Page 10 of Alien Orc's Prize

But even the song-worthy glory of her breasts could not hold my attention long.

Not with a face like that.

Her cheeks were prettily curved and a deep pink colour. The rest of her face was lighter. Not white, nor cream, nor brown, but something in between. The first comparison that came tomy mind was that her complexion reminded me of my favourite light, whisky-infused cheese. But even I, who’d never had a knack for anything romantic nor resembling poetry, knew that comparing this pretty human’s face to cheese, even cheese I very dearly loved, would be an abhorrent affront.

So I gave up on that and moved to her hair. The strands were the colour of sunlight streaming through good ale, shiny and long and fixed in orc fashion. Her eyes were large in her small face, irises warm as burnished coins. They were as fixed on me as my own dark ones were on her.

It was only then that I realized where she stood. Where her chair was. Where her plate and drink were.

“Why,” I asked, resuming my measured strides towards my seat at the head of the table, “is my wife not seated in her proper place?”

I sat down just as Neena and Noona jumped up. They towered over my wife.

My wife whose name, I realized with an internal groan, I did not even know. If Padreth had told it to me, I could not remember it now.

I had not bothered to remember it, just as I had not bothered to remember today was the day of her arrival.

But I could at least make blasted well sure she was seated at my side, as was tradition.

“You expected us to know to put her beside you?” Neena demanded.

“When you haven’t even got her in your own chambers?” Noona added. They both moved closer to my wife, as if to guard the pretty human.

My jaw ticked as I regarded the three of them. Ulfreth, perhaps sensing my mood, immediately hurried over to fill my glass.

“An oversight,” I finally grunted, even though it had not been an oversight at all. I’d specifically instructed Padreth to put the human woman somewhere out of my way, in a different set of chambers.

I was coming to regret that decision. Among a great many other things.

“I will escort her to my chambers after dinner,” I added. “Have her things moved there.”

“I have no things, Prince Gal.”

I stiffened as my wife’s voice hit my ears for the first time. It was much, much higher than an orc’s typical pitch, but nothing about the tone was jarring or shrill. It was oddly musical, in fact, each syllable she spoke leaping with exquisitely melodic precision towards the next. Like the notes of an Orhalla flute.

They were the first words she’d spoken to me. Belatedly, I noticed I had not yet said a single thing to her directly. That was probably rude, even for me. I wondered if this was why her chin seemed suddenly and stubbornly higher, and a new fierceness had entered her eyes.

“Well, you’ve got one thing, at least,” I said, grasping my cup of mead and lifting it towards her with a wry raise of my brows. “A husband.” I took a swig of my drink and put it down. “Now come sit. The high princess’ place is beside her prince.”

She blinked.

“High… High princess?”

“Those two are the princesses,” I said, jutting my chin towards my sisters. “You are the high princess. Once we have an heir, you will become queen, and my mother, the current queen, will become the dowager monarch.”

She swallowed, a distinctly visible contraction of her slender throat that drew my eyes and made my heart beat in a disconcertingly rapid fashion.

“I… I see.”

“Oh, go and sit beside him, then,” Neena said, plopping herself back down into her seat.

Noona, similarly pouting, agreed. “He’ll just keep scowling at us all evening, otherwise.”

My wife nodded and gathered her skirts. I knew at a glance the gold and green garment was orc-made, and yet it seemed to fit her well. It must have been altered.

I watched her walk, feeling amusement creep in. She didn’t have the graceful, long-legged stride of an orc female. In fact, there was something distinctly inelegant about the short, hurried steps she took to my end of the table. It was oddly charming.

She came to a stop at the chair closest to mine on the right. When she moved to sit in it, I gave a quiet hiss of reproach that made her snap to attention so quickly her breasts nearly bounced right out of her dress.