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monstersandmaw · 5 years

Text

Male Uruk-hai x reader (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Here's another Orctober (!) prompt, of which my lovely, patient Elves over on Patreon had a brief preview a while ago, and my Pixies and Goblins have had access to for a little while. The prompt was 'injured', and this one got so long that it practically grew legs and ran away with me...

Hope you enjoy!

Content: gender-neutral reader, belligerent, tough-as-nails Uruk-hai warriors, one seriously injured mountain of muscle, some violence (not lasting) towards the reader, one loyal centaur bestie, and some sexy times Wordcount: 9769

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At the clamour of two opposing orcish war-bands sweeping through the countryside to the north of your village, the sounds of the skirmish carried on the wind, people went scuttling for the shelter of their cellars. The orcs and Uruks in the area didn’t tend to bother your remote little community because they knew you had little to offer, but still, being caught in the crossfire was a frighteningly real possibility.

Although it was better to gather plants in the morning, when they were still hydrated and fresh, you had been out in the meadow in the late afternoon light, gathering chamomile both for tea and for (separate) use in medicinal poultices when the first orcs had climbed the ridge on the outskirts of town and your heart had stopped beating. Instantly, you dropped into the long grass, crouching low and holding your breath. As they spilled down the steep incline towards the curving, shallow river, you saw with plunging horror that their skin was not the green of the orcs who lived in relative peace at the nearby stronghold, but the dark, bruised looking, purplish-brown of Uruk-hai. This was a true war band then, and they roared down the hill like a tide of locusts, their hooked scythe-blades held high, their harsh, rough voices yelling in their own language.

You prayed in silent whispers to every deity you’d ever even remotely heard of and hunkered down as low as you could get like a leveret in long grass.

The first group that thundered past were few in number, bloodied and battered. They were the clear losers of the fight; driven to fleeing by the stronger horde following on behind. As you hunkered down in the sussurating grasses, heart in your mouth, praying that none of them would see you as they thundered on towards the trees to the north west of the village, you saw the second band clear the ridge, and almost passed out with fear.

Numbering easily twenty five in strength, they raged on, relentless, yelling and snarling. They caught up with a straggler who had been hobbling desperately on a nastily wounded leg, and simply cut him down, hamstringing him and moving on in an inexorable tide of muscle and leather, white and blue war paint, blood and steel.

You stayed still in the fallow pasture for a long time, letting the sounds of pursuit fade into the woods before you stood shakily and looked around. The meadow had been trampled in a wide swathe at their passing, their black blood staining it in places. The corpse of the one who had not made it just lay there like a felled tree, cooling in the late afternoon sun.

Your eyes drifted away from the sight of the corpse towards the woods, and your heart leapt into your mouth when you saw a figure at the very edge of the trees, leaning against the thick trunk of an ash tree. He was one of the largest Uruks that you’d ever seen, larger by far than any of the passing horde, but as you stared at him, you saw him sway and then stagger off into the shadows of the forest, clutching at his middle and limping badly.

He was wounded, and severely.

As the village’s healer, you felt the instinctive tug to help him, to ease his pain, but this wasn’t just another member of your community in need of aid - this was a violent, vicious Uruk-hai. They were best left well alone unless you wanted to risk being captured and taken as a human slave to one of their awful camps, or passed around for their pleasure. You shuddered at the thought and looked away from the gap in the trees where he had been.

Turning your back on the meadow, you picked up your basket in trembling fingers and walked back to your simple cottage on the outskirts of the collection of brick and wooden houses. People were beginning to emerge again now that the immediate danger had passed, and you looked up to see a familiar bay centaur trotting quickly towards you with a mix of worry and relief on his handsome face.

“Gil,” you smiled, pausing and waiting for him to catch up to you. “You alright?”

“Are you?” he asked, his dark eyes wide. “Fuck, I was so worried about you. I saw you going out into the meadow earlier, and then when I saw all those Uruks pouring down the hill and into the woods… I thought for sure you’d have been cut down or trampled, or… or…” his lip trembled and he surged forwards and threw his arms around you, picking you up and hugging you so tightly that your ribs creaked. “I thought they might have taken you…”

“I’m fine,” you wheezed with your face pressed against his softly-rumpled linen shirt. “Gil, put me down… I can’t breathe…”

Apologising, he set you back down and stepped back, his large hooves clopping on the cobbles of the village street, his one white sock dancing in the daylight.

“I’m fine,” you reassured him. “You want to come back for a cup of tea?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I’ve got to go and help Martha with the waterwheel. A big old branch has got jammed in the mechanism and she needs me to help haul it free. I’ll stop by later though?”

You nodded and he smiled once before trotting off to help the miller. Gil was a good soul, and you’d known him all your life. He’d asked you out back when the pair of you had been about sixteen, but it hadn’t lasted long, and you’d mutually fallen back into a deeply affectionate friendship after only a few months.

Alone in your cottage, preparing the chamomile flowers for drying, you focused on the task in hand, fingers delicately pinching the stems off, but the figure in the trees kept haunting you like some kind of malevolent spirit, its purpose unfulfilled. Over and over, you replayed that moment when he’d gone from staring directly at you to lurching out of sight between the trees. Would he be dead by now? Would he have bled out? Would some other Uruk have found him and gutted him? Would the rival band have captured him and dragged him away to do dreadful things to him?

You’d heard the jongleurs’ tales of Uruks who butchered their enemies and displayed them as grisly decoration on their spiked palisade walls while they died in agony, pinned like living specimens in a necromancer’s collection for their last few hours… Fighting off a wave of nausea, you gritted your teeth and snatched up your healer’s bag which contained bandages, dressings, salves, ointments for cleaning, and needle and silk for stitching. Taking a bottle of boiled water from the table on your way out, you slammed the door behind you and strode off into the early evening light.

It didn't take you long to cross the meadow and slip into the trees. Listening you fell still, straining your ears to pick up the sounds of… of what? Enemies between the trees? As if there would be any other Uruks here now.

The ash tree was smeared with a lot of black Uruk blood, and it didn’t take an expert tracker to follow the trail to a deep hollow where a massive tree had been ripped out of the ground by a storm, leaving its roots standing up in a disc as high as a single-storey house. At the bottom of the deep divot in the earth lay the Uruk.

One hand rested on his stomach which glistened with black blood, a deep gash in the material of his armour showing his bruised purple skin beneath and the extent of his grave injuries. ‘Grave’ might have been the operative word; you couldn't see his chest rising and falling, and his eyes were closed.

Terrified, heart in your mouth, you stepped down into the leaf-littered hollow and nudged him in the thigh with the toe of one boot.

Nothing.

Taking a deep breath, you knelt beside him and placed your fingertips on his thick, dirt-smeared neck. His eyelids flickered and you nearly recoiled in surprise when he grunted. His tusks weren’t as big as those of the Uruks’ green-skinned cousins, but they were thick and filed to a treacherously sharp point. Uruks fought like the wargs they rode, not afraid to latch their jaws onto their prey and tear them to pieces if deprived of a weapon. Some even favoured that method of ending their enemies’ lives, if the tales were to be believed. And here, beneath your tentative fingertips, was just one such creature.

