Sold to the Orc: A Steamy Monster Romance Novella (Orc Brides Book 1) Read online

  Sold to the Orc

  A Steamy Monster Romance Novella

  Tara Phillips

  Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Books by this Author

  About the Author

  Preface

  Sold to the Orc is a hot and steamy 18k monster romance novella with themes of BDSM with a dominant orc lover. It is intended for mature 18+ readers.

  Chapter One

  “Cyna!” my sister clenches through gritted teeth. “Get away from the door, before the orcs spot you.”

  I press a finger to my lips and shush her with a stern look, hesitant to make any additional noise that might alert our father or the small band of raiding orcs to our presence. They’ve stopped at our tavern for refreshments and bartering. Blood stained sacks filled with either bounties or treasure sit at their mud-smeared boots.

  Yet I barely spare it all a glance. My gaze is stuck, instead, on the orcs themselves--tall, imposing, rugged--as they sit, drinking ale and conversing with my father. What the conversation is about I can only guess. The orcs pass through our little village sometimes, but they rarely stay. Their presence alone is enough to make both the villagers and our livestock tense. They’re tall, taller than the tallest man I’ve ever seen. Their skin ranges from the pale yellow-green color of tender spring grass, to the deep, verdant shade of green that reminds me of things that grow in the dark recesses of the forest. Their tusks are huge, and white, and glinting and the biggest of them has silver caps on his teeth. Their weapons, monstrously large battle axes and hammers and broad swords, sit propped at their feet or rest on the table.

  Their conversation is impossible to follow from this distance. I can only press either my ear or my eye to the open knot in the kitchen door where a hole has been eaten away by time and insects. This time I choose to listen. My ear presses against the small opening in the wood as I strain.

  “They’ve been stealing women from all of the villages,” my sister whispers, annoying me since I’m trying to listen at this moment and it’s impossible to hear their hushed conversation over both my sister’s ramblings and the din of the tavern. Our usual patrons are dining and drinking and making a ruckus.

  “Shh!” I urge her.

  The door swings open and I fall, sprawling onto the floor with Hildie behind me as we tumble back. Our father looks down at us with disapproval and something dark on his face. He’s holding a small but heavy looking bag in his hands, which he tucks into the front of his tunic as he leans down and grabs me by my wrist and hauls me up. I’m expecting a slap, or worse, a cuff against the side of my head, but he only pulls me into the tavern instead. I stumble behind him, my feet tripping in the skirts of my dress as my father drags me towards the table full or marauding orcs. He sets a heavy hand at my back as I stand there, shocked and confused.

  “Here, now go,” my father spits at them.

  My gaze is stuck on the table filled with a half dozen orc warriors. They study me, even as I look at them. Captivated. Afraid. They’re even larger in person. What I’d thought looked like a taller than average man from the safety and comforts of my kitchen is really more of a small monster. The orc leader is huge. Muscled. Scarred from battle with a jagged line of pale green skin, puckered and warped, that twists down his brow and cheek as if something with large, sharp talons tried to pluck out his eye and failed. I wonder what happened to the poor beast that attacked such a monster and likely didn’t survive the battle. Their leader, if his extra ornamentations can be considered a status marker, frowns.

  “We don’t fuck children,” he says, his voice a deep rumble that rolls through my body and shivers along my bones. My eyes widen as my mind finally registers his statement.

  “She’s full grown, I assure you,” my father says, his grasp on my wrist tightening until my skin burns when he wrenches it. “Turned twenty last month.”

  “Papa?” I ask him, my voice shaking as fear pricks up my back and sets the hairs on my nape alight. I glance about the tavern, but nobody seems poised to intervene on my behalf. My mother and Hildie watch with wide, scared eyes from the safety of the kitchen door frame. The rest of my siblings cower behind my mother’s skirts.

  “Do you want her, or not?” my father asks with a mean edge to his voice.

  The leader levels my father with an unimpressed, frightening scowl before grunting and looking at one of the smaller, paler orcs.

  “Yes,” the younger one answers immediately.

  I’m thrust forward, propelled by the hand in my back, and I’m tripping. Falling as my feet tangle in my skirts and drag me down. Except that strong arms wrap around my waist and haul me up, pressing me tightly against a well-muscled chest. My face presses against his torso and I inhale on reflex, trying to get air. Sweat, musk, and the smell of fur and horse, but underneath it all there’s the scent of rich Earth. Fertile loam and dark corners where life returns to the soil to nurture new growth. The hand wrapped around my back shifts until the orc is cupping my backside. I can feel the heat of his skin even through my skirts as he palms my buttocks. My face heats, red and hot in a deep blush. No man has ever touched me there before. A stable boy tried once until my father beat his face bloody and dismissed him without a reference. I never saw the sweet, blond youth again.

  “Papa, what have you done?” I ask, my voice trembling as my hands shake.

  I press them against the chest in front of me and try to lever myself up, disentangle myself from my skirts and the orc who’s trapped me. But it’s useless. I’m caught. His grip on my butt tightens as the orc presses me against him where he sits, and cages me against his body. I’m forced to straddle his large, muscled thigh where he sits on the bench, or risk falling into his lap. Preferring to stay vertical I straddle him. My skirts bunch on top of his leg as he hikes me towards him, his arms a cage around me.

