Page 52 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

“See that you do,” she said. She pointed. “I am sleeping in the loft. You will sleep elsewhere.”

“I understand,” he said.

“Good,” she said.

He thought about bringing up the fact she’d rested her head against his chest and decided against it. “Thank you for letting me come along,” he said instead, even though it was a bit ridiculous that he was thanking her for the privilege of assisting her, after all.

“I am actually glad you’re here,” she said, giving him a look that bespoke a certain kind of exhaustion.

He smiled at her.

She smiled back.

And then she climbed up into the loft without another word.

THE NEXT MORNING, Iahir was frying up eggs that he’d found in the chicken coop on a fire he’d made, using some foldable skillet that had apparently been in the saddle bag of supplies he’d purchased from the inn where they’d stayed the night before last.

Gathren had to admit that waking up to food was nice, and waking up to someone else having done the labor was even nicer. She also could not deny that she was curious about why he did not wish to go home.

She wondered about badgering him about it. However, something in his manner told her she would get nowhere if she did. She wondered if it was something very horrible—and then she wondered what passed as very horrible to the arrogant elf. Had he ever experienced anything like true suffering?

However, the admission itself had soothed her.

She had been rather out of sorts at the idea that he would have followed her all the way up to Notharlien just to try to bed her. That seemed madness. She was aware that she must be somewhat interesting to him, considering he’d likely never bedded an orc warrioress, but that didn’t seem like the sort of thing that a man like him would be so intent on doing that he’d travel so far out of his way.

Now, she knew he’d been using his attraction for her as an excuse.

After that long and awful conversation they’d had the day before, of course, she was embarrassed to be with him. She had admitted so many vulnerable things to him primarily because she thought that they were parting ways and she would never see him again. She certainly would not have spent so much time going on about how she wanted to be loved and cherished if she had thought that they were going to be together like this for days on end. What he must think of her!

He’d said some interesting things, she had to admit.

She kept turning over the idea that all men thought of all women as conquests, and she could see that there was some truth to this idea. She had spent quite a great deal of time in the company of men during her time with the orc army and she had listened to the way they talked about women, and she could see that it was quite so. In their discussions with each other, at any rate, the men might as well have been talking about mountains they wanted to climb, streams they wanted to ford. The women were challenges, and they wanted to take them on. Getting a woman to acquiesce was winning, and they wanted to win.

She had been telling herself, however, that there were certain women that men did not treat this way. And perhaps there were. But it did not happen to be because the woman was typically feminine, which was what she had told herself. She had told herself that the reason that men did not want to fall in love with her was because she was not feminine enough.

Now, she realized that men treated plenty of feminine women the same way.

This was a freeing feeling.

But it still begged the question: what made a man fall in love instead of simply treating a woman like a challenge to be conquered?

And it actually brought another question to the surface of her mind: why did she suddenly care?

She would not say that she had been much concerned with making men fall in love with her when she left the orc army with Dathor. She had been only focused on bringing about the death of High King Findas.

She sat down in front of Iahir and felt it cut through her, a horrible knowledge that she wished she had not even uncovered about herself. She had been hiding it from herself because she, indeed, did not need to know this about herself. It was better not to know. It was another sign of her sheer idiocy and weakness.

It wasn’t all men she cared about.

It was him.

She wanted to know how to make Iahir fall in love with a woman.

Because Gathren had already fallen for him.

Why was she always doing this? Why was she always falling for men who were entirely awful sort of men, men who would never love her back, men who she had no future with? What was it about the wrong sort of man?

She actually let out a moan.