“You’re hurt,” you said stupidly, and he just blinked at you. His eyelids were barely open more than a crack, and his breath came in minuscule, shallow gasps. With a deep inhale for courage, you reached for your bag and then began to unbuckle his thick, leather jerkin, lifting it away from the sticky black of his half-clotted wound. You knew that Uruks healed quicker than almost all other creatures, not counting those whose magic allowed for rapid regeneration, but even so, this was a terrible injury.

He snarled softly at you but didn’t even have the strength to swat you off him.

“Keep still,” you snapped in a hoarse whisper.

His face was bruised and swollen, with a cut on his chin and another on his forehead, but they were superficial and had already scabbed over. Behind the swelling, you could see strong bone-structure, thick brows framing a face that was monumental rather than handsome, as if carved by ancient masons with no care for subtle detail. His black hair was tied back in a ponytail which was full of bits of leaves and sticky black blood. He was filthy and he smelled revolting.

You treated the wound in his torso, cleaning it and ignoring his growled curses in the Uruk dialect of orcish. You knew enough orcish from trading with the clan to the south to recognise that you were the subject of his complaints, but you couldn’t decipher any more of his thick, guttural speech than that. Using what little orcish you knew, you snarled at him to stop making your job harder, and, to your surprise, he fell still.

He relaxed so suddenly that you thought for a horrible moment that he’d died, but when you looked into his face, you found a new expression sitting there behind the perpetual, heavy-browed scowl. Whatever it was, it was unreadable, but it was better than open hostility.

“That’s better,” you said, tying off the last stitch. “Now, how many other leaks have I got to plug before you bleed out here?”

He twitched his right leg and you looked down and saw a broken-off arrow sunk into his thigh.

“Really?” you exclaimed when you saw it. “You snapped it off? Do you know how stupid that is?”

The growl that rumbled from him was like that of a colossal wolf, but he quickly silenced himself when you grabbed a pair of small pliers that you had knocking around the bottom of the bag, wiped them with alcohol, and set about extracting the barbed arrowhead from his thigh. Field medicine didn’t exactly call for finesse, especially when dealing with an Uruk. They were tough bastards, as he had already proved.

He passed out shortly before it was free, and you stitched that up as well before sitting back on your heels, rinsing your hands in a little of the water that was left, and staring at him. “Now what?” you mused aloud. You hadn’t really thought this through at all; it was all very well patching him up, but this was hardly the clean, sterile environment conducive to healing. It was a filthy, bloodstained forest floor crawling with bugs and gods-knew-what else. There was an old forester’s cabin that had been derelict for years, but it was easily half a mile from where the Uruk had fallen and you couldn’t even drag someone his size and weight an inch, let alone that distance.

Just as you had thought about leaving him there and returning to the village to see if Gil would help you - a stupid idea if ever you’d had one - the undergrowth moved and out of the fading light stepped a colossal warg. Its eyes glowed red in the shadows, but instead of being the usual brown or black, this one’s pelt was a pale, smoky grey, all tangled and matted.

It was carrying one front paw up, clearly in pain, and its ears were folded back flat against its head. From its snarling maw, saliva dripped onto the brambles and old leaves, and you sat there with your joints seized in terror, more frightened than you had ever been in your entire life. You’d never seen a warg, though the same tales which told of the Uruks’ bloodlust and cruelty spoke of the voracious wolf-like beasts that they rode like chargers into battle. You’d not seen any wargs with the war-band earlier and had no idea if this one belonged to the Uruk on the ground or to someone else. Had the scent of his wounds drawn the hunter?

“Please don’t be a wild one,” you murmured aloud.

At the sound of your voice, it seemed to relax a little, limped a little closer, and snuffed at the Uruk in front of you. Then it looked back at you, snarling more gently now.

“Is he yours?” you asked. “You’re hurt too, aren’t you?” you added, seeing that talking to it had seemed to reassure it. It looked like a hyena crossed with a white wolf, with huge, muscular shoulders and a thick, heavy muzzle, but with the more agile body and thick, flowing pelt and tail of a wolf. “You want me to take a look at you?” you offered, holding out your palm. “Come here…”

The warg seemed to know that command, spoken in orcish, and it hobbled over. You pushed the fur back to see that it had clearly been licking it, and in so doing it had kept the gash free of gunk and debris from the forest. You poured some clean water onto the last of your scraps of clean cloth and held your hand out to the warg again.

The creature reluctantly let you take the heavy paw in your palm and you dabbed it clean. It growled, but let you continue, even when you flinched. The weight of the paw was frightening enough, but it was large as a dinner plate and each pad ended in a vicious looking black claw.

“What the hell am I doing?” you asked yourself at one point, halfway through tying the bandage around the warg’s lower leg, just above the paw itself.

From beside you, the Uruk stirred and turned his head to watch you. He asked something in his thick dialect and you frowned. “I don’t understand you,” you said gently.

He let out a soft grunt of frustration and the warg turned and started licking his face.

“Is he yours?” you asked, having checked and discovered that the warg was male. The Uruk groaned and tried to swat the warg off him, but he gasped as he raised his arm, and let it fall back almost immediately. “Easy,” you crooned, shuffling closer. “Hey, come on now,” you said to the warg. “Give him a chance, ok?”

The warg sat down heavily on his haunches and stared at you with what you could only assume was a sullen look in his red eyes. He was as big as a pony and about as strong and hairy as a bear, and as you made the comparison between him and a bear, you turned back to the Uruk and said in tentative orcish, “Hey, so… listen, would your warg be able to drag you, say… half a mile or so?”

For a moment you thought you’d said something wrong, but the Uruk blinked and nodded. He seemed so weak and you wondered briefly if the weapons had been poisoned somehow. They didn’t seem to be suppurating or anything though, and he had lost an awful lot of blood before you’d found him.

The injured Uruk spoke to the warg and the creature snuffed in a decidedly disgruntled manner, but he latched his jaws around the collar of the orc’s armour and looked at you expectantly.

Standing and grabbing the medical bag, you took a deep breath and said, “Come on.”

It took forever, with the warg yanking and dragging the Uruk along. It might have been an amusing sight were it not for the fatigue that was greying the edges of your vision and for the fact that the Uruk himself was so gravely wounded. Eventually the cabin drew into sight and you pulled open the door and stepped inside. It smelled a bit damp, but it didn’t seem as though anything had taken up residence - or worse, expired - in there; it was just a little leaf-strewn and musty. The modest stone hearth sat cold and empty, the chimney was probably blocked, and there was no bed for him to lie on - no furniture at all - but the warg dragged him in and dumped him in the centre of the room.

When he looked up at you, seeming very pleased with himself, the warg wagged softly and you approached him and petted his shoulder without realising quite what you were doing. “Well done,” you crooned.

