I know what's there. You keep things from me, things that you consider ugly, and I know. I promise you, Quinn, there is nothing within you that could make me turn away from you. There is nothing you could do, or make me do, that would change my feelings towards you. I have loved no one else in my life the way I love you-I have loved no one else at ( Read more... )

if it wasn't thisIt wasn't a secret, so he said it as often as he liked ( Read more... )

Daimd was happy to consider himself an orc of few vices. He couldn't recall the last time he'd envied someone else, since he hardly took notice of anyone's life outside his own, and he certainly lacked whatever defined one as avaricious, given that he rarely wanted more than what he already had. Similarly, gluttony was not a factor in his life; he ( Read more... )

Daimd loved the morning ( Read more... )

Daimd conceived of himself simply as Daimd, and everyone knew that. But in the secret recesses of his mind, farthest from his conscious everyday thoughts, lurked the sole title he would sometimes attribute to himself: Daimd the Dreamless Sleeper ( Read more... )

Daimd's hardest lesson had been that magic is limited ( Read more... )

I want to tell him that he has no idea who my father is. He waltzes in here and looks down his nose at all of us, like we're some vermin beneath his shoe. No, worse than that-he considers us less than even a vermin's shit. He thinks we are all worthless, and yet he comes with my father, and my father comes from us. We are not primitive or violent, ( Read more... )

You are most aware of yourself when you're pressed cheek-to-cheek with him. Your body seems overlarge and ungainly; your tusks, primitive and violent. You are a groaning, sweating animal against the carved porcelain of a perfect pale chest. Your hands, your feet, your shoulders-they all feel far too big, and but for the passion burning you up from ( Read more... )

Valm came looking for him after he addressed the tribe. She was older now, stalking towards her majority with the pride and determination of a true hunter in the making. Her clothes were loose and flowing, and her childhood dagger hung heavy on her hip, paired with a long sliver of wood-the telltale sign of a mage. If she so chose, she would make a ( Read more... )

How do you explain your love to a family tribe? For the purpose of mating, sex and love have always been separate, and sparse few tribe members take permanent, promised mates. But the children of the tribe are important, and if not your children, then your skills and how they benefit or protect the tribe. Quinn will bear me no offspring, thank the ( Read more... )