Alien Orc’s Prize (Starlight Brides)

15. Luna

CHAPTER 15

LUNA

P rince Gal – or Galbrath, as he apparently wanted to be called – led me over to his hover vehicle. It was similar to the one Althrop rode in on, though a little bigger. I probably shouldn’t have felt that way, but seeing that Galbrath’s vehicle was bigger than Althrop’s gave me a distinct thrill.

“Get on,” Galbrath said. Rather a redundant command, considering he was already lifting me onto the seat. I scraped damp tendrils of hair back from my face as Galbrath manoeuvred his colossal bulk in front of me on the vehicle’s seat.

“Hold onto me,” he grunted as he did something that turned on the engine. I yelped and wrapped my arms around his torso as the vehicle immediately lurched up into the air. Without another word, Galbrath turned the vehicle and sped forwards. Right towards the water.

I half-expected a wall of water to hit me dead in the face, but of course, it didn’t. The hover capabilities of the craft clearly worked as well on water as on land, and we skimmed easily over the shimmering blue surface. I squeezed Galbrath, a smile unfurling on my face as cool, salty spray tickled my cheeks. My braid whipped out behind me as sea air buffeted us. Every time a wave rose before us, the vehicle rose, too, then careened back down in an exhilarating undulation.

It was intoxicating. The speed. The wind. The water, so clear and beautiful both ahead and below.

Galbrath’s body between my thighs.

The ride didn’t last too long. Soon, we were rounding a large outcropping of white stone and slowing as we entered a much smaller beach than the one we’d come from. It was a glorious, tiny, private little inlet where the water lapped lazily, clear as liquified teal glass, against white rock and smooth sand.

Galbrath parked his vehicle in a shaded place beneath the cliffs, dismounted, then helped me down.

“You couldn’t teach me to swim at the other beach?” I asked, quirking a brow at him. He was already wrestling out of his leather vest.

“Get undressed,” he said, before adding, “I don’t want Althrop or Padreth or anyone else seeing you without clothing. It’s private here.”

“Why is that, though?” I asked. “It seems like it’s normal to swim naked.”

“Yes,” he confirmed as he tossed down his vest and kicked off his boots. “But you’re not normal.”

“Excuse me?!”

He looked up from where he’d been undoing his belt, frowning fiercely. “What is it? Your scent’s gone all wrong again. It makes me want to put my head through a wall.”

“Well, sorry. But you just said I’m not normal!”

How, how could he not see how rude that was?

“You’re not,” he said easily. Infuriatingly. But then, just before the spark of my anger could really turn into a fire that burned everything down, he said, simply and seriously and without fanfare, “Special isn’t normal.”

Special.

Oh.

He sighed. “That’s better. Your scent,” he clarified.

“Well, I did tell you that saying nice things to me would keep the scent thing under control,” I teased, feeling suddenly just a little shy. Special. He thought I was special.

“It’s just the truth,” he said, seeming mystified by my reaction. “And I barely want you around Althrop even with clothes on. That scent… I thought you were in danger. Or in pain.”

Dealing with annoying men who don’t know how to take no for an answer is painful, I wanted to tell him. But judging by his mood and earlier reaction to his cousin’s presence, that kind of comment was not going to help the situation. Althrop was annoying and pushy, but he hadn’t actually touched me or crossed a real line. I was uncomfortable with his nakedness as he kept bugging me, and him being naked wasn’t even considered weird or bad for Orhalla culture.

Well. Except when it came to Galbrath apparently. Put some clothes on! he’d snarled.

I hadn’t been able to watch my husband’s approach, because Althrop’s body had blocked my view. But I saw the vicious way Althrop got yanked backwards into the water. And when he was gone from my view, there was Galbrath standing in his place, huge and angry and startlingly beautiful, the brutal focus in his dark eyes bearing down on me like I was…

Special.

“What’s going on with your scent now?” Galbrath grumbled as he tugged his trousers off and tossed them aside. A hoarse edge crept into his voice, fraying the edges of his words. “It’s very distracting.”

“Distracting?” I echoed in disbelief. If he thought my scent was distracting, then the man had never seen his own dick. My eyes fell there and stayed, fused to the thick organ with the dark green, bulbous head and the bulbous… other thing. Seriously. What was that? It looked like someone had shoved an apple halfway down his cock and left it there. Beneath the shaft hung heavy balls, so dark green they were nearly black.

“Luna,” Galbrath growled. Before my eyes, his shaft jerked. “We’re not going to get to your swimming lesson if you keep staring at me and smelling like that.”

“Smelling like what?” I murmured. Oh, God. His cock jerked again. Thickening and lengthening as if I’d been touching it.

“Smelling like you want me to make a meal of that tasty cunt again.”

“What?!” That got me finally looking up at his face. “That’s certainly a crude way to put it!”