The Uruk had unsurprisingly passed out again and you knelt by his side, inspecting the bandages carefully. No blood had seeped through, so - somehow - he’d not split his stitches on the rough journey over. Trying not to congratulate yourself too much, given that Uruks were exceptionally tough creatures and that most of the credit was probably his for being almost indestructible, rather than yours for your deft needlework, you straightened and reached hesitantly for the warg’s head again. As you scratched behind his ear this time, he wagged his fluffy tail and leaned into the touch. “Good boy,” you said. “Thank you for your help.”

It was now full dark, and an owl’s harsh shriek outside startled you, the sudden movement making the warg growl.

“I need to get home,” you said, suddenly remembering that you’d promised Gil that cup of tea earlier. If he came round to your house and hadn’t found you, would he have worried? Would he have looked for you? With Uruks in the area, would he assume you’d been taken after all?

You turned to look at the Uruk and found that he had come to and was staring at you. His eyes were a dark gold, ringed with a coppery tone, and they stared at you with an intensity that made your heartbeat falter. He looked so angry. Kneeling beside him and trying to conjure a bit of courage, you pressed your hand very gently against the most severe of his injuries which made him hiss but drove the point home well enough. “You stay still, alright? I’ll come back tomorrow with something for you to eat, and to check on you. I’ve left a waterskin here for you if you get thirsty,” you added as you pressed it against his knuckly fingers.

He snarled something at you and you frowned. You’d caught the orcish word for ‘die’, but nothing else.

“Hey, you’re not going to die, alright?” you said firmly. “You’re my patient now, and I don’t let my patients die. You’re not allowed to die, you hear me?” and you looked up at the warg to add, “Don’t you let him, alright?”

The creature didn’t understand the words, but he caught the intensity of your tone, and he curled up beside the orc, whining softly.

“You keep him warm til I can get a fire going in that grate,” you added and then left them alone to return to the village.

Outside your house, you found Gil pacing up and down, iron shoes ringing on the cobblestones. When he saw you, his eyes went wide and he stared at the black blood that you’d managed to smear on your linen shirt.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, gaze fixed on the stains. “What happened? Where were you? I came over after I left Martha’s, but you weren’t here, and… is that… Uruk blood?”

“Long story,” you said, unlocking your door and stepping inside. “Lemme clean up and put the kettle on and I’ll… I’ll tell you everything. But you must promise not to tell a soul, alright?”

Gil’s dark eyes narrowed but he nodded and stooped to follow you inside.

Finally, with a cup of tea cradled in your hands, you sat on the floor beside Gil who had lowered himself down onto the floorboards beside the fire, and told him everything that had happened.

“You’re insane,” he said. “You’d actually help one of those monsters?”

You shrugged. “I couldn’t just leave him there. I had to know if he was alive, and if he was, I couldn’t just let him die without trying to help him.” Anxiety flared as the silence stretched between you and you looked up at him. “Are you really angry with me?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not. I’m just… stunned, I guess.” He laughed and stretched. “You haven’t changed a bit since we were kids, you know that?” he said. When you scowled, puzzled, he chuckled, “Remember that adder you found under a rock?”

“The one with the crushed tail,” you smiled. “Yeah… that was a mean son of a bitch, but I nursed it back to health and somehow avoided getting bitten by it…”

“I just hope you don’t get hurt this time.”

“I’ll be careful,” you said.

He shook his shaggy dark head and said, “Bit late for that, what with bossing a feral warg around and sticking needles in an Uruk-hai…”

With a grin you said, “Well, things just get so dull around here, Gil…”

He rolled his eyes. “I should get going, but… please be careful won’t you? I’m going to worry myself sick about you going out there tomorrow…”

When you did return to the abandoned hut, you found the wounded Uruk sitting up, resting his back against the body of the warg whose growls filled the otherwise empty hut as you approached. “Hey, it’s just me,” you said, hanging back in the doorway. “Remember?”

The orc muttered something and waved a hand slightly as if swatting away a fly, and the warg fell silent.

“Alright to come in?” you asked in tentative orcish, and the Uruk nodded. His eyes were brighter and his focus seemed sharper now. “You’re looking better,” you commented as you stepped inside and closed the door again.

He nodded.

In an attempt to make conversation while you laid and lit the fire, you asked, “Do you have a name?”

“Killuc.” It even sounded like the right kind of name for an Uruk. A moment later, he licked his dry lips and tilted his head slightly. “You?”

When you breathed your name, voice surprisingly thin with anxiety, staring at him over your shoulder as you set the last of the small bundle of firewood onto the top, he repeated it almost reverently and you smiled. “And what’s your warg called?”

He looked askance at the warg, who had laid his muzzle back down on the chilly floorboards and was watching you work the flint striker in your fingers with his steady, red gaze. “Ghâsh. It means ‘fire’ in Uruk.”

“For his eyes?” you asked and Killuc nodded.

As the coils of dry kindling caught fire and the smaller sticks around them began to crackle and spit, Ghâsh raised his head and you caught the soft thump of his tail on the floor. He wasn’t a pretty animal, but behind the thuggish face and frankly enormous teeth, you could see a playful, intelligent, and curious creature.

When you looked back at Killuc, he was staring at you, eyes glowing too in the firelight, and yet again you were forced to admit to yourself that the rough-hewn beauty of his face wasn’t entirely unattractive. You’d been drawn to orcs before, when you’d visited the neighbouring clan for trade, and they’d seemed more than interested in you for some reason, but the scrutiny and obvious interest in his face left you more flustered than you’d ever been around his kind. Well, not that the green-skinned orcs were really quite the same as their more brutal, war-mongering cousins, but still.

Clearing your throat, you took a deep breath and then suggested that you take a look at the wounds and change the dressings. With a wry smile that made your heart’s rhythm falter for a second, he nodded. “Is that alright?” you asked and again, he nodded. “Man of few words, eh?” you snorted, more to yourself than to him. “Suppose if I’d been gutted like a fish I wouldn’t feel too chatty either.”

He surprised you by grabbing hold of your wrist as you passed to fetch your bag and staring up at you. Now genuinely frightened, you turned to look down at him and he released you the instant he saw your expression. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I…” his gaze fell to his lap. “I don’t know how to talk to a human.”

“It’s alright,” you said shakily and stepped away. His strength as he’d squeezed your comparatively fragile, breakable wrist in his fingers had been prodigious. The skin of his hand had been tough and leathery, with hard, smooth calluses from years of weapons training, but the way his grip had faltered when he saw your face had spoken of a kinder creature underneath the brutality.

Returning to him, you watched as he let his hands fall softly to his sides, palms up, showing that he meant you no harm. He even turned his face away slightly. The smell coming off him was… well, it was definitely enough to make you think less favourable thoughts about him, and when he saw your new expression, he growled, “What?”

“You need a bath,” you said, aiming for stern though it came out with a slight squeak.

“You going to wash me too then?” he grinned.

For that, you smacked him on the chest with the back of your hand and he laughed before you could panic about assaulting an orc. Not that you’d hit him very hard.

