Chapter 15

SITA

I cover myself, cheeks ablaze at the look of horror on Gurrek’s face when he touched my most secret place. I scoot away, unable to bear it any longer, and wrap myself up in a blanket.

Gurrek remains in the same position, seated where I used to be, his eyes glued to the hand that almost went inside me.

I know I’m not an orc woman. They must be different down there, if his reaction is any indication. I’m odd and foreign to him, and surely he won’t want me anymore now that he knows how strange I am.

“Sita,” he says.

I curl up tighter in the blankets, wishing that I could simply escape this room. Maybe I can run back to my own, close the door, and hide there until he forgets this ever happened.

“Sita, look at me, please.”

I turn my head and open one eye, peering up at Gurrek, who’s now seated on the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” I say miserably. “You didn’t want this. You wanted an orc wife.”

“What?” His lips pull down in a harsh frown, and his voice turns firm. “No. You are my wife. The one I want.”

I yearn to believe him, but I don’t know what’s true anymore. I shut my eyes and wind the blanket around me, hiding my face inside it. The bed moves as Gurrek settles down next to me, and I curl up even smaller.

“Sweetling.” He started calling me this yesterday, and though I’m not sure what it means, it sounds lovely to my ears. “There is nothing wrong with you. You are human, yes. And you are what I want.”

He falls silent for a moment, and I don’t answer because I don’t trust myself to speak.

“Have you ever been with a man?” he asks eventually. “A human man?”

I pull the blanket down enough that I can peer up at him. “ Been with ?” I understand the individual words in Orcish, but not together. It feels like he’s implying something.

“Down there.” Gurrek rubs his hand down my body over the blanket, pausing at the crux of my thighs. I squeeze them together. “Have you taken a human man inside of you?”

I gape at him, surprised and incensed by the question.

“I was not a wife,” I say, biting my lip. “Not until you.”

His mouth falls open. “No man came before me?”

I’m growing unsettled by this line of questioning.

“No,” I answer quietly. I had other things on my mind, and none of those “men” excited me until I met Gurrek.

I thought he would be pleased by this answer, as a human man would be. Instead, Gurrek’s shoulders sag and his eyes drift down to his hands. I pull the blanket closer, wishing I could disappear.

“My maiden wife,” he says to himself, clenching that hand into a fist.

“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what I’m apologizing for, but that feels like I’ve made a mistake by never sleeping with a man before. Is he disappointed that I’m untried?

Of course he is. He wants an experienced lover, someone who can please him, not some stupid girl who’s never spread her legs before and doesn’t know what to do. I’m like a lost fawn, tottering gracelessly through the woods.

“Sorry? What for?” Gurrek rubs his face and sighs. “Don’t be sorry.”

I don’t know what he wants from me, so I fall silent. Eventually, Gurrek pulls away the blanket so he can slide under it with me, but I keep my arms wrapped tightly around myself.

“Sita, talk to me.” He curls his arm around me, bringing our bodies back together again. “Why are you sorry?”

I bury my face in his arm. “That I’ve never ‘been with’ a man.”

Gurrek sighs and shakes his head. “This is no fault of yours.” He kisses my forehead. “I was surprised to discover it, that’s all.”

But he wasn’t just surprised. He was disappointed, too.

When I don’t answer, Gurrek runs a soothing hand around in circles on my back.

“How much do you know about sex?” he asks after a time.

I don’t know this word in Orcish, either, so I shake my head. “Sex?”

He runs his hand down my body, pausing at the hidden place between my legs. “Things you do here.”

Oh, like that.

I shrug. “I know sometimes parts go into other parts.” I wish I had the words for things like cock , but everyone, including Merka, has neglected to teach me. “Or sometimes you rub parts together?”

Gurrek grins. “Yes, there are many ways to do it. Do you know what happens the first time you have parts-go-into-other-parts sex?”

This conversation is making me increasingly uncomfortable because it’s revealing just how little I know about adult activities. It’s going to make me look quite silly when I don’t have all the answers.

“The girls say you bleed,” I say. “It hurts a lot when it goes in.”

Gurrek’s face falls. He sighs and kisses me on the forehead again, bringing me into a close embrace.

“Those girls have not had careful lovers.”

“Lovers?”

He chuckles against me. “Like us. Not always married, though.”

I can grasp that, I think.

“Sita.” Gurrek tugs my chin up so I’m looking right into his handsome face. His tusks lift as he smiles a small, gentle smile. “Do you want to have that with me?”

“Sex?” I ask, and he chuckles.

“Yes, sex.”

Of course I do. I’m being driven toward him by a raging heat that fills my whole body. I don’t just want him—I’m utterly consumed by the need to unite with him. When I touched his cock through his trousers, I knew immediately where it would fit. It was easy to imagine him there, how his body would mold around mine as he slid it inside me.

“Oh yes!” I don’t have to think twice to answer. “I want this with you.”

I like the soft affection in Gurrek’s eyes as he says, “All right, good. Then we will work toward that.”

I blink. “Work toward...?” Is it not a thing we can just do?

“You’re small, and I am,” he clears his throat, “much bigger than you are.”

“So?”

Gurrek strokes my cheek. “ So, I don’t want it to hurt for you like it did for those other women in your village. It doesn’t have to be that way. But it will take time for us to fit together. Can you be patient?”

I’ve been patient ever since we stumbled home together last night, my blood burning with need for him. That need hasn’t faded, and I’m annoyed to find I might have to wait even longer.

“How long?” I ask, frowning.

He snorts. “As long as it takes. This will be your first time, and I want you to be certain about me. I want you to know I’m the right choice for you.”

