Page 10 of The Outcast Orc (Claimed by the Red Hand #1)

10

QUINN

Hard to say if Marok couldn’t feel the wound in his side thanks to the dreamweed...or if it was just his habit to minimize his injuries. But now that I’d spotted the blood—a rust-brown that blended right in with the leather straps on his armor—I realized he’d taken a nasty hit.

I knew plenty about minimizing. Training animals required projecting an outward calm, no matter the inner turmoil. Rather than make a fuss over his injury, I simply said, “Your wound will only slow us down if it festers. Take off your armor so I can treat it.”

Clearly, Marok was no stallion. Yet he responded to my tone nonetheless.

Archie was dozing fitfully in the wagon and Bess had gone off with Borkul to forage while he hunted small game, which left Marok and me alone. As the orc peeled off his armor, I spotted a blade strapped to his thigh. A smallish thing about as long as my outstretched hand. It was curved, not made for stabbing, but for slashing. One quick stroke across the neck was all it would take for me to make my escape.

But I recognized that weapon. He’d been wielding it when he leapt through the fire to come between me and the goblin attackers…and what kind of ass would I be if I used the blade he’d defended me with to cut his throat?

It may have been a trick of the firelight, but when Marok lifted the chest plate over his head, the way the light played over his torso, he looked very nearly human. Huge, yes. Ridiculously muscular? No doubt. The thing was, I’d always had a yen for the big guys. The stonecutters and bodyguards, the blacksmiths and the porters.

And Marok’s body put even the best of them to shame.

Maybe I’d absorbed some of that dreamweed myself—because I should no more admire the physique of an orc than take a fancy to one of the oxen.

And yet, the chiseled bands of sinew framing his pelvis didn’t exactly call the oxen to mind.

Marok set the armor aside and squatted on his haunches, treating me to a look of bland patience. The time to snatch his knife had come and gone. Instead of disappointment, though, what I felt was mainly…relief.

The medicinal bark we’d harvested was dry and leathery now, so I soaked it in clean water while I swabbed the blood from the wound in his side to gauge how bad it was. Fresh blood was still oozing from the cut. I probed gently and my fingers came away wet, stained coppery brown. Marok didn’t make a sound, didn’t even flinch.

“It’s deep,” I told him.

“Good thing it’s still bleeding, then. All the better to flush out the goblin shit.”

Maybe so. “I’ll wrap the poultice lightly.” I pressed the moistened bark to the wound. “Here, hold it while I tie off the bandage.”

Marok’s huge hand dwarfed mine as he put it against the wet bundle. His fingers were cool and callused where they brushed against the side of my hand.

Stop it , I told myself as I circled his body with a strip of fabric. He’s just a talking beast—of course, you’re not turned on . But the act of wrapping bandages around his torso was telling my baser instincts otherwise. His waist was trim and lean, and even so, I could barely get my arms around him. And that pressed my cheek against the sharply cut muscles of his chest.

I tied off the bandage and stepped back quickly…but as I did, I found the orc watching me with a peculiar look in his eyes, head tilted, nostrils flaring as he whiffed the air.

I dusted my hands together and brusquely said, “You should get some rest.”

He held my gaze for half a heartbeat, then began strapping on his armor without a word.

That night, as I curled up by the fire with a bellyful of fresh rabbit, I tried my best not to dwell on what had taken place between Marok and me. I was being a fool…which I supposed was nothing new. But usually my foolishness had more to do with my own self-importance and less to do with men.

Over the course of my life, I was always overstepping my bounds. Contradicting my teachers. Disagreeing with my superiors. Rubbing potential employers wrong. I couldn’t seem to grasp diplomacy, to restrain myself from speaking up when I knew damn well I was right. So, feigning humility was a skill I’d never quite mastered.

But men? Men were easy.

Some men would rather cut off their own dick than let another man suck it, while others were happy to oblige—and might even return the favor…so long as no one found out. Reading a man is like reading an untrained steed. Stance, eye contact, overall demeanor. All of it adds up to a message. And knowing how to interpret that message had got me pretty far with my own hide intact.

Though, considering how badly I’d misjudged the last man to grace my bed, maybe not.

The blacksmith’s apprentice aside, I did know how to read men. But while Marok might look like a man, I couldn’t let myself forget he was very much not a man at all…but an orc.