His blood-encrusted shirt was crispy beneath the slashed, studded leather jerkin which creaked as you opened it up. Removing the bandages, you saw that the wound was healing nicely, with no inflammation or heat to the site. He sucked in a sharp breath as your fingertips curiously brushed his thick, purplish-brown skin around the wound and you watched his muscles clench impressively in his torso. “Did that hurt?” you asked.

Killuc scoffed dismissively and rolled his eyes. “As if you could hurt me,” he laughed but very abruptly cut off with a grunt as you pressed your thumb into the bandages of the arrow wound on his thigh. When you cocked an eyebrow at him, he laughed heartily. Uruks didn’t make much sense, but his body relaxed after that and he let you do what you needed to without complaint in order to change the bandages. That done, and with the fire roaring and filling the hut with warmth, you rinsed your hands off and dried them.

“Here,” you said, just as his eyelids began to close and his head to nod with exhaustion.

When he discovered that you were kneeling beside him again, just below his eye level, he blinked and brought up one hand gently to cup your jaw in his vast palm. He ran his thumb over your cheekbone and smiled. His sharp tusks glinted in the firelight and his eyes had a brightness to them that hadn’t been there the day before. The sight of it warmed you more than the flames did, and he smiled slightly.

“Here,” you repeated, pushing a cloth-wrapped loaf of bread into his lap and unfolding the fabric. Beside it you placed a couple of cured sausages and a hunk of cheese. “You should eat something.”

Killuc’s stomach growled comically and the warg, who had been watching your exchange with his steady, red eyes pricked up his ears and snuffed surreptitiously at the edge of the napkin, as if he had any hope of stealing a sausage without Killuc noticing.

You reached across Killuc’s lap and patted the warg on the head before announcing, “I brought something for you too.” As you held up a cony that you’d nicked from one of Thomas’ traps in the forest for him, he whimpered and wiggled free from behind the Uruk. Killuc grunted as he braced himself on his right arm at the sudden loss of the support, and you tossed the rabbit on the floor before the warg could chomp your whole arm off in his enthusiasm for the meat. It was little more than a snack for the warg, but it was better than nothing. You also hoped that the village’s hunter, Thomas, wouldn’t notice that his trap had been reset without bait.

Killuc was staring at you with his eyes wide and a slightly slack-jawed expression on his face.

“What?”

He shook his head and returned his attention to the food in front of him. He ate as voraciously as the warg did, though without the bone-cracking abandon with which the warg crunched his rabbit down. Your stomach rolled unpleasantly and you headed for the door.

“Look,” you said, pausing there and resting one hand on the door frame. “I reckon you’ll be good to move around tomorrow. I’d suggest not coming to the village though. Head north, find your people, and… don’t come back here.”

His expression hardened from soft and gentle to something unreadable and he ground his heavy jaw. Finally he grunted, “Yes.”

Without another word, you gathered your bag from the floor and opened the door. Ghâsh looked from you to the Uruk and back again, and then let out a long, low, heartbreaking whine. “Sorry pup,” you grinned. “You can’t stay here.”

Just as you stepped outside, you heard a grunt and a rustle and found that Killuc had levered himself to his feet and was making his ill-advised and faltering way over to you.

It was the first time you’d seen him standing since your brief glimpse of him at the edge of the forest, and you felt the blood drain from your face as he loomed over you. Leaning on the wall beside the door for support, he reached for you again and tilted your chin upwards with the very tip of his index finger.

“Thank… you,” he said in broken, hesitant common speech.

You had been on the point of saying ‘you’re welcome’ when something else entirely just fell out of your mouth. “You still smell horrible,” you grinned at him, still speaking common.

“You didn’t wash me,” he said, switching to orcish.

“Dream on, big guy,” you said, turning away. “There are some springs just up the hill from here,” you added. “I’m sure you can manage. Tomorrow though… let them heal up a bit more first.” The thought of him without clothes on was making you hot all over and you knew you’d have to get away before you said something you genuinely regretted. A quiet little village was no place for an Uruk-hai and his war-fluffball.

You’d gone no further than the edge of the little clearing when the patter of paws on leaf-litter behind you made you turn around and you saw that Ghâsh had wriggled free of Killuc’s grasp and had bounded across to you. He now blocked your path, lowering his head and growling. You weren’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t attack, but, squaring your shoulders, you stared him straight in the eye. “Stop that,” you said. “You know I can’t stay, and neither can you.”

He growled louder and you heard Killuc snarl something at him from the hut which had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the slathering warg.

You jabbed your finger back at Killuc and spoke to the warg in a firm, quiet voice, “Get out of the way. Go back.”

The warg’s ears swivelled to lie flat against his head and he licked his chops once before his tail sank between his legs and he whined pathetically. Raising your eyebrows silently, you twitched your pointing arm again, and he slunk away, dejected and defeated.

Letting out a private breath of relief before turning to look at them, the waves of adrenaline started to wash out of you to leave you weak and shaky. When you mustered the courage to look back, you found Killuc scratching Ghâsh behind his ears in a gesture of commiseration, and you waved once. Killuc nodded and then backed into the shadows of the hut, closing the door behind him.

It was impossible to return to normal again once you got back to the village.

You tried, and for a week you stubbornly refused to dwell on the harsh, statuesque plains of Killuc’s body, on the rich, bruised-plum colour of his skin, the vivid gold of his eyes or the gentle power of his enormous, battle-scarred hands. You refused… No. You didn’t. You spent every night that week with only your hand to occupy your body and only the memory of him to occupy your mind. It was a miserable torment, but you knew you’d get over your little obsession soon enough. You had to. He was an Uruk-hai for goodness’ sake. If you came harder than you’d ever come before, with his name on your lips and the feeling of his touch in your mind, it was just a coincidence.

Six days after you’d left Killuc and Ghâsh in the woods, you woke to a commotion of screams and shouts in the village.

Dressing hurriedly into practical clothing, you slung your belt on last of all, and the long knife you used for gathering herbs and stripping willow bark from the trees down by the millpond slapped reassuringly against your thigh in its leather sheath. You flung open the door and immediately discovered the source of the panic.

The urge to shut the door instantly and bolt out of the back was overwhelming.

Six towering Uruk-hai were standing just up the road in the centre of the village, and one had a small faun, Hazel, dangling in limp terror from their grip. You didn’t recognise any of them as Killuc, and wondered vaguely if he knew them. They didn’t have the look of the losing side about them.

Sucking in a deep breath for courage, you marched down the road towards the square where the village well sat at the centre of the space used for selling goods once a week. You’d barely gone ten steps down the cobbles when you heard iron shoes clattering and Gil shot out and grabbed you, yanking you into the shadows between two houses. “What are you doing?” he hissed in a half-whinny.

“They’ve got Hazel,” you snarled back at him, twisting your hand free. “I can’t just let them kill her!”

“They’ll kill you if you go near them!” he insisted, looking like he might try to grab at you again to hold you back.

Before he could lunge at you again, you ran for it like a rabbit bolting from one hole to another while a fox waited in the grass. “Stop!” you yelled, thinking about pulling your belt knife on them, but at the sight of their cruel, curved weapons, you decided it would only amuse them. “Let her go!”

