Page 89 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

But it didn’t matter because they were both up, out of the bed, both getting weapons and —when the servants saw they were unclothed, half of them ran out of the room, apparently too embarrassed to make a stand against naked people—or maybe they were frightened, because they could see that the way that he and Gathren used weapons meant they were trained.

That left only five or six of them. He crossed swords with one of them, immediately disarmed him, and the coward ran before he could wound him.

Gathren seemed to have disarmed two of them, but the others were all just staring at her bare bosom—damn everything—and then they left, too.

He shut the door behind them.

She tossed strands of her hair that had escaped her braid out of her face.

“Well,” he said. “Time to go.”

24

GATHREN FOUND IT funny the way Iahir always watched her rebraid her braid. This time, he told her he wanted to see her with her hair down, that he wanted to fuck her with her hair down, and there was such heat in his eyes that a thrill went through her.

“That will just mean my hair is the way,” she teased him. She had long hair because it was traditional for orcs to have long hair. Truly, there were as many male elves with long hair as female elves, too, but it was a growing fashion, she knew, for the male elves to keep their hair cut short, as Iahir did. She personally found her long hair a bit of a nuisance, but she was used to it, and braiding it kept it mostly out of the way.

They barely had time for her to braid her hair. They packed everything, found their horses in the stable, (She still had not named the horse) and set off on the road.

It was early. The sky was growing lighter, but the sun had not yet risen.

They rode off southeast, and the sky grew lighter ahead of them.

Iahir fumed for the first part of the journey about the servants who’d come in on them, and she found this sort of funny, too, because he was being so entitled about it. He was so very used to not being disturbed, and he also seemed to bring up the fact that other people had seen her naked a lot.

She didn’t mind his being possessive of her body, she found. She sort of liked that. She did not wish to be possessed by anyone—indeed, Iahir nae Cirlahir could try, but he would find that it was impossible to keep her if he tried. But she liked the idea of his wanting her so much that he didn’t want anyone else to have her. She wanted him that way, too.

After a while, though, he fell silent.

And then the topic changed to what might happen when they got to Cirlahir. He said that she could not stay in the main keep, but that she could come in with them when they first arrived. “You can meet my mother, at least. I’ll go straight to her.”

“Mother?” she said. She was entirely confused. She had assumed his mother was dead. He had never spoken about his mother, only his father. She did not want to say that aloud, however, Your mother is alive? It seemed rude and awful. Instead, she said, “I was under the impression I wouldn’t be accepted into the main keep at all.”

“Well, she won’t really acknowledge you,” said Iahir. “I mean, she’ll acknowledge you, but it won’t stick.” He touched his temple. “My mother is ill.”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “I’m very sorry.”

“It’s all right. I’m very used to it. She’s been this way my entire life,” he said. “You can meet my brother, too, but he’s much the same way these days.”

She furrowed her brow. “Iahir, you could have said something about this, ever.”

“I suppose,” he said.

“It’s only that you keep these things all hidden for some reason. And it makes sense when it comes to people at court, but… with me… you could have…” Did he not trust her?

“I am telling you now,” he muttered, irritated. “I don’t like going home, though. I don’t like thinking about it, and I don’t like talking about it.”

She wanted to touch him. They were too far apart on horseback. “Well, it must have been very difficult for you, that is all, growing up this way. How old is your brother? When did he begin to present in the same way as your mother? What sort of illness is it?”

Iahir didn’t answer any of these questions. He only let out heavy sighs, as if he was disappointed in her.

Well, then. She would not ask questions, then.

They rode straight through. The road from the inn to Cirlahir was straight and clear. It was emptier than perhaps it should have been, though Gathren did not know about such things. She knew that Cirlahir was on the ocean, and that many elves had summer houses there, that sometimes, male elves in Parliament, for instance, would travel from Renegahan to Cirlahir each weekend to be with their families in their summer houses on the water.

There was likely no Parliament anymore, and she supposed the elves would not be visiting summer homes. They would be frightened, hiding from the orcish invaders, perhaps?

Or would they have all have retreated to their summer homes to hide here, away from the capital, where the orcs had slaughtered so many?