Power Trio

“Do you want me to be your date for this bonfire thing tonight?”

“What?” He didn’t know Dee could get this quiet.

“Do you want to go with me? I, uh.” What did Graila tell him to say? “I offer you a tether.”

Ten seconds of staring silence. Dee’s mouth opens and closes. Did he say something wrong? Did Graila set him up?

“Yes,” she says, in that same soft voice she used in the yurt, the night of his first reward. “Okay. Yes.”

Why did he say that? He’s been thinking of so many things to say, so many angles of escape and deception. Doubling down like this is cruelty.

It’s only cruelty if he acts on it. If he goes. Not if he stays. There’s a place for him at her side. He could be worthy of this woman.

And he’s screaming inside: this is not my life! Nicholas Voraag does not exist! But what comes out is “Then I’ll see you in a few hours?”

She drapes her arms around his shoulders. Her voice is a scratchy murmur. “I barely know you.”

“Do you want to?”

She presses her forehead against his. It’s a gesture charged with meaning, even if he can’t recognize what that meaning is.

“Yes,” she says. “I do. I uh. I gotta get ready, then. We’ll call it here and I’ll see you tonight.” Why does she sound like she’s about to cry?

Nick dusts himself off, swallows the last of his tangr’ak, and watches her go, moving with hesitant steps as if in a dream.

Man. Old World orcs take their barbecues seriously.

He stacks the mats in a corner and exits the tent. Dee’s nowhere to be seen. The dying sun of the early evening radiates long blue shadows from the standing stones and redwoods. Training was his last task of the day; its early cutoff has left him directionless.

The strains of laughter and music come from Legendary’s nearby trailer. Evan’s voice is raised in a goofball karaoke duet with Thekla, imitating Bob Dylan.

Nick is lonely, suddenly and fiercely. His apartment was a real broom closet of a studio. But the gulf between him and his bed is suddenly very large indeed. Where do his friends think he went? You didn’t have friends; you had accomplices.

He wonders where Dee is.

Anticipation hangs heavy in the paddocks and yurts of the Voraag River Pack. A tittering group of orcs cut and stack kindling at the edge of camp, hailing to him as he passes. He sees Graila washing something gossamer and delicate in a basin, her muscles working under the scar tissue Nick sealed over her shoulder. She waves him over. “Packmistress went by like she saw a ghost. You pin her for a three-count or something?”

He shakes his head. “Just did what you suggested. I offered her a tether for tonight.”

“Well, shit.” A scar on Graila’s forehead stands out as her eyebrows raise. “What’d she say?”

“She said sure.”

Graila whistles low and loud. “How about that. You got balls, Nick.”

She hangs the garment she’s been washing and Nick reddens as he pulls his attention from it. It’s an extremely short, extremely sheer red dress, see-through enough to reveal the complex of lacy straps beneath the surface. She snorts at his expression. “Guessing you don’t know the dress code.”

“I have tour merch and I have winter gear.”

“Not gonna cut it, cave-dweller. Come on.” She stands from the basin. “Tamor’s about your size. Maybe he’ll lend you something. Just don’t get it torn.”

He follows the she-orc, wondering why would it get torn?

Tamor’s sitting on a hitch fence with Parag, who’s staring mournfully at his feet. Nearby, Dalma Kamiyon is sketching intently on her oversized pad.

“It’s not a surprise.” Parag heaves a heavy sigh. “Morna’s out of my league. It’s cool. At least I tried it, and I know.”

Nick feels for the guy. Poor Parag has been putting in extra hunting shifts every time Morna’s turn came up. “I’m sorry, dude. She doesn’t know what she’s missing out on.”

Tamor pats Parag’s shoulder. “It was a worthy thing to open yourself, Voraag. You’re more from it, not less.”

“Don’t cheer him up too much,” Dalma instructs. “I’ve nearly captured the woe.”

Parag shoots her a doleful glare. “Fuck are you doing hanging around over here, anyway?” he asks. “Trailer’s that way.”

