Page 7 of Alien Orc's Prize
“Disappointment?” I echoed in disbelief. She was unhappy I hadn’t come to collect her myself, a task any mere servant could have done? She should have been honoured that I’d sent my closest advisor in my stead!
A sickly claw of concern sliced its way through my guts, telling me that I’d very likely made a terrible mistake.
Could my wife have actually been expecting… some kind of love match?
“It seems that some of the other grooms participating in the program came to pick their brides up personally.”
“I could not have been expected to have done such a thing!” I gawked at him in outrage, outrage that I would be expected to waste my own time in such a matter. “I am a prince!”
“Apparently one of them was a minotaur king and he still showed up,” Padreth said with infuriating blandness. “And theWulfric Alpha met his bride immediately upon her arrival for the wedding.”
“He gave his human an actual wedding on his world?” I asked with no small amount of shock. It had not even occurred to me to provide such a thing for a human woman. If I’d married an orc noblewoman as my family had wanted, there would have been feasting and dancing and rutting for days, but I’d never considered putting on such a show for my new bride. Padreth had wed her as my proxy. She was officially my wife. Surely, that was enough?
“From what I hear, the other males are quite happy with their brides,” Padreth said as we resumed walking. I felt his eyes on me from the side as our boots hit the stone. “You really should go meet her. At least get a look at her.”
“I’ll see her at dinner,” I snapped, trying and failing to restrain the anger in my reply. I’d chosen a human bride from this program because I thought it’d mean less… everything. Less expectation, less grievance, less frustration.
I seemed to have made myself an ill bargain. I’d trapped myself with a human and somehow managed to also trap myself with all the, well, trappings that seemed to go along with an orc bride.
“Not until dinner?” Padreth wheedled. “Really, my prince, I think you ought to-”
“You ought to stop speaking. Now,” I warned. Padreth, wiser in that moment than he often acted, actually fell silent. I gritted my tusks against my upper teeth, noticing how short-tempered I was but not quite sure what to do about it. Barrett’s report had not been good. Neither he nor anyone else had any ideas on how to halt or even slow the spread of whatever was plaguing the wheat.
And spreading, it was. Like fatal illness through an unwary bloodstream. There seemed to be no way to stop it.
“I’ll see her at dinner,” I muttered once again to Padreth as I turned a corner in the hall. My feet moved away from my advisor the same way my thoughts moved away from my already inconvenient wife.
CHAPTER 6
LUNA
I’d landed in the morning Orhalla-time, and by late afternoon I still hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of my new husband.
But at least I hadn’t been left entirely alone in the jaw-droppingly gorgeous structure atop the seaside cliffs that was Prince Gal’s family palace. Neena and Noona, along with three other orc women I was pretty sure were some kind of royal lady’s maids, didn’t leave my side. It was nearly impossible to escape them even for a few minutes to go pee on my own in the cavernous, sunlit bathroom. They certainly didn’t give my prudish human modesty any thought when it came time to bathe, because they stripped down and splashed right into the gigantic heated pool with me. I blushed, but didn’t argue, not wanting to offend my new sisters-in-law and also shyly glad for their enthusiastic company.
The three lady’s maids – Ari, Doree, and Manti – were efficient in their work, scrubbing, polishing, and primping every inch of the two princesses and me. After the bath, the three of us were dressed in heavy, silken robes as the lady’s maids got to work on our hair. I sat awkwardly through it, not used to having people touch me this way. The last person who’d brushed orstyled my hair for me had probably been Lyric, and that would have likely been more than ten years ago.
“I didn’t realize how light your hair was!” Neena said on a gasp as Doree worked some sort of fragrant oil into my now-dry hair.
“Well, it’s probably a lot cleaner now,” I said with an uncomfortable laugh. I hoped they didn’t think I was some gross, dirty human. But the journey had been long, and my hair in its ratty little bun at the back of my head had definitely been a bit grimy.
“It’s like the colour of honey from the south!” Noona said almost dreamily. “It makes me want to eat a honey cake!”
“Oh. Thank you. I’ve never tried a honey cake,” I said politely. I wasn’t sure what honey looked like, having never seen or eaten it myself. But it seemed to be a compliment. My hair colour, a murky shade between blonde and brown, had never been exciting to me, especially in contrast with the slippery, exceptionally glossy black locks that all five of the orc women in the room had on display. But Neena and Noona genuinely seemed to be interested in the colour as Doree put my hair up into an elaborate coil on the top of my head.
“You both have beautiful eye colours,” I blurted, trying and probably failing to find a graceful way to return their kind words. Where my own eye colour was as wishy-washy and undecided as my hair – yellowish in some areas, brown in others – the two princesses had eyes of achingly lovely, clear, teal-tinged blue. Just like the sea I’d glimpsed outside.
They both looked pleased – though surprised – by my statement.
“Thank you. Though, this eye colour is nothing unusual,” Neena said. “Most orcs have eyes some shade of green or blue.”
“Gal has very beautiful eyes,” Noona said, not without a healthy dose of indignation.
“He got the colour from our mother,” Neena explained. “Very dark brown. Like ink spilled into strong tea. Not that he deserves them!” she added with a fiercely upturned chin.
“Why… Why doesn’t he deserve them?” I asked cautiously, heart climbing into my throat as Doree secured the last bit of my hair.
“He frowns too much!”