“Or what?” the female holding the faun sneered, dropping Hazel onto the flagstones at her feet. The baker’s apprentice scrabbled frantically to get away, but a second Uruk stepped forward and trod on her stomach, pinning her down with just enough force to keep her winded without breaking her ribcage.

“Let. Her. Go,” you said as fiercely as you could, fists balled at your sides.

The female just laughed again and shoved you hard in the chest with so little effort that it might have been funny under different circumstances. As it was, the gesture sent you sprawling and you landed heavily on your backside, winded. “Pathetic,” she chuckled.

Anger and hurt boiled up in you and you glanced over at Hazel, who lay there, paralysed with terror beneath the iron boot of the Uruk, staring wide-eyed at you. “I don’t know why I thought you’d be like Killuc,” you muttered, mostly to yourself, as you tried to stand up again.

“What did you say?” a third, slightly smaller Uruk demanded, grabbing you by the collar just as you righted yourself and ramming you back into the wooden strut of the well behind you with the force of a charging warhorse. The whole mechanism rocked, the bucket swinging wildly as you collided with the wooden frame and the breath was knocked from your lungs again.

Stunned and blinking stupidly, you just wheezed, “Killuc…” but you couldn’t get any more out. The orc’s grip had shifted to your throat and he was tightening it. He stank of rotting fish and his teeth were vile, breath unspeakable. He cracked you across the cheek with a fist and you tasted blood.

Without warning, a roar rent the air from a little way back and your eyes travelled vaguely towards the grassy meadow beyond the village. All the Uruks froze and a second later, through blurring vision, you saw a streak of grey dart across the field towards you. Following behind was a darker figure but you couldn’t make much out at that distance and with your airways choked off.

The Uruk holding you released you with a snarl and you crumpled, knees buckling beneath you. The white streak was Ghâsh, and he had launched himself at your aggressor, flying at his arm and pinning him to the ground, snarling and gnashing his jaws shut repeatedly in the Uruk’s face. The Uruk fell still instantly.

Walking slowly, deliberately, unhurriedly across the meadow was a dark, towering figure. His hair was pulled back in a rough ponytail, his leather jerkin was slashed and bloodied, but there was no trace of a limp or falter in his steps now. Killuc paced like a wolf himself towards the others and they all swallowed hesitantly, adjusting their weight slightly and shuffling.

One of the onlookers gathered at the edges of the square, a half-dryad, darted forwards and scooped Hazel up, helping her back and when Gil moved to do the same for you, you shook your head, holding up a hand.

“What?” he mouthed incredulously.

“Just wait,” you whispered and he looked at you as if you’d suffered a serious concussion and weren’t talking properly. Perhaps you had…

Just as Killuc joined the group, the female grunted something in the Uruk dialect and made a grab for you again, as if planning to hoist you up like a war trophy. In fact, he didn’t so much as join it as ram into it with another primal roar. He wrenched the female off you before she could get a good hold and snarled something at her in their language that you understood through tone rather than translation. He was livid, shouting at her until she backed off, smacking his hand off her with a belligerent and petulant swipe of her forearm and stepping away.

When he was satisfied, he turned to you and you tried not to shrink back from him. You did flinch, and he swallowed thickly, hesitating as he offered you his hand to help you to your feet again. Feeling braver than you probably looked, you accepted it and he tugged you gently upwards, steadying you when you swayed. His fingertips came to your cheekbone, where the smaller male had hit you, and a low, earthy growl rumbled from his throat. It was a sound you expected to hear more from Ghâsh than him, but you didn’t mind in the least.

The female stepped forward and spat one more sentence at you in Uruk and Killuc flipped. He turned and backfisted her, sending her reeling, and let out another string of thick, impenetrable orcish curses at her.

At the light pressure of your hands on his arm, Killuc stilled immediately, falling silent and turning back to you. “Enough,” you murmured. “I don’t care what she said, but take your warriors and get out of here. And don’t come back.”

His flattened nostrils flared at your words, expression faltering slightly, but he nodded grimly. “You will not see any Uruk-hai again,” he said gruffly. “This village is not to be touched.”

Your eyebrows rose. “You have the authority to do that?” you asked.

He nodded. “I am their warchief. My word is law. Anyone who sets foot in this village without my permission will lose that leg.”

“Right,” you said shakily. “Sure. Ok…” You took a slow inhale and then said, “Well… thank you. And Ghâsh too,” you added, glancing at the warg who still had the unfortunate Uruk pinned beneath his paws.

Killuc roared something at the other Uruks and they finally slouched away towards the meadow and away from the buildings of the village. Ghâsh stayed put and stared at you as if he expected you to be coming along, and when Killuc whistled at him, he yipped and snarled, dancing on the spot. Killuc did not ask him again, and instead kept walking.

You approached the warg and scratched him under the chin, even as he head-butted you gently, wagging pathetically. Pushing him away, you felt a lump forming in your throat, and he whined in complaint before realising how far the others had gone. With a final snap of his jaws that carried no threat, merely frustration, Ghâsh bounded away faster than a galloping centaur. He barrelled straight into Killuc from behind and knocked him flat, at which the Uruks all laughed. Killuc staggered to his feet, swiped playfully at the warg with a fist, shoved the small male into a broad patch of stinging nettles, and stumped off with his head down.

His was a world of belligerence and uncertainty, his subjects volatile and tough as old boots - that he’d healed almost completely in a week was astonishing - and he did not belong with you. Fantasies were one thing, but seeing him there in the midst of the clean and tidy cottages, with his blood-spattered fighting leathers and his colossal war beast, had reinforced that. You glanced at Gil who stood nearby, still staring at you with a strange look on his face, and you turned away from the sight of the dwindling figures.

“You alright?” he asked as you joined him. You glanced at Hazel who was still shivering in the arms of the half-dryad as she let herself be led away.

With a nod, you said, “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“That was so dumb,” he blurted. “You could have been killed…”

You shrugged. “I wasn’t. Hazel’s fine, and they’re not coming back, so I’d chalk it up as a victory.”

His gentle brown eyes surveyed you for a moment longer and he said, “You want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” you said, managing a weak smile. “Thanks though.”

He nodded and let you go back to your cottage at the edge of the village to mull things over. You couldn’t shake Killuc’s roar from your mind. It had been like no beast you’d ever heard, thundering in your ribcage and ripping through you with the power of a mid-summer storm. And Ghâsh too had leapt to protect you. “Stop it,” you snarled, slamming your front door behind you. “He’s a bloody Uruk-hai for goodness’ sake.”

To take your mind off recent events, you threw yourself into village life. Another week later, as the harvest festival was approaching, you helped out at the inn when a delivery of casks came, helping Skalen heave them inside and down into his cellar, and you were rewarded for your efforts by the dwarf with a huge tankard of slightly lively ale. The next day, however, your joints and muscles were aching all over and regretting the physical work just a little bit.

“Go up to the hot spring,” Gil suggested. “You should have just asked me to help unload them, you know?”

“I know, I know,” you said, thumping his withers affectionately. “Mr. Big Muscles.”