“I think you liked it. Your scent gave a great big throb,” Galbrath replied, taking a step towards me. Jesus Christ, was he smirking?! “I’m not poetic, Luna. My words aren’t fanciful or flowery. But I mean every single one of them.” He bent to speak against my ear, but instead a harsh groan escaped him, sounding like he hadn’t meant to let it out.

I inhaled unsteadily, rubbing my hands across the meaty bulges of his pectorals, completely at a loss as to when I’d even started touching him in the first place. I skimmed my fingertips across his nipples, toying with the piercing on the one side and enjoying the hiss he gave in response.

“Does this mean anything?” I asked, touching the cool bar and shivering at the contrast with the vibrant, virile heat of his skin.

“Yes,” he groaned. “We pierce one side when our father dies. We pierce the other when our first child is born.”

I paused to gaze up at his face.

“When did your father die?”

“Seventy-two very long days ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You said that before. About my mother’s friend.”

“I know. Human thing. Sorry.”

His mouth quirked in a grimace, but his eyes were warm.

“Stop saying sorry.”

“OK. Wait! I do have one more thing to say sorry for.”

Galbrath gave me an exasperated look, but I plunged on.

“I’m sorry I fell asleep last night! I swear I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t an, er, comment on how much I was enjoying things. Because I was.”

Galbrath lowered his head further and chuckled against my throat. An unexpected sound, dark as chocolate and heated like smoke. It made my pussy squeeze and my knees go embarrassingly weak.

“I know you were enjoying it. I could-”

“Smell it? Oh, God, stop reminding me.”

“I’m sorry too.”

I stilled. He pulled his face up until it was just above mine.

“I realized after you were asleep I hadn’t asked you how your journey was. Or if you were tired. And I’m sorry for snapping at you before when I asked you to call me Galbrath.” He sighed, and his face was suddenly etched all over with lines of exhaustion and worry. “There have been… a great many things on my mind as of late.”

“Like what?”

He eyed me as if he wasn’t sure if he was going to tell me or not. He found an escaped strand of my damp hair and caught it between his finger and thumb, rubbing slowly, as if luxuriating in the feel of it.

“Crops are failing,” he suddenly said. “Wheat. Slow at first, but steadier now. All over the kingdom. My scientists can’t figure out why. We can’t even figure out how it’s spreading. I was just out at a field, down by a nearby inn. Nothing around it is affected, but out of nowhere the wheat there is suddenly dying away.”

Frustration tore at his words. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to be so big, so powerful, responsible for so much and so many, and not be able to fix something like this.

“Oh, no. I’m…” I almost said, “I’m sorry,” again. I swallowed back the reflex. “How big of a problem is that?”

“Huge. Nothing else grows as abundantly or easily to feed as many people as is required. Trade isn’t an easy answer, as the other regions are already growing concerned about spread, as am I, and they’re now wary even of shipping or travelling here. I could try negotiating to import food from other worlds, but the cost would be astronomical. I’d sell and trade and finance everything in the kingdom if I had to, put us into inescapable debt if it would keep everyone fed, but I’m not even sure that would be enough.”

“Jesus. What about meat? Or fishing? Could that tide everyone over until this gets fixed?”

He shook his head. “It may not look like it based on the current weather, but our winters are very harsh. Even with technological advancements, fishing enterprises would be a very risky undertaking during half the year. And we don’t have the space or structures in place to house that many meat-giving animals over winter.”

“Not an easy way out, is there?”

No wonder the man was so freaking crabby. I couldn’t imagine the stress he must be under right now.

“I’ll fix it,” he growled. “Stop letting your scent get all out of sorts over it. You won’t go hungry.”

“I wasn’t worried about myself. I was worried about, well, everyone! And you. That’s a lot of stress!” I leaned my face against his chest, turning my cheek to rest against the smooth solidity of him. “Humans have gone through so many famines I can’t even keep track of them all. My ancestors came from a place on Earth called Ireland. They had a terrible potato famine.”

I paused, the loose and rippling edges of a thought slowly coming together. Something about Ireland, and… and…

“Do you eat seaweed?”

Galbrath frowned down at me and tucked the loose strand of hair behind my ear.

“No. Who in their right mind would eat that?”

“Well, humans, for one thing,” I said tartly. I was tempted to flick him again, but restrained myself. “There’s an old Irish saying: look after the potatoes, then the children, then the seaweed. It was a pretty important sea vegetable. I saw how much of it was growing here when I was wading around at the beach. Is it edible?”

“Yes,” he conceded, giving me an odd look. “But we mostly feed it to pigs.”

I shrugged. “Maybe start feeding it to people, too.”

