Page 10 of Finding Her Luck
He tugged again, and she opened. He washed her there too, working against her most delicate parts from the base of her spine, between the cheeks of her bottom, over her back entrance, all the way to the front. He turned her, washed her feminine curls until she bubbled with soap, petting his fingers through them. It happened quickly, without pain, but the process was intimate and proprietary. Disturbing.
He had no right.
The cold air affected her now as much as the heat of her emotions, and the day's exhaustions were catching up with her. She started to shiver, teeth clacking. At the same time her stomach rolled with hunger and she realized how thirsty she was.
Her eyes closed, she was swaying as he washed her chest, both of his warm, hot hands covering her bruised breasts and painfully tightened nipples at the same time. She imagined pushing him away, turning into the river and swimming toward home, her beautiful, abrasive sisters, the sanctuary of her own room and bed.
She cried out, with a sudden shock of pain in her shoulders. He'd cut her loose with a claw to the binding at her wrists. That noisy rumble increased in her ear, while his hands worked over the areas of pain, fingers pressing in on the sore muscles. It felt good and hurt at the same time. Heat enclosed her, world tilting, that rumble a vibration against her whole being when he picked her up. Holding her upright against him, rubbing her soapy body against his own, he walked into deeper waters. He was so hot. The fact that they were both naked, that she thought she could feel his manhood, didn't matter. Corrin's arms went around him without her permission, and she clung to him, inhaling the smell of the river and the Orki's wild scent at his neck
They went deep. He tipped her head back, ran a quick hand over her face, making sure she was washed everywhere.
"I'm thirsty," she told him as water dripped in her mouth.
"Drink. Slow," he said.
She tried to go slow. But the water was damn cold, her teeth were chattering, and she wanted out.
He shook her when she gulped.
"Slow, littlehuumon."
She drank again, taking as much as she could.
After, he waded out, back to the shore. He asked if she needed to relieve herself, Corrin decided she did, until he pointed up the bank and told her just to go.
Naked, frozen, soul tired in a way she had never been in her life, Corrin squatted where he told her. He made her wash again, splashing water between her legs. "Poor, Corrin," he said. That growling sound moved through his chest again. He seemed to be able to make it and talk at the same time. It was strange.
But not unpleasant.
After she was washed again, the Orki wrapped her in a wool blanket and a heavy fur that appeared on the shore. Someone had brought it. Someone had seen her surrender and humiliation. Tomorrow she would hate that, hate herself for that, but right now, she couldn't keep her eyes open. She was done.
Sitting on the river shore, almost asleep, he pulled her stockings to her knees and put on her boots. He moved her where he wanted her, and she just let him. Her eyes closed and then blinked open with each different sensation.
The big war beast settled beside her. It licked the side of her head and made a noise. The Orki said something to it. His sturdy arms lifted her again. More movement. Heat at her back and that sound. That growly, purring sound. The blanket and fur were rearranged, tucked around her. Strange rocking back and forth. Sleep.
CHAPTER THREE
LUCK SO BAD SHE'S KIDNAPPED TWICE
Corrin rested fitfully. She roused long enough to realize she sat on the back of a war beast, in the arms of the Orki warrior who had washed and spanked her in the river. There were stars overhead, land moving by her eyes, lit by the Mother and Father moons. When she blinked open her eyes again, the terrain had changed. Less leafy river cypress, oak, and silverheart, to the taller, thicker green spiny trees of Orki territory. Her fear of the place so deeply ingrained, she cried out in alarm, struggling.
A big hand settled around her neck, enclosing it, and Corrin remembered. She'd been taken by an Orki. The misplaced relief she felt at that was too confusing to contemplate. She closed her eyes and sought sleep again, not wanting to think about what was happening.
They traveled through the night. Her eyes were open above the fur that sheltered her as peach tinged the sky on the foreign landscape. She could see shapes moving all around her, other Orki on their beasts. She counted twelve of them. How many raiders had there been? Tables full, at least ninety men in the council house, plus more stationed outside as guard. Twelve Originals had killed them all. Since she hadn't witnessed it, Corrin wasn't sure that all of them had even participated in the carnage.
The male behind her spoke to another, lighter-skinned Orki, whose ears were pierced with gold hoops. The conversation was short. She understood one word, shelter, out of many.
He tipped her head back with his hand on her throat. The morning light caused the pale blue of his eyes to glow. "Corrin mind self. See Urku-ri. Not brother."
She frowned.
Thirsty and still hungry, Corrin stayed silent as they picked up speed again. The war beasts traveled with ease through trees and over the rocky, mossy ground. Tireless. Going up hills as easily as they went down. The body behind her tensed and moved with the flow of the beast beneath them, sometimes leaning forward, sometimes back. She felt like a child held in her father's arms, so big was the monster behind her. Fit between his tree-trunk thighs, muscled body surrounding hers, one arm kept her steady, so that she couldn't help but follow the flow of the beast as he did.
She closed her eyes when it looked like they were going uphill, the feeling disorienting. Opening them again when they leveled out, and the morning gave way to shadows and deep darkness as the group entered a cave.
Lighting torches with a whoosh, two riders entered in front of them, revealing a place where the group must rest often. There, animals split around the blackened circle of a fire pit, going toward the back of the cave. In the torchlight, Corrin saw stacks of furs and watertight woven baskets that looked like the work of farm wives.
The Orki at her back dismounted, taking her with him. He settled her on one beefy shoulder. She rushed to grab the fur as it fell away from her nakedness, her butt exposed to the air.
