Alien Orc’s Prize (Starlight Brides)

8. Galbrath

CHAPTER 8

GALbrATH

SHE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE BEAUTIFUL.

T hat was my first thought when my eyes settled, and then became entirely stuck, upon my human wife. I was stunned by the sight of her. And as I was never stunned, I found the notion entirely unwelcome and very nearly offensive.

How dare she come into my hall and freeze me to the spot this way?

It was not to be borne.

But none of that stopped her from being beautiful.

She was much shorter than an orc female, certainly, but not quite as pathetically tiny as I’d been led to believe a human would be. She had luscious curves. Her skirt sat neatly against rounded hips, nipping into a waist I suddenly had the very strong desire to wrap my fingers around. And above that?

There was no other way to describe it. My bride possessed a magnificent bosom.

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 to my 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.

“Not that seat,” I told her. “That is the current queen’s place. She’s gone south to attend the funeral of a childhood friend. Otherwise, she would have been here to meet you.”

“Oh.” Her mouth quirked downwards. “I’m sorry to hear that. Sorry about her loss.”

“Sorry?” I asked, twisting to watch her as she walked behind my chair to the one across the table from my mother’s. It was as if someone had tethered my eyes to her. Her movements were dragging them all over the blasted place.

“Is that not what you say here? When someone dies?” she asked, halting beside the chair to my left.

“No.” She could prick her thumbs against her tusks to honour the death, but she didn’t have any tusks to begin with. The absence made her mouth look oddly empty and flat, but surprisingly, it wasn’t an unpleasant effect.

“Not that chair, either,” I said when she tried to pull it out from the table. “That’s where the next highest ranking male sits. Usually Padreth, when he can attend dinner and no royal relatives are visiting.”

She blew out a breath and planted her hands on her hips.

“Where, then?”

She was pointing out a rather obvious dilemma. Typically, her chair would have been right beside mine, both of them sharing the head of the table. But, much like everything else, I’d told my staff that such a thing was unnecessary. Before this moment, I never could have anticipated seeing myself dragging my new wife out from between my sisters. Before, I would have been grateful for Neena and Noona’s corralling of her so that I didn’t have to be near her any more than was necessary.

But, blast it all, I actually found myself wanting to be near her.

That still didn’t solve the problem that her chair was not here.

I could have gone and grabbed it myself. But I didn’t. Instead, I leaned back in my own seat, spread my leather-clad thighs, pointed down at my own lap, and, my eyes locked with hers so that I could see them widen, said, “Sit.”