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Cedar

S he’d never been so warm and comfortable in all her life. It felt like sleeping next to a lightly flickering fire, draped in the softest blankets possible. She’d never slept like this, not in her time sharing the floor with her siblings as a child, not on the bare cot that Lissa occasionally let her use when she wasn’t in the barn.

And something under her head was rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. Breathing, she realized.

Cedar opened her eyes to find herself pressed firmly against a huge, scarred, green chest. The skin was mottled all over, and she recognized it immediately.

Her breath came faster as she tried to decide what to do. Remaining here, against Kargorr’s side, was against her better instincts. But the furs had formed so perfectly around them, and he was so, so warm in this awful, frigid place, that she didn’t want to move.

Still, this was a golden opportunity, one that might not pass by her again. He was fully asleep, and maybe she could slip away while he was unconscious.

“I can hear you thinking, little deer,” came his rumbling voice, and Cedar flinched, her eyes darting up to his face. Kargorr’s big arm, which was still slung over her waist, tightened to stop her retreat. “Your breathing changed.”

Is that all it took to wake him up? Cedar had hoped, seeing him fast asleep this morning, that she might be able to steal away in the middle of the night after tiring out his body. But that didn’t seem to be an option if he slept so lightly as to pick up changes in her breathing.

His hand stole down her side and over the swell of her ass, then underneath it to the pathway between her thighs. She was horrified when his fingers encountered wetness, as if simply breathing him in, feeling him so close, had done this to her.

Cedar should have moved away, insisted that they get out of bed and demanded food, but instead she let him thoughtfully, languidly drag the pad of his finger through her warm lower lips. It only made her wetter, the way he remained otherwise still, just testing her out and occasionally brushing over her clit. Each time made her involuntarily convulse, but he kept to his unhurried circuit.

Then he slid his finger inside her. Her hips snapped against his hand, so he rewarded her by pushing it in deeper.

“I think she wants my cock again,” Lord Kargorr said with a twinge of amusement. Cedar clenched her fists, holding in any sound as he pumped that single finger in and out, curling it to stroke her as it went. But was he wrong?

She hated herself for it.

His hand gently withdrew, then coursed down her thigh to pull it up, over his hip, spreading her wide. Cedar couldn’t bear to look at him as he swirled the head of his cock through her fluids, coating himself, brushing over her small button again and again until she was aching to have him.

But she couldn’t hold in the sound she made when he slid into her, somehow fitting easily while also demanding she open wide, that she stretch to her limits. He glided right into his seat, deep inside her, and let out a satisfied exhale.

Cedar was surprised to find nothing more than a twinge where she’d been rubbed raw the night before. Whatever that kuja was, it seemed to have worked magic, because every glide of that thick orc cock in and out of her broke her down, piece by piece, shred by shred, until she was moaning, her pussy begging for more. It was a traitor.

“Is that so?” Kargorr said, a smirk on his big, square face. He flipped her over, needing barely one hand to move her, so she was flat on her belly, her nose in the furs, and she let out a cry of surprise as he spread her legs apart and pulled her hips up into the air. Cedar was even more helpless in this position as he buried one clawed hand in the soft flesh of her ass, then plunged himself into her.

He could have set a blistering pace. He could have fucked her like he fucked her last night, but instead, for a reason she couldn’t fathom, Kargorr didn’t. He took his time, dragging his cock up and down along the sensitive underside of her channel, settling deep in her and then merely rocking back and forth. Somehow this was worse, the way he lazily used her, letting her pleasure build and build one small stone at a time. She needed more, but he wouldn’t give it to her, denying all of her mewls and whines.

When she crumbled, it took her by surprise. Kargorr barely reacted as she cried out and twitched around him, her knees shivering as she tried to fall to the bed. But he kept her anchored, hoisting the weight of her with his hand as he continued his methodical subjugation of her body. She hated that he could do this, hated that she had never felt pleasure like this before, and that she had given herself over to it.

It wasn’t until he had pushed her over the edge again, claws leaving marks on her, that he finally spent himself. He barely reacted save for the impossible swell of his cock inside her, those thick protrusions at the base butting up against her entrance.

“Not for you,” he rasped as he finished emptying himself. “Never for you.”

She didn’t know what that meant, but it reminded her simply that she was nothing to him, only a body to be used until it wasn’t needed any longer.