I know this very moment that Gurrek is the right choice for me, but I nod anyway. It doesn’t sound like I’ll be able to convince him to move any faster, no matter how I argue.

“When can we start?”

In response to my question, my orc bundles me up tightly in his arms and kisses the top of my head.

“We’ll have a roast for dinner and get a good night’s sleep. And then tomorrow...” He pauses for a moment, like he’s weighing what to say next. “Tomorrow I would like to show you the forge.”

I spring up in bed. “Really? The forge?”

“Yes.” He has a guilty look on his face. “It’s my place, my sanctuary, and I want to share it with you.”

I don’t know this word sanctuary in my own tongue, but I have an idea. It’s something precious to him, something he protects from outsiders. I can understand that.

I nod fervently. “I would like that.”

“Good.” Gurrek gets up from the bed and holds out a hand to bring me along with him. I’m sad that this moment is ending without even getting to see his cock, but his lips on my breasts were marvelous, and I hope we get to repeat it.

That night, after we’ve eaten a rather large dinner, Gurrek invites me to sleep in his bed again. I jump at the opportunity.

The moment he brings me into his arms, I’m enthralled by the scent of him around me. The feel of his hard muscles under my hands and the sensation of his body pressed so close to mine sends cascades of desire across my body.

Still, I manage to fall asleep and wonder if perhaps I’ve found something wonderful here.

It’s lovely to wake up next to Gurrek. He nudges me gently, easing me into consciousness.

“Time to get up, sweetling,” he says, disentangling our limbs. I can feel that lump under his drawers nudging me, but he ignores it.

I yawn as he climbs out of bed, and eventually I follow, returning to my room to find new clothes for the day. It’s lovely to pick through them, searching for just the thing I want to wear instead of always putting on the same threadbare shirt or dress. It’s a warm autumn day and the sun is shining, so I slide on a deep orange shirt, the same color as the leaves on the trees, and a brown skirt along with my new boots.

I wonder what Van and Mother would think, seeing me dressed so well. Mother would certainly appreciate the quality.

After we make breakfast, we stop by Merka’s house together to let her know I won’t be taking up her time today. To my surprise, she seems disappointed, but there’s a mischievous gleam in her eye when Gurrek explains he’s taking me to the forge instead. She pats me on the arm and tells me to “have fun.”

I’m excited that he’s about to show me his inner sanctum. I hope I get to understand him even better.

Gurrek opens the big front doors, revealing the whole building to the sunlight. It’s exciting to see it when it’s not dark and merely lit by the flames of the forge. Tools line the wall—tongs and hammers and chisels in all manner of sizes. There’s a big stone wheel in one corner with a seat and a pedal, and Gurrek explains to me how he grinds raw blades against the stone to make the surfaces smooth. I don’t understand most of the words he uses to describe his work, but he promises to show me as the day goes on.

Next, he demonstrates how he melts his metal and adds coal to make raw steel bars for his work. There’s a lot involved in the process of creating it, and I have to stand back because the heat is blazing. Gurrek wears heavy leather gloves for everything he does in the forge, and I fully understand why by the time we’ve reached the midpoint of the day and I’m sweating profusely simply from standing near the flames for so long.

Once Gurrek has a bar of steel, it’s mesmerizing to watch him heat it, hammer it into a shape, then heat it again to make it soft. I start to grasp how the process works, and what immense pressure it takes to form the steel into a blade or a tool.

But knives, swords, and axes aren’t all he makes. Gurrek shows off—with a distinct pleasure in his voice—all the other metal items he’s crafted for people around the village, from metal hooks to grill grates to fire pokers, even a big sign where he’s carved familiar letters out of a flat piece of metal. I can’t imagine how much time it took to hammer out one of those bars of steel into an object that size and shape.

No wonder Gurrek is built like a house. He spends all day every day in this room, swinging that massive hammer, shaping metal into the objects he wants it to become. His strength eludes understanding, though I can see it in every flex of his muscle.

Then he shows me the little things he’s created, tiny sculptures and even figures, all lined up in front of a window. I am not surprised to learn he has delicate hands.

As the morning turns into afternoon, Gurrek pauses his hammering to wipe some sweat off his forehead. I slink up behind him, setting my chin on his shoulder.

“ Darzan agak ,” I murmur in his ear.

It’s a phrase that Merka taught me ages ago, pretending that it meant “hammer.” I’m not so gullible now, though, and I’ve worked out that mighty hammer does not refer to an actual hammer, but to the rather large shaft inside Gurrek’s pants.

He stiffens, and his head slowly turns to look at me.

“How do you know this?” he asks, a playful smirk pulling at the edge of his mouth.

I shrug. “Who knows? But I like a mighty hammer such as yours.”

I don’t miss how Gurrek’s face darkens, and he clears his throat. “That old hag,” he says with amusement.

By the time we finish up for the day, I’ve learned so much that my head feels wobbly on my neck. Gurrek ended by showing me his work orders, which have gathered into a relatively large stack. I can read a few of the letters and words on them, and I swell with pride.

“I’ll have to deliver that blade I made tomorrow,” he says, studying how low the sun has fallen. “Oh well.”

On our way back to the house, Gurrek takes my hand in his and twines our fingers together. I love how ordinary and yet intimate this gesture is.

It’s becoming clear to me how I might be able to help him. Now that I’m more fluent, and I’ve met some of the orcs in the village, perhaps I can be of use—all while getting to know our neighbors better. And maybe, with my help, we could shorten the pile of work orders and make Gurrek’s life a little easier. I know how much financial stress he must be under after all he’s done for me, and I want to help.

Though I miss Mother and Van every day, this is my life now, and my home. I’m going to make the best of it.