Enjoy this sample of The Half-Orc’s Mail Order Husband by Felicity Silvers!
Chapter 2
“Enter.”
The voice that allowed me in after I knocked and announced myself was deep and sure, and I sighed even as I pushed the door open. Delivering for the Messengers and Guides guild had brought me all across Quaria, introduced me to hundreds of folks in all walks of life, but the casual way in which people just allowed me into their homes without verifying who I was always struck me as foolish.
We’re a distinctive looking lot, I’ll grant you. Plain brown cloths and leathers, sure, and thick cloaks, but we’re a long-legged, lean bunch. Have to be, since most of us are out here on foot. Think they spare horses for the likes of us? Only if the delivery is big enough to warrant a pack animal to carry it, and most times then it’s a company mule strictly for the goods. We’d blend into a crowd with not a second glance if it wasn’t for the fist-sized blue gems bound to our belts. They’re not the sort of jewel that would be likely to attract a thief, either, on account of their incessant orders. “Northwest, three miles, estimated interception in one hour thirteen minutes. Weather conditions cloudy, holding.”
Sure, the gems grant us free room and board in a cheap inn room (all bills forwarded to the guild) and get us passage in places common folks are usually barred from, but the constant chiming voice at our hips is enough to drive anyone out of their minds.
The moment the door fully opened and I saw her, I understood the confidence.
She was broad and tall…at least, I imagined she would be, were she not sprawled across a battered green chaise lounge. She had the small, curving tusks of an orc woman, but instead of being green or gray her skin was a rich, dark orange. Her hair, too, had the side braids I’d seen orcs wear, but instead of black her hair was a bright, gleaming gold. Two ruby-red eyes narrowed at me, and I stiffened in fright before I realized she was smiling.
“Are you just going to stand there, then, or do you have my package?”
I hesitated, looking between the small, brown box in my hands and the woman in front of
me. “Pasha Terbodyn?”
She gestured down the length of her. “You’re looking at her.”
I tried my hardest not to stare at the scars that striped her like a tigress, the full swell of
her breasts only just covered by a cotton halter top, the thick muscles of her legs that were visible
through the thin leather pants…and realized my mouth had fallen open a bit. “You…ah. I was
told to expect a half-orc?”
She laughed, and the sound of it made me both smile in return and blush furiously.
“My mother was an orc, yes.”
“And…your father?”
She smiled, flashing fangs and tusks at me, and I wondered what a bite from her would
feel like. “My father was something else. Something wilder.”
I ran my eyes over her again, and I told myself it was because I was curious about her parentage, not because she looked like a flame became flesh. I tried to move to bring the twine-bound package to her and found I could not move. All I could do was look at her and feel my face grow steadily hotter.
After a long moment, Pasha held a callused hand up in a manner like one might catch a
thrown apple, and I meekly tossed her delivery to her. I cleared my throat as she began to pull the
string and wrapping material away. “And, ah…Duhva Bhane? The human sorceress?”
“Hmm? Oh, she opened a portal about a half hour ago. Expect she’s in Huskvallen by
now, chumming it up with the other magic types.”
Huskvallen? I sagged, thinking about the number of days it would take me to travel there by foot. And if the sorceress opened a portal again somewhere else?
I really, really hated delivering to magic users.
As I became increasingly aware of how little sleep I’d had the past several days to get here and how cold it was getting outside, Pasha pulled an elaborate talisman of golden beads and feathery tassels from her box. Her eyes softened, and her fingers moved over the piece as gently as they might a baby bird. “At last,” she breathed.
I had such a long way to go, and the nearest inn was miles away, but my curiosity got the better of me. “What’s that? A reward for something?”
She held it up for me to see better, twisting it between two fingers so that it spun and caught the light from the room’s fireplace. “This is my tribe’s acknowledgement of my accomplishments.” Pasha must have seen my confusion, because she smiled and patiently continued. “It means I have the right to build a homestead. To take mates.”
This time her eyes moved over me, slowly, like a stroke, and I felt my cock twitch under her gaze. The room suddenly seemed filled with a spicy fragrance, and I imagined I saw her part her legs, just a little. Just for me.
“My tribe wears these in our hair,” she continued, her voice lower. “As symbols of pride. So that our rights our known, and those we wish to breed understand our intents.” Her fingers brushed against the tassel of feathers at the end of the talisman, and I felt my cock twitch again.
It had been far, far too long.
“I could braid it for you,” I heard myself offer, like the words came from a stranger. I
watched her smile, and I was suddenly keenly eager for her approval. It was a feeling wholly
unfamiliar to a meek country bumpkin like me, someone who only spoke to others in terms of deliveries and destinations. Here I was, a fierce half-orc that had likely killed dozens of men in
front of me, and I had already spoken more in such a short amount of time than I had in months.
I was afraid, and hopeful, that I would be doing more things out of character for me.
Either I’d be a dead man very soon, or deliriously happy.
The half-orc beckoned me over with two scarred fingers, but otherwise didn’t stir from her position on the chaise. She watched me move towards her hesitantly, take the beaded ornament from her hand, and slowly loosen some hair from one of her side braids. This close, I was aware that the scent of cardamom and kalder blossom was coming from her dark, orange skin. This close, I’m sure she was aware how badly I was trembling.
People like me have only ever seen gold when we’ve been making a delivery to a noble or a wealthy merchant. We compare it to fields of wheat, or sunlight, but real gold makes your gut twist with a kind of yearning for the sort of life you know it could buy. I knew the beads on her talisman were gold, but as I threaded it into a new braid, I was certain the gold of her hair was far finer. I felt something twist and lurch inside of me, some unnamed hunger that demanded I take some sort of action I couldn’t fathom.
Things like this couldn’t, shouldn’t happen to nobodies like me. We’re not meant for fine things, for beautiful warrior women, for…whatever this was. But gods, I wanted her.
And then the braid was done, the token from her tribe secured, and I had almost turned to go when she caught my hand and pressed her lips to my fingers. “Good boy,” she breathed.
I jerked my hand to my chest, scrambled back like this living flame of a woman had scorched me. “…you’re welcome.” The words came out hoarse, my mouth suddenly gone dry.
What was I playing at? My courage failed me and was replaced with sharp embarrassment. It was already late, far too late when I arrived here, and I was going to have a rough time making it to an inn. Better I leave now, with only good memories, before I fumbled things and was reminded of my place in life. I spun to leave and was halfway back to the door before she spoke.
“The weather is turning. Better you wait for Duhva here and spare yourself the cold.” Her words sent a tremble through me, but it wasn’t from memory of the snow outside. “Besides…” I heard her stir from the chaise, and I froze like a rabbit fearing the wolf. “It’s so much warmer here. Don’t you agree?”
A momentary flash of defiance on my part, and I swung the door open. I was a guildsman. I had a job. There were things I was never meant to have, shouldn’t dare to hope for…
The night was bright in the way it only is when the light is reflecting off miles and miles of snow. New snow was already falling, carried on winds that cut as cruelly as a Quarian knight’s blade and moved just as swiftly. At my belt, my locus gem flashed a rapid blue. “Conditions deteriorating.” A voice chimed urgently from the M&G-ensorcelled gem. “Seek shelter. Deliveries may be delayed by up to several days due to high probability of blizzard.”
I stood in the doorway, caught between outdoors and in, panic and joy. Already it was deadly cold outside, but I could sense Pasha as she approached, feel the heat radiate off her and into my skin.
“So,” she purred in my ear, reaching across to shut the door and draw me back inside. “Staying here with me, then?”
On the other side of the door, the winds howled in agreement.