  “They’re paid your bride price,” my father answers. “Your theirs, now.”

  I blink and crane my head to glance at my father. His face is stern and his expression is clouded. If there’s a hint of regret or sadness in his eyes then I can’t see it. I swallow around the lump in my throat as my new reality settles on my shoulders like a heavy mantle.

  “Y… you’re selling me to these orcs?” I ask.

  My father’s eyes grow cold and hard as his mouth presses into a firm, flat line. “You had to get married someday,” he says.

  “To a man! A human man,” I add for clarification. Not that I feel that this is something I should have to clarify.

  The orc stands and since I’m pressed to him I go with him. My feet dangle, nowhere near the ground, as he presses me to his chest and holds me like a child holds a doll. My fingers scrabble to find purchase, but there’s little on his chest in the way of clothing. No shirt, or tunic. Just leather straps that crisscross and buckle in different places and then a pair of leather pants. A series of metal studs and sharp looking knives decorate his straps and belt at odd intervals. A warrior’s array of weapons. Lethal. As dangerous as him.

  “It’s done?” the orc leader asks. “We have a deal?”

  Craning my head I watch my father nod. The orcs all stand, their figures imposing and attention grabbing. The whole tavern hushes and watches. Waiting. To see what these monsters will do now that they have what they came here for.

  “Human men of Beypool,” the leader thunders. His voice booms around the busy tavern as patrons hush and turn to watch and liste
n.

  “My son Atul marries this woman. Here. Now. Let none of you come and seek her, or face my axe if you dare try to take back what we’ve bought and paid good coin for today,” he announces as he picks up his double edged axe and swings it up onto his shoulder.

  The orcs all stand and gather their weapons and war trophies. My orc, Atul, hoists me up so that my bottom is perched on his large arm like I’m sitting on a seat. My arms go around his neck as I seek to catch my balance. Our faces press against one another and I notice that his eyes are a warm shade of brown edged with a golden, honey colored ring around his pupil. A pair of white tusks extend from his lower lip, but unlike the leader Atul’s teeth have no decoration. Only his hair, long, brown, braided back hair is decorated with bits of silver metal and bone.

  “Y… you can’t do this,” I tell him, ignoring the shaking in my voice as I pretend to be brave. It’s harder than it looks when one is staring an orc right in the face.

  “And yet I did,” he replies, his voice deep, yet soft. His mouth ticks up at the corner as he grins, seemingly amused.

  The floorboards squeak underneath us as the orcs make their way towards the tavern door and carry me with them. Taking me. Claiming me.

  Looking back at the tavern’s occupants I see over two dozen sets of eyes upon us, yet no one seems prepared to move. The villagers and my father stare and watch as the orc carries me away. The patron’s faces are a mixture of apathy, shock, amusement. Tomund, the town drunk, lifts his foam topped mug of ale in a toast, then downs it in one chugging swallow and slams it onto the table. A wedding tradition. Rage drives out fear, my body thrumming with an itch to cause damage. That same terrible temper that’s turned all of the town’s young men against me in favor of more pleasant and easier conquests.

  “Fucking cowards,” I hiss at them. Accepting that none of them will intervene, especially not my father who is too busy counting out his bag of coins into his palm to watch me being carried away like a sheep being sold for slaughter. I seethe. Anger churns in my belly.

  “I hope all of your crops shrivel and blight. Let none of your ewes foal,” I curse them, spitting onto the threshold of the tavern’s doorway as I’m carried out and hauled up onto a horse.

  Horse? More like a four hoofed monster. The orc’s mount is a great, shaggy beast that looks as much like a horse as a dog looks like a wolf. The creature’s kinky, twisted mane fluffs up wildly between two long, pivoting ears. Even the horse’s hair has twists of beads and shards of bone woven into it. This monstrous creature must be sixteen or seventeen hands high. There’s no saddle on its back, just a blanket and a bundled roll strapped across the beasts’ torso and belted with strips of leather. My hands fist in the horse’s mane in the absence of having nowhere else to grab. A fall from this height would hurt.

  The orc who’s bought me jumps onto the back of the beast in one flawless leap and seats himself behind me. The firm press of his body against my back is shocking. Struggling to untangle my legs from my skirts I finally manage to settle. My dress rides up until half of my legs are exposed, my stockings slumping towards my ankles and boots in the process. His arm curls around me and his entire hand nearly fits from one side of my waist to the other as he curls me backwards into his embrace and grabs the reins in his other hand.

  “Looks like you’ve got a live one,” one of the orcs chuckles.

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” Atul rumbles behind me.

  His grip on my waist is loose. Loose enough that I could wiggle out and fall if I could distract him long enough to run and make a break for it. If my skirts don’t trip me and make me break an ankle. Which they probably would. And if I could outrun this horse. Which I can’t. And if the orc wouldn’t chase me down. Which he most definitely would. And where would I go? Back to my father, who just sold me to a monster? Back to the village that let it happen with nary a peep of protest? My stomach twists as reality settles into my heart. There’s nowhere to go. No one to help me. I’m trapped. Trapped on this monstrous horse just as firmly as I’m trapped between this orc’s monstrous thighs.