Kargorr lay down at her back, breathing heavily, still buried inside her. When he withdrew, he said nothing, though his hands were shaking. Then he stood up and walked naked from the tent.

Cedar had never been one to cry. Crying made you look weak, and it blinded you to what needed to be done. So she buried all of her hurt, all of her hopelessness, and tucked it away in a place no one could see, not even herself.

Kargorr

He had considered it, for the briefest moment—sinking all the way into her, really and truly claiming her. His sarga had wanted it. They had wanted it so badly that it almost overwhelmed him. The way Cedar turned into liquid, how she moaned and her cunt spasmed around him, had begged him to push completely inside her, to bury his sarga in her along with the rest of him. Then, when they swelled, when he poured all his seed into her, they would lodge there.

It was a sacred act for an orc to use his sarga . It would label her as his yapira , his forever bedwarmer, and this ratty human offal was not that.

Irritated at himself for even having the thought, he left Cedar in the tent and walked out into the fresh air, hoping to clear his head. He stood there for some time, looking up into the clouded sky that spoke of snow to come. They needed to move into the lowlands soon and continue their expansion southward. That would be the true testament to the strength of his parog , if he could take even more human villages and swallow up what remained into his territory.

He heard Orgha approaching before he saw him. Kargorr inclined his head slightly as the shorter orc stopped at his side and tapped his chest in greeting.

“You claimed her, then?” he asked, arching an eyebrow in the direction of the tent. “Everyone heard.”

Kargorr got a chuckle out of that. She had tried so hard to not let it show how good his cock had felt inside her, but Cedar was no match for him. Good. It was a positive thing that the entire parog now knew. No other grrosek would try to encroach on her, unless they wanted a fight with their leader.

It would also, hopefully, make it harder for her to escape when he left on his next raid.

He would post many guards, and she would be under watch even as she went to pee. She had refused his demand for her submission, and it would be impossible to trust her until she did.

Even then, he wondered if her word would mean anything. Taming this one might prove difficult, but tame her he would.

Kargorr answered his right hand with a nod. “She is mine now. She will bear me many fine orclings.” As if summoned, one of the parog ’s other half-breeds walked by, an immense blacksmith’s hammer over his shoulder.

But Orgha didn’t answer. He was studying Lord Kargorr with one brow arched. “So you have joined the ranks of those taking human concubines.”

“It is the best path forward for the parog .” Seeding many orclings would also show off his virility. Strength in battle was the only thing the grrosek valued more. “I will likely need a bigger tent soon.”

Orgha nodded, and though his mouth twitched like he wanted to speak, he chose not to.

Kargorr arched an eyebrow. “What is it? Be forthright.”

Orgha cleared his throat. “Still, it should be a temporary solution, lord. Eventually, you will want a yapira instead, to rule the parog alongside you.”

The impudence made him seethe. As if Orhga knew what he needed. As if he understood Kargorr’s greater plans.

Lord Kargorr rounded on his right hand, eyes ablaze, and Orgha realized the mistake he had made.

“I do not need anything,” Kargorr said, his voice deadly quiet, “but myself. But my parog . But my warriors. That is where strength lies, not in one’s bed.”

“Of course,” Orgha said, not meeting his lord’s eyes. “You have always ridden alone, and I should not expect that to change.”

Kargorr had no use for a yapira . He needed to be free of ropes tying him to the ground. He needed to show his bloodthirst and sow many more concubines.

Kargorr gestured for Orgha to leave him, but before he did, his right hand had one last thing to say.

“When will we move south?”

At least Orgha understood his place, understood where he was needed.

“In three days’ time,” Kargorr said. He needed the hours with his new concubine to properly break her. And then they would move on to the next frontier.

Orgha nodded. “We will begin taking down the posts right away.”

The message spread quickly through the parog , and soon, even as he stood there, the other grrosek began dismantling the camp in earnest. The posts that secured the perimeter were removed one at a time and loaded onto sledges.

He would be needed soon to oversee the move, but in the meantime...

Lord Kargorr found his way to the meal tent and secured a large tray of beef and roots and bread, the spoils of their raid. No one spoke to him, but everyone looked as he took the tray, returning to his own tent where he had left Cedar.

But when he returned, she was gone.