“I am capturing your woe,” Dalma says. “If your plans have been dashed for the evening, then you are free to model for me tonight, yes? I have an experiment to run with wire and saw grass that will, I think, express your embarrassed élan.”

“Brother.” Graila exchanges a fist-to-chest with Tamor. “Junior here needs something to wear to the rite.”

Tamor appraises Nick. “Is he bringing anyone?”

“Uh huh. Diak’zinae.”

“Damn, Nick.” Parag’s head shoots up. “For real?”

“So he says.” Graila slaps Nick’s back. “Mind if we raid your wardrobe? We’re gonna make this skinny sprat presentable.”

* * *

Presentable for a bonfire rite is not the usual definition of the word. Nick’s in a brocaded vest with nothing below it, like a 1,001 nights cosplayer, and a pair of breeches that snap up the side, loose and flowing in some places and far tighter than he’s used to in others. It’s a relief to arrive at the bonfire and see the rest of the pack in similarly scanty getups. For a minute, he thought he was being pranked.

They’ve moved out from the tent city, a couple dozen of them, to a clearing in the redwood forest where a grand bonfire crackles a flame taller than Nick’s head. There’s a skeleton crew back at camp, just in case, pulling down double pay. Nick’s asked after Dee—apparently she’s back with them looking to some last-minute arrangements, and will be here soon. He feels a juvenile prom-night lump in his throat. Is she excited too? Will she kiss him again?

A mismatched collection of folding chairs, benches, and repositioned stones sits in the slipstream of a scrapped-together PA setup, connected to a loaner tablet from a helpful Earthling crewmember. It’s loaded up with Earthling orcish drumsong, and occasionally someone will laugh at some cross-dimensional inaccuracy. Tramain, a traditionalist who Nick’s exchanged few words with, shakes his topknotted head. “No way is that rim-tak made of bone.”

Graila’s perched on one of Warrin’s thighs on a tree stump near the keg of spiced wine, in that strappy getup of hers, laughing loud and unburdened at something the hunter just said. His hand rests on the small of her back, fingers gathered in the fabric. Neither of them has bothered with the tether.

Nick ladles some drink into his mug. “So, are you two dating?”

“Nah.” Graila blows a puff of air into Warrin’s face, makes him jerk his head away. “I just like to keep his cock warm sometimes.”

“Grail.” Warrin flicks her bangled ear. “Don’t ga’hrakzad vai me in front of the new guy.”

Nick loads his blackbread trencher with smoky-sweet ribs and transcendently spicy chicken thigh. His packmates coerce him into trying rabbit, and the aromatic rub they’ve got on it allows him to forget the sacrifice of a cute little fuzzball.

The wine is potent and thicker than he’s used to. His head swims pleasantly. The fire burns fragrantly. He’s refilling his mug when the packmistress arrives.

The patterned edges of her silver dress kiss the forest floor as she glides to the edge of the firelight. Dee is poured into it, like an old Renaissance master’s painting of a jacked, green goddess of love. The fabric clings to her, accentuates every line of her. The powerful geometry of her shoulders, the plump softness of her cleavage, the lush width of her hips, the sensuous curve of her stomach, the cute little divot of her belly button. Two unabashedly high slits at her sides expose the smooth arcs of her thighs with every anklet-jangling step. Her hair is intricately plaited, wildflowers and ribbons braided into her chestnut locks.

Loose in her left hand is a slim silk ribbon, tied to her wrist. The tether, Nick realizes, once his brain works again.

This is not your life. This is not your life. But it could be, couldn’t it? It isn’t too late. He tries to remember the reasons it’s impossible, the debts he needs to collect on and the jobs he’s left undone and the place he might have in Legendary.

And then Dee sees Nick and her smile blows all those carefully stacked defenses into rubble. She looks at him like he’s the only person there, excited and elated and a little afraid.

“Dee.” Graila wolf whistles. “That dress is fucking hot.”