  “Fire is good,” the orc chief says. “It breeds strong sons.”

  My stomach settles like a lead weight inside of my body. An orc’s bride, bought for breeding. Tears prick at my eyes and burn, unshed.

  “Where are we going?” I ask, hating that my voice hitches a little. Resolved, I vow to not cry. This orc will earn my anger, not my tears, if he tries to touch me. I may be too small to stop him from taking what he wants but I can bite, and kick, and scratch him up in the process. He won’t take his pleasure from me without a fight.

  “Home,” he grunts. And then he refuses to answer any more of my questions.

  The orcs all mount their horses and then the leader cuts ahead, beginning our trek as they take me from my home. My village. My life. Everything I’ve ever known.

  The bony protuberance of the horse’s shoulders bites into my thighs and buttocks as it carries us, and I squirm. Yet no matter how much I fidget or shift it’s always there. The lack of a saddle is unbearable. I make a sound of frustration in the back of my throat as I try to get comfortable. And then there’s something else pressing against me and I realize after a moment that it’s the orc himself… and it’s not his battle-ax.

  The orc grunts and his hand slides to my hip. He cradles it in one, large hand. Every bump and sway of the horse’s walk slides our bodies together. Rubbing, and pressing. He grows larger, his breath hot in my ear as he holds me in place on the horse and sways against me. The growing press of his erection against my buttocks shocks me into stillness.

  My back is ramrod straight and my attention is focused on the path before us as I try, and fail, to keep the thoughts of his large, swollen member out of my mind as the orc carries me off to his home. His bride. The woman he intends to breed.

  Chapter Two

  Uncertain of what I’d expected to see, I know it wasn’t this. The orcs live underground like the dwarves. That much I knew. But what I hadn’t known was that they live in actual cities carved into the bedrock like an underground fortress. Magikal lamps, lit with an unearthly fire that glows faintly green, line the wall in torches and glass walled lanterns. They range in size from small to large, lighting everything from doorways to walkways.

  Somehow, they even have trees growing underground, and I wonder what magik is responsible for this. It must have cost a fortune. An orc stable master steps forward to lead each mount away as my husband pulls me off his horse. My legs are boneless jelly and I nearly slump in complete and utter fatigue after so many hours of journey.

  I hobble, unable to walk fast enough for him due to my inexperience with horseback riding and my exhaustion from the several hours-long journey between my village and the orc’s fortress. Hissing with every step I gasp when he bends down and picks me up as if I weigh no more than a sack of flour.

  “I don’t think Atul is going to be doing anymore riding tonight,” another orc catcalls, much to the amusement of his friends who cackle with glee at the crass remark. My back stiffens in response. If I had hackles they’d be raised.

  The chieftain slams his palm into the back of the joker's head. The orc stumbles and mutters an apology.

  “Is that anyway to treat a breeder?” the orc leader asks. His voice is tense, deep, and angry.

  “No,” they answer mulishly in unison. The joker scurries away, and his friends follow suit as they make themselves busy with grabbing weapons and sacks of belongings. Elder orcs and children come up to greet the returning raiding party. There’s even one with a twisted, warped leg. He hobbles, leaning on a crutch as he takes up his share of the burden and brings it into their underground mountain village.

  “What’s your name?” Atul asks as he cradles me to his chest and carries me deeper into their home.

  Glancing up at him I study his features in the warm, flickering light. His nose is crooked as if it’s been broken and healed without being set. His brow is strong and forwa
rd, matching the jutting of his lower lip and jaw. White tusks curve upwards in his jaw. His ears are pointed like an elf’s, but smaller. And the entirety of him is green, but just as my skin isn’t just beige, his is more than green. There’s purple in his shadows, and peach across his cheeks and ears. His skin ranges in shade and hue from pale, green grass to deep, forest green. There are even freckles, dark brown spots, along his cheeks and nose and shoulders.

  “Cyna,” I tell him after considering mulishly not answering him. But he’s been polite, even if he’s bought me. And while I don’t particularly want to lie under him and take that club he calls a prick, I don’t want to earn his rage, either. My father is an unkind man with a quick temper and an even quicker fist. This orc’s slap could probably kill me in one blow.

  “Cyna,” he repeats, his tongue making the C into an S sound as he tries to say my name around his tusks. “I’m Atul. Chieftain’s son. We live in Nargila, deep in the Khelukkhel mountains. I tell you this so that you will not try to run. There are worgen and chimera and beasts in the mountains that will not hesitate to kill and eat you. And if you are lucky, they will do it in that order,” he adds.

  A shiver runs down my spine and I cross my arms and glare at him as he carries me away from the others and down a winding, twisting path within their strange, underground forest. As angry as I am, though, even I can’t deny how beautiful it is. Small things scurry in the shrubbery and there are even birds down here. They chirp, hidden among the branches of the towering trees. Luminescent mushrooms grow in rings and clusters among the forest floor, their glow casting light in a variety of yellows, pinks, and blues. It’s beautiful, and strange.