“I’m not showing off,” he mumbled, embarrassed. “I’m just…”

“Bigger than me. I know,” you laughed. “Fine, I’ll go. You want to come too?”

He smiled. “Sure. You want a ride?”

Gil had let you sit on his back only a few times, and it was a mark of just how close you were to him that he had even suggested it in the first place. You nodded your grateful thanks and said, “Let me just grab a change of clothes.”

“I’ll meet you at your door in a minute then.”

At roughly sixteen hands high, Gil was not a small centaur, and he had to swing you up onto his back. You landed awkwardly and apologised, shuffling until you got settled. Riding a centaur without a saddle was hardly comfortable, but the only centaurs who ever allowed someone to ride them in harness or tack were the elite Kingsguards and the swift, light-boned centaurs of the messenger corps. They had one rider, one partner, and it was almost a sacred arrangement between them. This was something much more relaxed and friendly, and you let the syncopated rhythm of his four-beat walk lull you. Naturally they drifted to a mountain of dark skin and a pair of blazing gold eyes.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked as he crossed the meadow and began to climb the hill towards the ridge where the mineral springs bubbled up through the rock and created three steaming pools of blissfully hot water.

“You don’t want to hear them really,” you said after a moment.

Gil laughed, stepping over a fallen branch. “You’re thinking about your four hundred pound Uruk hai saviour?”

“How’d you guess?” you said flatly, resting your forehead on Gil’s broad back for a moment. “I can’t get him out of my head.”

“Your knight in filthy leathers?” he pressed and you thumped him gently with a closed fist. “Got to say, I’ve never heard of an Uruk getting involved with someone of another species like that. I know of orcs up at the stronghold who have taken humans as their partners, but it’s rare for Uruks to give a crap about anything other than running someone else through with their sword or sinking their tusks into someone’s throat, you know?”

You shuddered, recalling the power of his grasp, and the lethal point on his tusks.

“Sorry,” Gil muttered. “Hold on,” and he scrambled up the steepest point of the slope and emerged at the top, barely winded.

However, once he crested the rise, he froze.

“Gil?” you chirped, leaning forwards.

“Uhh…” he said and you felt his flank twitch nervously. He was clearly fighting his flight reflex hard.

“What is it?”

He shifted slightly and the view of the three steaming pools swung into view. You were not alone, and, to your immense surprise, the Uruk who had just stood up from the water was not only Killuc, but he was completely stark fucking naked.

Gil glanced back over his shoulder at you and hissed, “I thought you said he wasn’t welcome back here.”

Through gritted teeth, you replied, “I told him that he couldn't come to the village. I didn’t say he couldn’t bathe.”

“You want to go?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I want to go,” Gil grumbled.

With a shy laugh, you slid off his back and gave his withers a friendly, grateful pat. “I’m sorry. And I’ll be careful,” you said before he could say it for you.

Shaking his head, he backed off, grumbling about having been looking forward to a nice hot soak. “No way I’m going in there for at least three days now…”

“Oi!” you yelped indignantly at his retreating backside, but he gave no reaction.

Turning back around, you saw that Killuc was still standing there with the water sloshing around his knees. The rest of his body was every bit as beautiful as you’d imagined it would be; all brutal muscles and hard lines, slashed and criss-crossed here and there with scars and marks, and perhaps even a brand on his chest. You winced at that, even as you approached and ditched your bundle of spare clothes in the lea of a huge beech tree nearby.

He rumbled your name and smiled at you.

“You here alone?” you asked in common before remembering that he didn’t really speak it. Dammit, but your orcish really wasn’t that good.

Killuc nodded once.

“Why are you here?”

His grin grew until it was a cheeky, wonky, lopsided smirk. “You told me I needed to bathe.”

“Really?” you snorted. “You really came all the way back here to wash because I told you that you smelled like a midden heap in high summer?”

“That bad?”

“Mmhmm.”

“And now?” he asked. He still hadn’t moved a muscle, just standing there as if he were part of the rocks surrounding the pool. And as if he weren’t completely stark fucking naked.

The springs weren’t the sulfurous kind, but they did smell strongly of minerals, though that had to be better than whatever he’d smelled like before. “Probably much better,” you said, making no move to approach him.

A low-frequency rumble, half-snarl and half-challenge, spilled from him and he took half a step towards you in the water. Your eyes roved down his body, drinking in his muscles and his raw power until you saw that his cock was starting to show some interest too, thickening and occasionally twitching. When he saw you staring, he growled again. “Come here,” he rasped.

You’d just begun to take off your clothes when he lost his patience and splashed through the water to the edge of the pool, ripping the last of your clothes clean off you and letting his hands roam over you with an appreciative growl.

“Careful of those tusks, eh?” you chuckled nervously as they flashed dangerously close to your neck.

“Trust me,” he demanded, his eyes blazing and, despite what he was and what his people were like, you did. You knew he wasn’t going to hurt you.

“You really are the warchief, aren’t you?” you gasped as he gripped your hips with his strong fingers and dug them in hard enough to leave bruises.

Killuc didn’t answer. He picked you up at the waist and you instinctively wrapped your thighs around his hips, letting him carry you to the water. He stepped straight into the hot spring water and set you down on the edge of the rocky pool where thousands of years of deposits had built up around the rim, creating an enamel-smooth lip. He lost no time in putting his mouth on you, using his tongue, sucking, sometimes scraping his front teeth over your most sensitive areas, always careful of his lethal tusks. His hands pressed hard into the muscles of your thighs, pulling you apart to give him better access to you until you thought he was going to tear you in two.

The pleasure of the heat of his mouth, his tongue against you, over you, and sometimes in you, sent heat sparking all across your body and under your skin until your back arched and you yelled that you were close. He didn’t stop. You felt his thick fingers slide inside you and when he crooked them just so and they hit that spot inside you that lit you up, you came with a shout, vision darkening. He kept his mouth on you the whole time, relishing the taste of you as you shuddered and gasped, body convulsing with the force of the orgasm he’d practically ripped from you. His fingers were still inside you as you clenched around him in waves of pleasure.

“I want you,” he finally growled as he drew back and you lay limp and exhausted and sensitive all over. “I want you.”

The idea of him being inside you suddenly seemed like all you’d ever wanted, and you nodded. That seemed to surprise him a little, but once he’d spent a bit more time teasing you, working you, worshipping you, waking you up again and easing you back to him, he picked you up and sank down into the water with you so that he was sitting with his back against the smooth walls of the pool. He lowered you into his lap, facing him, and you felt his hard cock nudge against your entrance. He eased you gently down and you kept your heavy eyelids open just enough to watch his expression as he nudged his huge cock inside you, inch by inch.

As his tip sank into you, you groaned softly and his strong arms shook.

“Please,” you said. His fingers had not been nearly enough. “I’m not going to break, you can -”

Apparently that was all he needed, and he rolled his hips upwards, sinking himself into you right to the hilt. Killuc’s head bowed suddenly and he began to breathe rapidly. “So… So tight,” he grunted, frozen. “I’m…”

“Move,” you demanded, practically baring your teeth at him and grabbing a handful of his long, wet hair, tugging his head back to expose his neck to you.

