Chapter 15

Cragnorr

E veryone stares at me as I’m led back to my cage and then tossed inside. This time I’m collared, much to my dissatisfaction, and no one treats my wound. But my blood is still hot with the feeling of Mia on top of me, around me, and I’m filled with a fresh, new strength. I may be in a cage again, but now, I have hope. I will get out of this horrid place so I can be with her again.

The moment the guards leave, the chattering among the prisoners begins.

“So you put your cock in the cunt?” the orc asks me with a knowing grin.

“We could hear her all the way in here,” says Pa’zi, rubbing one of her tusks. “You did a good job for your first time.”

It’s none of their business. I sit down silently on the floor of my cage, leaning back and closing my eyes so I can imagine Mia on top of me again.

“How was it?” The orc shakes his bars as if to keep me awake. I glare at him. “Humans are so small. I’ve never even wondered what their cunts feel like.”

Instantly I remember how her hot sheath squeezed me, how her pleasured keens filled me up to bursting. A small smile lifts my lips.

“That good?” The orc chuckles. “Not as good as a mate’s cunt, though. Nothing is as good as that.”

Pa’zi arches an eyebrow. “And you know this... how?”

I wonder what this word means, mate .

“Because I have one.” The orc wraps his hands around the bars tightly. “She’s out there, somewhere.”

“So that’s why you fight like it’s your last day on earth.” Pa’zi gives him a wistful look. “If you die, she dies.”

All he does is nod, but I’m perplexed by this. Why would this mate of his die? Finally, I bring myself to ask, “Mate?”

The other two trollkin stare at me like I’m the biggest fool they’ve ever seen.

“You don’t know?” Pa’zi asks, eyes wide. “Were you raised by wolves?”

I shake my head. Why would wolves have raised an ogre?

“Mates are life partners.” The orc leans heavily on the bars. “They’re your other half. Your everything. The purpose of your life.” Here, his voice cracks, and his eyes fall to the floor. “Mine was going to be the mother of my whelps. She was carrying our first one when we were attacked. We had decided to move out of Kalishagg, away from the city, so we could raise it in my homeland.” Though he’s shielded himself carefully until now, I can see his armor break away as he remembers this lost dream. “Foolish. Out on the road, these fuckers found us, and you know the rest. She made it out, but they took me as a prize.”

“At least you know she’s still alive,” Pa’zi says, and there’s even a trace of pity in her eyes. “Or else you wouldn’t be here. ”

I think about this. Your everything. The purpose of your life . That is my Mia, most certainly.

The orc stoops down in his cage to peer at my face. “Is that what you’ve found, ogre?” he asks with a pitying look. “Is that why you turned into a monster out there and killed that lion? You’re protecting what’s yours?”

I don’t respond, because the truth of it terrifies me. If Mia is, in fact, this mate , then my death would mean hers, too.

“I hope for your sake that you haven’t seeded her,” the orc says, settling down on the floor. A deep pain fills his voice. “There is nothing so miserable as losing everything, all at once.”

I give him a confused look. How could I have planted anything in Mia? She’s a human woman, not garden soil.

Pa’zi laughs at me. “If he doesn’t understand about cocks, cunts, or mates, what makes you think he understands how whelps are made?”

My heartbeat picks up speed. I was a whelp once, held in my mother’s arms. But I don’t understand what that has to do with cocks-in-cunts.

“Ahh.” The orc offers me a sad smile. “You don’t know, do you? When you pour all your seed inside an orcess or a trolless, sometimes, it takes root. Then it grows and grows inside her...” To illustrate, Pa’zi rubs her belly. “And becomes a whelp.”

“Just like you were once,” the trolless says with a wink.

My blood turns cold.

No. No, there’s no possibility that I did this, that I planted a seed in Mia. But at the mere idea of it, of my spend finding purchase inside her and becoming a whelp made of both of us, my cock shivers.

I shake my head and press my thumbs to my temples. I would never have done it if I’d known. Would I?

I remember the fog of red, the driving need to kill that lion and save Mia. It had wanted only one thing to be sated, and it was her. I don’t know that I could have stopped myself. That animal inside me... it wanted to shoot all of my seed as deep as I could, and I obeyed it. Now there’s a chance that she has my whelp growing in her belly.

And I might never see her again.

My hands find their way under my collar, and I yank on it as hard as I can. I have to escape this place. I have to find Mia, who might be carrying our young, and get her out of here safely. A whelp deserves better than chains.

“Idiot,” the orc grumbles. “There’s no way you’ll be able to escape. It’s no use hurting yourself.”

Fex is watching with keen interest as I tug and yank at my collar anyway. “What have you all been saying?” he asks in Freysian, tilting his head. “Something rather serious, it seems like.”

I don’t answer him. I try and try to free the collar, but it’s too thick, too heavy. If I could just get it off, then I could easily bend the bars of my cage. I’ll never be able to escape as long as this collar is holding me down.

“Not gonna work, buddy,” Fex says, shaking his head.

He’s right. It’s no use. I’m trapped here, beneath the earth, longing for my mate—and hoping I haven’t planted a whelp in her before I can get us out.

