Page 6 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

He began to close the door again. Stopped again. “Oh, but then we must think of your other meals. We don’t want to send you to eat with the servants, of course, but no one will be pleased to deliver meals to an orc. You can’t eat with the kingsguard either.” He tapped his chin. “What to do.”

“Perhaps I can subside on one meal,” she said blandly, thinking she might indeed be able to do so.

“No, no, I’m not trying to make you suffer needlessly,” said Iahir. “I will bring you back food myself, I think. I can do that easily enough.”

“All right,” she said. He was still gazing at her, so she said, “Thank you.”

“No, not to worry,” he said with a smile. This time when he shut the door, he did not stop, and it closed them off.

She went to sit down on the blue-swathed bed. She touched the little sparkly threads with one of her fingers. She drew in a breath and looked all around.

Well.

She was doing this.

This was happening.

3

“YOU ARE, OF course, supposed to wear a dress for dinner,” said Iahir, several hours later, as he stood in the doorway to her room.

“I have only this to wear,” she said, gesturing to her warrioress outfit.

“Well, this is why we should have visited someone to have clothes made up for you,” said Iahir, tilting his head to one side. He was wearing a suit with a startlingly blue tie tied just under his neck. “If you object to dresses, you could, I suppose, dress like a man, which would work well for our ruse, I think. It would make the entire thing with you more perverse, which pleases me.”

She raised her eyebrows.

He shrugged. “I like to affect people, I suppose.” He approached her, furrowing his brow, his expression determined, and she felt the urge to back away from him.

She stifled it, unwilling to show any weakness in front of this man. She did not want him to have any more advantages over her than he already had. After all, she was here only because of him, and she was uniquely vulnerable, an orc in Findas’s court.

He moved all the way up on her, and she stayed in her place but she moved her head back, eyes widening. He was practically touching her. Then, he was touching her, his body against hers, and he was feeling up her waist and his own.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, and her voice was a bit breathy, which made no sense, of course. Well. He was so very beautiful, she supposed, breathtaking in his way, and his chest was touching her chest, his belly touching her belly. It was affecting her, even though she hated him and could never find him actually attractive.

She didn’t even like the look of elvish men, truthfully. They were so fragile, really. She preferred an orc man, burly and strong and broad, someone to balance her own size, to make her feel dainty and tiny and—

No, she had long given up on being dainty. Even with an orc man, it was never that way. She was a warrioress. They treated her like some kind of oddity, something exotic, something interesting as an experience, but not like a real woman.

“Apologies.” He backed away. “I think my things might fit you. Maybe it will all be a bit snug around your bosom, but I will not mind that in the least, I don’t think.”

Her nostrils flared.

He was smiling. “And it will be quite the thing, your wearing my clothes.” He laughed a little, as if he had told a joke that had particularly amused him. “Yes, I think that’s exactly what we will do.” He gave her a nod. “Right back, then? One moment.” He turned, going for the door. “Stay right there,” he threw over his shoulder.

In a moment, he came back with a suit and a shirt and a tie. He laid them all out on the bed for her, beaming. “Put these on.”

“Leave the room,” she said.

“Oh, of course,” he said, nodding. “Apologies again.”

He left the room.

The clothes did fit. They weren’t even that tight across her bosom. She supposed he had a broad chest for an elf.

The trousers were too long, but that was the only problem.

When he knocked a moment later to ask if she was changed yet, she told him to come in.