At the command, he obeyed. The fierce, apparently indestructible warchief of the Uruk-hai bowed to your orders and began to thrust upwards into you. The shape and thickness of his cock was just perfect, and in no time you felt yourself coiling up again. His fingers would leave bruises on your hips for sure, but that only seemed to make it even better. Your hands wandered over his colossal, solid body, over his scars, that warband’s brand on his left pec, feeling the flex and strain of his arms and back and shoulders as he held himself back. Even seemingly lost in the depths of his own pleasure, he had not completely forgotten how dangerous he was. That thought alone was nearly enough to make you come again, and he felt you shuddering, body going limp as you sensed the rising crescendo in you once more.

“Wait,” he snarled. “Don’t… Not until…” and he picked up his pace. Water sloshed around you, and each thrust of his hips became more and more strained, his breath ghosting across your wet skin as he struggled not to lose all control. He began to snarl and grunt, the sounds deep in his throat, and then he hissed something in Uruk just as his rhythm faltered. He bellowed as he released inside you, hips sealed against your body, the warmth of the water caressing your waist as his muscles bunched and his back bowed forwards. He filled you so completely at that angle, and you followed him a second later. He was still breathing like a galloped horse when you had finished, and you stroked his hair as he shuddered violently, gasping, sweat beading on his brow and mingling with the rising steam from the water.

The thought suddenly struck you that it felt as though he’d never allowed himself this kind of closeness with anyone, and perhaps he hadn’t. That was a conversation for another time though. Right now, words were not what he wanted. As if the tenderness of your touch drained him of all his remaining strength and willpower, he slumped against your body, hugging his arms around you and resting his forehead at your collarbones. Killuc’s breathing was harsh and rapid, but the longer he stayed there, the calmer and quieter he got.

Eventually he pulled himself upright, leaning back a little, and looked almost sheepishly into your eyes. “Did I hurt you?” he asked and when you smiled and shook your head dazedly, he seemed to let out a breath of relief.

“We’re not that fragile,” you said. “Humans, I mean.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, stressing with his tone that there was a difference this time.

You took his anvil of a jaw in your palm and stroked his cheekbone as he had done with yours, and kissed him. It was a gentle, unexpectedly sweet kiss, and he growled softly like a distant thunderstorm or a fireside cat, his golden eyes rolling closed. Killuc’s thick, dark lashes were surprisingly long. You kissed his closed eyes too and another unsteady breath left him, his thick arms tightening around you until you nearly wheezed.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered again, so quietly that you almost missed it.

“You haven’t,” you said. “You never have,” you reassured him.

“You saved my life,” he said. “You nursed me, and then you drove me away…”

“I…” you faltered, leaning back a little too. His arms continued to support you, but he let you draw back. “I thought it was probably best… given that, you know… you’re an Uruk-hai…”

He glowered, dark brows furrowing. “I would not have hurt you. And I’m sorry that they disobeyed my orders. The village was not to be touched. Even before you…”

“I can see that now,” you said. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry I hurt you…”

Killuc grinned, the expression spreading slowly across his brutishly beautiful face. He rolled his hips once, his cock just beginning to soften but not enough that he couldn’t still make you moan.

“You smell better now,” you added, cracking a joke.

With a sound like a contented lion, he said, “I smell like you.”

“Exactly; much better.”

Laughing, he lifted you up and dropped you in the middle of the pool of gloriously warm water only for you to come up a moment later, coughing and laughing and cursing him all at the same time.

—

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#uruk hai #orc #orc x reader #orc boyfriend #exophilia #some typical fantasy violence where uruk-hai are concerned #but a lot of it is fluff #orctober #orctober prompt

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nazariolahela · 5 years

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Something Domestic: Chapter 3

A/N: Hey y'all! This is a new TRR AU I’ve been working on. This story is told in first-person narrative, from Riley’s (MC) POV. There will likely be smidges of canon in this, but not too much. Thanks for reading, and please leave feedback, and/or if you would like to be tagged.

Catch up here

Series Tags: @burnsoslow @aworldoffandoms @dcbbw @ladyangel70 @texaskitten30 @sunandlemons @jlynn12273 @indiacater @jared2612 @rainbowsinthestorm @drakesensworld @badchoicesposts

Synopsis: When Riley Brooks takes a new job as a nanny for the affluent Rhys family in New York’s Upper East Side, she assumes she’s just going to care for the children of the couple who hired her. But instead of just school pick-ups and afternoon snacks, she also finds herself spending time with Liam, the handsome divorced dad. Can Riley control her feelings for Liam while still performing the job she was hired for?

All characters are the property of Pixelberry Studios. Thanks for allowing me to borrow them.

Chapter Summary: Riley and Hana discuss the new changes in their lives.

As the cab pulls up outside of Nomade, I spot Hana leaning up against the side of the building. She’s dressed in black leggings and a denim jacket over a purple A-Line tunic. Her brown hair is twisted in a side braid that rests on her left shoulder. Tendrils fall across her face as she taps on her phone screen. Looking at the door to the restaurant, I notice there’s no line. That’s good for a Friday afternoon, considering people line up around the block to eat here.

Hana and I prefer the lunch menu because it’s cheaper and less crowded. The one time we came here for dinner, we had to wait two and a half hours for a table, and our tab was almost $300. I tip the driver and exit the cab, bounding across the sidewalk to my roommate and best friend. She giggles as she sees me and scoops me into a bone-crushing hug.

“Hey, girl! You’ll never guess who just emailed me!”

“Who?” I ask. Her parents Xinghai and Lorelai are well-known in the New York social scene, so it could literally be anyone.

“I’ll tell you when we get inside,” she says and links her arm through mine as we make our way into the restaurant. Typical Hana. Always keeping people in suspense. When we reach the host station, her phone buzzes. She quickly pulls it out of her purse and glances at it, rolls her eyes, then shoves it back in her purse.

“What was that all about?” I eye her.

She sighs. “Oh, just some weirdo my parents are trying to set me up with. Neville Vancoeur or something,” she waves her hand dismissively. “My mother gave me her famous ‘When are you going to settle down, Hana? You’re not getting any younger and I want grandchildren,’ spiel last week, so now they’re aggressively playing matchmaker.”

Hana and I met freshman year at NYU Steinhardt. With both of us being education majors, we ended up having a lot of classes together and spent way too many late nights cramming during our study sessions in the library. After graduation, we both realized rent in this city is impossible to afford if you’re not a Rockefeller, so we rented an apartment together and have been roomies ever since. Hana got a job student-teaching music at Stormholt Middle School, and she also gives piano lessons one Saturday a month to a rich family in the city.

Her parents are something else. I’ve only met them once, but they make me glad I don’t have much of a relationship with mine. They feel she’s better suited to be a wife and a mother than an educator. It makes me angry for her because she’s so much more than that. She doesn’t need to marry some stuffy guy who probably skated his way through business school on daddy’s money and pop out his crotch goblins to do something meaningful with her life. She’s also mentioned to me many times that she’s into girls, so all this effort to set her up with some preppy trust-fund douche from East Hampton is a waste. Jokes on you Mom and Dad Lee.

