Page 10 of ORC’d By the Emperor

His voice is like gravel spinning in a combine.

It sends shivers down my spine, which, at least for now, remains safely within my body.

“Remember Rules,” Grak mutters before he and that Nadir spear guy each take an arm to haul me to the throne’s dais, where I’m once again unceremoniously pushed down on my knees.

Listen, I often had to tend to Vance for way longer than I wanted to because while he always insisted on blowjobs, it took him forever to get off. But kneeling on stone with nothing but a towel to cushion my knees is getting real old.

Footsteps sound behind me, so many that my instincts won’t let me not look up.

I kind of wish I hadn’t when I find the hall now crowded.

Hundreds of seven-foot-plus Orcs dressed in leather loincloths, fur mantles, and dripping in gold jewelry stare back at me. None of them wear shirts, including the females, whose breasts are all pierced with large gold rings or bars.

I quickly duck my head back down. What is happening?

As if in answer to my question, the Emperor’s gravel-and-thunder voice announces from somewhere above me, “Orc Court has gathered here today to witness Emperor’s union with Human Female, who will bear Emperor scores of ogre offspring!”

The gathered crowd erupts into a deafening roar, complete with stomping feet and more blasts from that war horn/electric guitar thing.

My eyes pop wide underneath all the noise. Say what now? I’m not only supposed to marry this guy, but I’m also expected to bear his children? Like, scores of them? And why ogres instead of half-orcs? Are ogres the result of—Wait, what am I doing?

Shaking off my curiosity about the procreation practices of the Middle Realm’s most savage race, I concentrate on the task at hand: getting the hell out of here.

If anything, that little speech cemented it. Me running needs to happen sooner than later.

Keeping my head down, I scan the room from my limited point of view, and bingo! There’s a giant red door on the throne hall’s far right wall, probably sourced from the Silent Blood Woods that featured so prominently in Autumn of the Fae.

I don’t even want to think about what happened to the Wood Elves in charge of guarding those sacred groves from outside invasions. Judging from the sheer size of the door, they did not win that fight.

Main point: It’s an exit. My best chance of escaping this place and finding one of those mage caves that will get me back to my world—hopefully, in time for my test tomorrow morning.

The only nice thing about that Grak convo is that it gave me a scale of Middle Realm versus Lower Realm time. Forty years equals five hundred here. So minutes, not hours, have probably passed in my own dimension. I still have time to⁠—

The Emperor roars, cutting off my thoughts. “Emperor’s ceremony will begin NOW!”

And the crowd goes wild.

“I-VAR! I-VAR! I-VAR!”

Chapter 8

Little Bride

Itense, bracing myself to make a run for it as soon as I’m asked to stand for the ceremony.

But instead, more heavy footsteps sound, followed by the groan of skulls and bones being disturbed. Is he…

Is the Emperor taking a seat?

“Tell your Emperor about the bridal dress you have donned for our ceremony,” Ivar says in the next moment. Like the Orc version of a talk show host.

I visibly jolt.

“Does this topic of conversation surprise you?”

“No, it’s more that—well, I used to be a linguist. Actually, I was hoping to become a linguist again.”

Yet another stickler alert pops up in my mind. Hope is a strong word for settling, but I push on. “Anyway, I noticed that you don’t talk like the others.”