Mia

Zake’s guests are not so marvelous as he made them seem. Outside the front gates of the town, a small caravan is waiting with a few bedraggled horses and half a dozen wagons, a few of them covered in fabric and tassels. A tall, skinny man emerges from one of the wagons, and his legs are impossibly long. He has to bend down to bow his head.

“Your Majesty,” the man says dutifully. So, even outsiders humor the King.

“Have you brought me something exciting?” Zake says, much like a child would.

The man nods, and produces a gold trinket in the shape of an elephant. The King turns it over in his hands, mesmerized by its shine.

“This will do, I suppose,” he says, and pocketing the elephant, gestures for the caravan to enter.

I am not introduced, but I am paraded past, and the new arrivals watch with keen interest. Goosebumps erupt across my skin.

After the guests have settled in and the sun has reached the horizon, the fires are lit and the beer is rolled out. Another party begins, though I’m not sure that the previous one ever actually ended.

I’m seated next to Zake at one of the long tables, with the skinny man on the other side. At first, both engage in merry festivities, until they start talking business. The outsiders have goods to trade, and the King is interested in their offer. I’m tuning it out until the visitor says, “And I’ve brought you a prize fighter for your... pit.”

I perk up. Anything to do with a prize fighter could concern Cragnorr.

“A fighter?” The King thrums his fingers on the table thoughtfully. “Well, I have a new prize fighter, myself. Perhaps we should try them out.”

The other man barks a laugh. “Well, as much as I would enjoy that, she might end up dead and then I’m out. You’ll have to buy her first.”

“Ahh.” Zake nods. “I understand your game now, Masten. But you’ll have to do a better job of convincing me your fighter is worth it when I have a much more fearsome beast on offer.”

“Beast?” the man called Masten asks, tilting his head like a stupid bird.

“An ogre, to be exact.” Zake grins down at me knowingly. “I doubt your piddly human fighter can take him out.”

The skinny man doesn’t respond right away, but taps his chin, lost in thought.

“But how do you force a trollkin to fight?” asks Masten after a while. “You can’t offer them their freedom.”

A smile curls the King’s lip. “Just need the right incentive.” His eyes travel down to me, and that smirk grows wider. “I’m lucky in that I have something very special to my ogre.” He grabs my rope and jerks on it, which nearly knocks me out of my chair.

Masten understands his meaning, and his eyes get wide. “An ogre and... a woman?” he asks. He takes a long drink of his beer, then leans in closer to Zake. I almost can’t hear what he says next.

“Did you know that humans and trollkin can reproduce?” he whispers conspiratorially.

A stone falls in my belly. There’s no way that can be. We’re too different, right? The thought has never once occurred to me.

But Zake is instantly intrigued. “That’s quite a story,” he says, arching an eyebrow.

“It’s true,” Masten goes on. “When I was in Eyra Cove, it was more than just a rumor. Some of them lived there. It’s an open secret.”

I’m already bracing myself for what’s coming when the King’s eyes travel over to me. Fuck, fuck, fuck. There’s no way Masten is telling the truth. He can’t be.

Zake strokes his chin in mock-thoughtfulness. “So,” he murmurs to me, leaning down close to my face so I can smell his awful breath. “Can that monster put a baby inside you?”

I clench my eyes closed, wondering if we’ve committed a deeply foolish act. When Cragnorr filled me up, letting loose everything inside me, I was driven by pure instinct. Surely this strange man is wrong.

Narria, sitting next to me, frowns. “A half-ogre bastard?” she asks, disgusted.

“Exactly!” Zake gets to his feet, like he’s about to perform for us. “Imagine. As big as that monster, but with a brain.” He walks in a semi-circle around my chair, but I keep my eyes fixed on the floor, hoping against hope that he’s wrong, that this can’t possibly happen. “I’d raise it myself. Teach it to fight as soon as it could walk.” He examines me all over as he completes his loop. There’s a ringing in my ears as he talks, imagining myself carrying Cragnorr’s baby, and then having it torn away from me. “A fighter who enters the pit willingly,” Zake goes on, “who has the strength and the size to put on a good show, and the intelligence to be deadly.”

Narria clenches my rope tighter. “You’re not serious.”

I can’t even utter a sound.

“It’s a brilliant idea,” says Masten, clapping his hands together.

“All that to bring some excitement to the pit?” Narria asks.

“It’s not just the pit,” Zake says. “You know it and I know it. It’s entertainment, it’s a break from the monotony, and an excuse for the people to keep going. Who doesn’t want to return from a long journey and watch some bloodshed?”

There’s a click as Narria snaps her mouth closed, clearly understanding that Zake has made his decision.

I’m too stunned to speak. He plans to use me, like a brood mare, and Cragnorr, too. We are nothing but animals, nothing but objects to him.

When the evening’s festivities are winding down, Zake takes my rope and bids the guests goodnight. He stops next to Narria as we leave.

“Tell Gru,” he instructs. “Every three days, she will visit the ogre, and he should oversee them personally.” The King studies me coldly. “If my dream can’t happen, though... then I’ll have no use for her anymore. Or him.”

I can’t cry now, in front of them—I can’t give this horrible man the gratification. But deep inside, I’m dreading what’s to come.