I giggle as the hostess arrives from seating another customer. “Good afternoon, ladies. Table for two?”

We answer and she grabs two menus before motioning for us to follow her. When we arrive at our table, she informs us our server will be with us shortly and walks away.

“Okay, so tell me who emailed you,” I say to her as I unroll my napkin and place it in my lap. She looks up at me, her eyes beaming.

“Do you remember that benefit dinner we went to a few months ago? You know, the one for New York educators, where we drank our weight in Lemon Drop martinis?”

I smirk recalling that evening. The bits and pieces I remember, Hana lost one of her shoes and spent the better part of the evening showing everyone on the dancefloor the “proper way” to perform a pirouette.

“Well, I do remember you taking over the dance floor and me going home with that cute bartender. What was his name again? Daniel?”

“Oh my god!” she replies, laughing and slapping my forearm. “I can’t believe you don’t remember his name!”

We giggle as our server approaches our table to take our drink orders. I order a glass of white wine and Hana orders a Sangria. When the server leaves, we resume our conversation.

“So anyway,” she continues, “that night, I was talking to one of the ladies who works in the music department at Valtoria High School, and apparently there were rumors their music teacher was planning to retire. So, after we exchanged information, she passed it along to the school board, and they just emailed me asking me if I was interested in a job!”

My eyebrows shoot up to my forehead. “And?”

“And...I think I’m going to take it!”

I jump up from my seat and move around the table to wrap her in a hug. “Oh my God, Hana! That’s amazing!” She laughs as I give her a congratulatory squeeze. Hana has been trying to get a position with Valtoria High since we graduated. It has one of the top music programs in the city, and the waitlist is insanely long. Most of the teachers there have tenure, so not many positions open up unless someone quits, retires, or dies. Hana securing a position on the teaching staff will not only get her parents off her back but also open up so many doors for her. Her dream is to eventually start her own music school where she can teach music to kids of all social and economic statuses.

We return to our seats as our drinks arrive and the waitress takes our lunch order. After she leaves, Hana turns to me. “So, enough about me. Tell me about the new nanny job.”

I smile. “The interview went really well. I met the family I’ll be working for. They seem really nice and I’m excited to get the opportunity to work with them. My first day with them is Monday. The pay is pretty great, plus, the children seem very well-behaved. Nothing like the last family I worked for. The mother comes off a bit cold, but she seems pretty easy to work for. At least I don’t have to worry about her micromanaging everything I do.”

“Uh-huh. And what about the father?”

I whip out my phone and google “Liam Rhys” to show her a picture of him. After scrolling past links to his company and click-baity articles from the local tabloids, I pull up a photo of him and his older brother from a few years ago. I hand the phone to her. She glances at it, her eyes wide.

“Oh wow...Riley… That’s Liam Rhys,” she says, warily.

“Yeah. What about it?”

She shakes her head and hands the phone back to me. “Nothing, it’s just his family is very well known throughout the city, as well as in the tabloids. Not to mention, he’s extremely attractive, so you need to be careful.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “What are you trying to say, Hana?”

Her face turns serious. “You’re a wonderful person, Riley. I read those tabloids, and I see what they say about the nannies of public figures like him. I don’t want your name dragged through the mud because you were photographed staring too hard at Liam.”

“It will be fine, Hana. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I remember what happened with Ben Affleck’s nanny. And Gavin Rossdale’s nanny. And Jude Law’s nanny”

“Those men were also sleeping with their nannies while they were still married. Even if it gets that far, he’s getting divorced. We wouldn’t be doing anything wrong.”

“The public won’t see it that way. They’ll blame you for the split. Just be careful.”

I nod, taking her words seriously. Our waitress returns with our meals and we dig in. We spend the rest of the meal gossiping about our friends from college; who’s working where, who’s getting married, who got arrested, and so forth. After the check arrives, we pay our tabs and gather our things to head out. As we exited the restaurant, Hana turns to me and grabs my arm turning my body toward hers.

“Hey. I just wanted to let you know that I’m here if you need anything. Please don’t forget that.”

I smiled and wrap her in a hug. “I know. Don’t think that I won’t take your words to heart. I know what I’m getting myself into with the Rhys family, and I appreciate you looking out for me.”

“Of course, that’s what besties do.” Her phone chimes inside her purse. She releases me and reaches into her purse to retrieve it. She frowns then slides it back into her purse. “I’d ask you if you wanted to head over to The Double Tappe for a drink, but my mom wants me to come over. I’ll see you back at the apartment?”

“You bet. I think I’m going to head over to the Northbridge Mall and buy some new outfits for my new job.”

She laughs and wraps me up in another hug. “‘Kay. Call me later,” she says before turning and walking down the sidewalk. I wave goodbye and take off in the opposite direction. As I stroll down the street, I walk past a magazine stand. There on the rack is the latest issue of Trend the receptionist was reading earlier. I pull a $5 from my purse, and set it on the counter, before picking up a copy of the magazine. After thanking the cashier, I slip the magazine in my bag and continue walking until I reach the bus stop on the corner. When the bus arrives, I step on, flash my Transit Pass, and take a seat near the front. I settle in and pull the magazine out to read up on my new employers.

The article shows pictures of Liam, Madeleine, and the kids at the park. The kids look adorable playing with their father and each other. Madeleine is sitting on a bench, her nose in her phone, wearing her usual resting bitch face. I swear, that woman never smiles. Then, there’s Liam. The butterflies in my stomach start fluttering at the sight of him playing with his children. The cutlines on the photos mention how happy he looks to be spending the day away from work with his kids, but I don’t need to read it. I can see it in his face.

Despite his notoriety here in New York, he’s still a man that is devoted to his family. It’s a shame his soon-to-be ex-wife, couldn’t see that. Stop it, Riley. Their relationship is none of your business. But it is, though. Now that I’m working for their family, their business is my business. Which means I have to keep my mouth shut about what happens behind closed doors. I’d hate to lose my job because I told someone something, who told someone else, who leaked it to the press.

I read on and catch myself staring at the pictures of him. It’s unfair how good looking he is. The fact that he is a doting dad makes him that much sexier. My cheeks flush as I imagine sitting at the park with him and the children. In my fantasy, I’m sitting on a picnic blanket, a wicker basket full of snacks and drinks, while he chases Philip and Charlotte around the grass. After they tire themselves out, they wander over and I pass out juice boxes and crackers. Liam comes up behind them, smiling. When he reaches me, he kneels on the blanket, takes me in his arms, and presses the most sensual kiss to my lips.

The squealing of the bus’s breaks rips me from my little daydream and I shove the magazine in my purse. Nope. Not going there. I exhale loudly and stare out the window as the bus continues down the street. Oh man, I’m in big trouble.

#trr au #trr fanfic #liam rhys #madeleine karlington #riley brooks #the royal romance #playchoices fanfic #something domestic #nanny au #nazariolahela fanfic

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