, mayhap.”
Raye gratefully smiled back, and helped to wrangle Svein’s heavy weight up into Kalfr’s arms. And as Kalfr strode away with Svein, Raye found herself sinking against Gaelfr’s solid body beside her on the sofa.
“You were right,” she murmured toward him. “He’s really, really good at this.”
Gaelfr nodded, and his heavy arm settled closer around her shoulder. “Ach, he is,” he said firmly. “And together, we will keep helping him in this, and guide him back to who he is. We will grant him hope, andpeace.”
There wasn’t a hint of a question in it this time, and Raye took a breath, and nodded. Right. Yes. That was what she’d agreed to, wasn’t it? And again, it was too easy to shove down the darkness, the doubts, and focus on the hope, and the truth of this moment. And on the sight of Kalfr, who’d come out of the back room again, closing the door tightly behind him. And when he paused to chat to a cluster of orcs, tipping his head back as he laughed at something Egil had said, the room stilled around Raye, stuttering with that hope, that longing. Gods, he looked so beautiful, so much like he’d used to be — and she desperately wanted to trust him, wanted to believe the goddess was just answering all her prayers…
“And you remember how you now owe him,” Gaelfr murmured, close and hot in her ear. “How you owe both of us.”
And instead of the dread and darkness this time, Raye felt only more thunderous longing, and something like relief. Perhaps because Gaelfr was barging in again, hurling away all her doubt and fear, flooding her instead with his certainty, his strength. And with his touch, too, his hand now smoothly reaching for the belt of her dress, and drawing it apart.Revealing the lacy red chemise beneath, showing it off for all these orcs, and she should be appalled by that, she should…
But instead, she only looked at Kalfr. At her mate. At how his eyes met hers across the room, how his nostrils flared, his tongue brushing his lips. And that wasn’t hatred in his eyes, was it? No. It was hunger. Pleasure.Power.
Gaelfr’s hand had begun to pull out Raye’s braid, too, releasing her curls in a messy halo around her head, and oh, Kalfr liked that too. He even cut off Skirvir’s rapid speaking with a curt wave of his hand, his eyes glittering on Raye — and then he strode over toward her and Gaelfr on the sofa, his hand adjusting his trousers. Saying, he wanted this. He wanted her. And perhaps he wanted her here, now, in this crowded room, before all his band.
And when he came to a halt before her, looking down at her with those glittering eyes, Raye was certain of it. Because again, this was power. This might be penance again, punishment, proving it to him…
But maybe… maybe it was something else, too. Something they’d both begun to learn last night, and something they’d kept learning together, all this day.
“Will you seek to meet me in this, Raye?” Kalfr murmured, as his hand found her face, and tilted up her chin toward him. “Learn this, with me? Trust me?”
The hunger and craving surged through Raye’s belly, through her shocked blinking eyes. He wanted her to meet him, in this. Learn this with him. Trust him. And he was asking her, warning her what he wanted, giving her a chance to refuse. And maybe giving her a chance to prove this, too.
“Y-yes,” Raye whispered. “I will.”
And oh, the way Kalfr smiled at her, the way his hand caressed her face. Wanting her, wanting this, and…
“Then kneel for us,” he whispered. “And beg.”
43
Kneel.Beg.
It should have been shocking. Humiliating. Especially in this crowded room, full of watching, listening orcs. Orcs who would witness this, and judge.
But Raye’s swift, furtive glance around the room didn’t find any judgement in the orcs’ eyes. Only curiosity, and warmth, and approval. As if this was expected of her, somehow, especially at an important gathering like this. And Othan had begun stroking his drum in a lazy, suggestive rhythm, while before the fire, Eyolf and Iyolf had already curled up together, Iyolf softly nibbling at Eyolf’s throat.
“Did you not hear your mate,sæta?” came Gaelfr’s voice from beside Raye on the sofa, as he finished tugging off her dress, leaving her clad in only her lacy red chemise. “He said to kneel, and beg.”
Raye’s cheeks were already burning, and her gaze snapped back to Kalfr’s face, to his glittering waiting eyes. And at the sight, she rapidly nodded, and slipped off the sofa, onto her knees on the fur before him. A movement that felt too natural, too easy, almost…eager.
“Please,vörður,” she managed, through her too-dry throat. “Please, allow me to — to honour you.”
Kalfr’s eyes flickered, but he arched his brow, and didn’t reply. Waiting, wanting more, and it shouldn’t have coiled like that, deep and needy in Raye’s belly. And she shouldn’t be thinking of last night, on that very sofa, when Gaelfr had said,She needs this from you. You need this, also.
“Please,vörður,” Raye said again, steadier this time. “Please, let me tend you. Touch you. Taste you.”
Her cheeks burned even hotter, but she held her gaze on Kalfr’s face, waiting. And she only half-caught how Gaelfr huffed a satisfied grunt from the sofa, and leaned forward, and tucked something into her hair. A flower, perhaps plucked from one of the vases now dotted around the room.