Dee laughs as the spell breaks, gives Graila a peck on the forehead. “Yours too, sek’va. You drinking tonight?”

Graila and Warrin look uneasy at Dee’s question. “Nah,” the outrider says.

“You do you, girl. Pour me some.”

Nick presses his mug into Dee’s hand. All three orcs quiet as she takes it from him, fingers drifting along his. She takes a deep drink, her gaze encompassing him the entire time. Behind her, Graila and Warrin exchange a wry glance.

She rests her mug on a bench and takes his hand in both of hers. Wordlessly, she slips the other end of the ribbon around his wrist and ties it securely. There’s only an arm’s length of give in their connection. They’ll have to stay close. Her fingers thread through his; she kneads his knuckle. He can feel the beginner’s callouses he coached onto her fingertips. “Hi, Nicky.”

“Hi, Dee.”

“You ready for this?”

“Yes,” he says, because if she’s here, he is. Maybe it’s the drink talking, but every that ticks by in her company, his understanding of tonight’s import magnifies. She doesn’t release his hand after the binding, but keeps her palm on his, cooled from the night air but steadily warming by the heat of the fire. Something heavy and portentous dwells in the dancing flames. Something like destiny.

Dee calls out over the crackling fire and the digital drums. “Pack. We gather.”

Someone yanks the cable from the PA. Real drums pass down the line of revelers. Dee empties her cup of wine and tosses the mug into the dirt. She wraps the tether around her forearm to shorten it and then gives a sharp tug. Nick stumbles up against her; her arm snakes around his waist.

The fire dances in her big brown eyes. The drums sound, conglomerating gradually into a deafening pulse.

Nick’s heart aligns with it. Sweat pools in his palms. Conversation stops.

A chant in packtongue from Dee, loud and from the chest. The orcs of Pack Voraag echo her. Nick doesn’t understand much. He recognizes fire and strength and pack. He repeats the echo anyway, with his brothers and sisters. These are his people.

No, they aren’t. But he barely hears his own internal protest. The drums, the flames, the chanting. The rumble of his own heart. A rising pressure in his eardrums. He’s never truly understood the tangr’ak until this moment. And for the first time, nobody is telling him to control it or modulate it or use it. It’s just there, a pyrotechnic tidal wave, and as he witnesses his pack give into it, a brutal, joyful voice within commands him to follow. And he does.

The fire is roaring within and without. A delirious dance sweeps across the circle, takes his packmates over, takes him over. He seizes around Dee’s waist, lifts her into the air, her dress flowing angelically as he twirls her. They dance feverishly, as if trained in some sleeper-cell instruction that the evening has uncovered.

And when one of his packmates slide tackles her date into the treeline, when Dee’s dervish dance becomes a collar-and-elbow lockup, it should shock and alarm him but it doesn’t. It feels right. It makes his blood sing. Of course, it’s time to fight.

His beautiful lover shoves her side into his belly and lifts him off his feet in a vertical toss. He clutches her arm and brings her down with him. They careen into the bushes.

All around them the celebration dissolves as the tethered packmates enfold one another in amorous violence. Graila’s bright laugh cuts through the noise as she watches from atop Warrin, straddling him in the fire's glow. This is why they never touched the food or the wine, his threadbare sanity deduces.

Dee’s knees scrabble for purchase against his shoulder. He flips her onto her back and tries to cinch in an arm bar as she showed him. Win, his tangr’ak roars. Conquer.

She twists across him, pushes her forearm across his throat. “Submit,” she purrs, and the lust drips thickly from her voice. He flips her body off of his, covers them both in dirt as he scrambles for advantage.

Her legs scissor shut around his head and squeeze like a vise. The world is obscured and muffled between two pillowy green thighs. There is nothing but Dee’s scent, wood smoke and leather and vanilla and arousal. His tangr’ak fans to forest fire heights.

He doesn’t want to resist her any longer. Not with his body and not with his heart. He needs her to take him, in any way she desires.

Right fucking now.