Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 32156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
I shake my head, pushing myself to my feet. “Never mind. Let’s go.”
“No. You need to rest.”
“Not until you’re safe I don’t.” I grab her and her sister, lifting them both into the truck.
A few minutes later, I set off.
When we reach the highway, I start south first.
Then I hesitate and turn back, and we follow it north.
Chapter
Eight
Aleena
“Do you think we can trust them?” I ask as I emerge from the tent with Katya already asleep inside.
Gathred squeezes my fingers. “I trust no one.”
He stands, arms crossed, looking at the group of humans playing instruments and singing around a campfire.
“Well, they trusted us right away.”
“They are not Papa.” He looks down with that lip curve that is his version of a smile and I lean into his side, slipping my hands around his bicep, feeling it shift and harden.
The truck was low on gas and we pulled into a station that looked open. Inside, there was a long-haired man in his 60’s and a younger woman in dreadlocks who offered me tea.
We had no money, but we had Gathred, so he stormed in demanding fuel. They didn’t cower and they didn’t fight back. Instead, they invited us to dinner, telling us that the fuel was out for the day, but a member of their commune with a tanker was due back by morning and they would gladly fill up our tank for free.
On one condition…
An hour later, the sun setting, Gathred placed the last of ten hand-hewn and pegged-together roof trusses into place while the group secured them on a new barn about a half a mile back from the fuel station where about fifty hippie-like humans have a camp.
They fed us dinner. No meat, which did not please Gathred, but he ate twenty ears of corn and fourteen potatoes as they watched in awe and peppered him with questions about orcs and orc culture to which he gave the best one word answers he could muster.
Katya was reserved and stayed by my side. Soon, her eyes started to flutter and the group offered us a large tent off on its own for us to stay the night, to which Gathred agreed.
“She’s sound asleep.” I nod to the tent where I hear her soft snoring as Gathred nods and I run my hand up and down his back, feeling the hard muscle.
The world is still upside down, and I’m desperately worried about my dad, but there’s still a sense of calm and peace when I’m next to my mate. It’s got to be chemical but it’s almost overwhelming sometimes. I’m doing my best to do as Gathred says, live in this moment, not in the past and not in the future.
I lean in to his warmth as I hear his heart and look up to see his eyes as slits, he’s sniffing the air. His arms drop to his sides as he takes a long breath, his nostrils flared then, he looks down at me.
“Dostha.” He grunts as his white eyes widen and a flash of green light draws my eyes to the ground in front of him.
“Wha—” I start as Gathred reaches down and lifts me from the ground, mounting me facing him as my legs spread wide, my hands around the back of his neck. “What’s that?”
I crane my neck around to see the light brighten. It’s coming from under his kilt.
He inhales with closed eyes, chin to his chest and a rumble from his center vibrates through me.
“You are ripe.” His eyes are fevered, intense. “The mating time is here, little one. You are ready.”
“What?”
“The glow only happens when the mate is fertile.” His face is hard, jaw cracking. “I have to mate you. Breed you. Now. Now. Now.”
He swivels his head back and forth, the group at the fire singing and oblivious as he lumbers to the back of the tent where there is another canvas like structure built from branches and small trees. The tent with Katya is right here, I can see her silhouette inside from the lantern that is burning low inside.
“Wait, we can’t, not here…”
Gathred flips back the front flap of canvas, inside the floor is covered with straw with blankets on top.
“We can. We will. You will be quiet, little one. I cannot wait, it is time.”
Fuck.
I want him, yes, but in my logical mind, it’s hard to put all this craziness together.
Gathred has me stripped in seconds, my clothes ripping as he throws them into the corner, the only light from the campfire and the moon casing dark shadows but his white eyes loom over me.
“I will make you ready.” He grunt whispers as he drops his kilt and leathers in a thud. The tent is now illuminated by the glowing green cock that looks like some freakish glow stick bobbing disembodied in the dark tent.