Galbrath looked like he wanted to argue, but couldn’t think of a rational reason to reject my idea. “It all grows relatively close to shore, so we could harvest it more easily than deep-sea fishing during the dangerous weather,” he said slowly. “And some species are invasive, growing non-stop, even in the winter…”

“Well, there you go, then!” I grinned up at him. “Problem solved!”

“The idea has merit,” he said at length. “But I still need to find out what’s happening with the wheat, too.”

I nodded.

“I understand. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Distract me.”

My pulse leaped.

“Should be easy enough,” I said, my voice lower than I’d intended, “considering how distracting my scent apparently is.”

“By the seas, you have no idea.”

A wicked idea popped into my head. If he wanted distraction, he was about to get it. And it would be a bit of an apology for falling asleep on him last night. I let my fingers follow the hard grooves of his abdomen. When I reached his groin, I took the hot, heavy shaft of him into my hands.

Then I got down on my knees.

Galbrath watched me the way he’d watch a small, cute, but ultimately wild creature that had made its way uninvited into his house. With fascination, appreciation, and also a little suspicion. Like I was going to fuck up the upholstery if he left me alone too long without supervision.

“I’m not going to bite you or anything,” I chuckled, stroking him and feeling him grow instantly stiffer.

“With those little teeth? And no tusks? A bite isn’t even a threat coming from you.”

“Oh, really?” I took the head of him into my mouth, ringed my teeth around it, and ever so slightly applied pressure. Galbrath’s cock jumped and started leaking salty fluid against my tongue. His hands went to the back of my head, and he swore softly. I sucked him, once, long and hard, then released him, flashing my “little teeth” in a mischievous grin. I noted with satisfaction the way his chest heaved and his eyes grew half-lidded with desire.

“Again,” he rasped. This time, I licked my way along the bottom side, down to that strange, firm bulge in the middle.

“Mwhat’s dis mcalled?” I asked, the words damp and muffled against that swollen place.

“What?” Galbrath wheezed. He tensed, hips lurching as I found a pulsing vein and tongued it.

“What’s this called?” I repeated more clearly.

“It’s my knot. Your human men don’t have knots?”

He said it with such disdain I found myself grinning, my lips pressed to the hot, surprisingly satiny skin of his knot. I planted a wet kiss there, then nipped the underside. A jet of come shot past my ear.

“Sensitive?” I asked, wrapping both hands around the swollen centre and squeezing. More come erupted, and Galbrath sucked back a shout.

“Oceans, yes,” he hissed. “Sensitive.”

“Does this part… is it supposed to fit inside me?”

“Of course,” he panted. He massaged my scalp, sending prickly heat down the back of my neck.

“I don’t think it will,” I said dubiously, stroking the massive swell of it. His shaft alone was astoundingly thick. The knot was even thicker.

“It will,” Galbrath replied with ferocious certainty. Arrogance, most people would probably say. But I kind of liked it. It made me feel like anything could be possible with him. Simply because he’d make it so by sheer force of will.

Although I wasn’t exactly sure how sheer force of will would apply to the physics of my vagina.

I took him back into my mouth, as deep as he could go. Like he could hear my mental doubts, he resumed massaging my scalp and he groaned, slowly shunting his hips as if to punctuate each word, “We’ll work you up to it. Tongue. Fingers. The first part of my cock. And then, when you’re good and wet and ready for it, you’ll take my – ah! ”

I fought the instinct to jerk back and escape the onslaught of Galbrath’s ejaculation. But as much as I tried to stay in place, I couldn’t last long. Orc males came like a hot, salty tsunami. At least, Galbrath did. I reared back with a gurgle, swallowing some, but letting most of it drip past my swollen lips and down my chin. Galbrath stared down at me, his eyes dark slits.

“By the seas, lass,” he huffed, dragging his thumb across my slick lower lip, “you look good like this.”

“How do I smell?” I joked, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth.

“Delicious.” He pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes and hissed a sharp sigh. “Don’t ask me. If I think about it too much, I’m going to get hard again. And as much as it literally pains me to leave you right now, I have three more farmers to visit and about a hundred scientists to write to this afternoon.”

“I understand,” I said, rising shakily to my feet, even as a stab of disappointment went through me. And it wasn’t even disappointment that I was now so depressingly horny and wouldn’t get to do anything about it. It was because I felt like I was going to just… miss him. It had been nice simply talking to him. Letting him share about his problems and sharing my own ideas in return.

Galbrath blew out a long breath, lowered his hands and met my gaze fiercely. He cupped my face and bent to press his forehead to mine.

“Later,” he whispered.

“Later? You must be talking about that swimming lesson I was promised,” I teased.

Galbrath leaned back to look at me, frowned, and then gently pinched my cheek.

“You know what’s happening later. But,” his voice and his gaze softened. My heart and my pussy spasmed in tandem. “But know that I do intend to teach you. I want to.”

“OK.” It came out as a whisper. “I’ll wait for later, then.”