Frigid. That was the first thought that drifted into his addled mind when he finally woke. He was on his side, and as bleary consciousness returned, he had only the briefest of moments to realize that he was naked and that his hands were bound behind his back with two bands of metal before sudden, powerful heaves brought forth the last day’s meal. Except, he realized as his body revolted with what felt like every cell of his being, that I have no fucking idea what day it is. His groan was gravel in his throat as he moved to roll onto his other side – away from the spreading pile of vomit that was slowly edging towards him. And with his attempt to move, came other jewels of information.Not only was he bound – but the sharp jingle of shackles and the metal piece protruding from the floor told him that he was chained as well. His cuffs were tight around his wrists, and the length of the chains constricting him was just long enough for him to move his arms to his sides. Even with all of his wearied searching, he couldn’t find a keyhole on either manacle – so he set to studying the room instead.It was an old cellar, it seemed. Barrels of what could have been wine hunched against the far wall, stacked in two rows of three. The delicate cobwebs dusted across their spigots spoke to exactly how long they’d been down here. A set of four wooden stairs that sat beside the wine barrels led up to a beaten, old wooden door that likely should have been replaced a long, long time ago. The room itself wasn’t that large – perhaps a solid six by five feet. But the darkness, deep in corners and tipped with the crisp, raw edge of Wynter, made it feel much bigger. Still shaken but functioning clearer, his mind tried to work out exactly how and when the fuck he’d been wrangled and trussed like a hog fit for slaughter. The last thing he recalled was ordering Chinese, flirting with the Siamese Anthro delivery girl, and then . . . nothing.He groaned again. The dim light – a bulb suspended from a thin pole and nothing more – seemed too bright to his dried out retina, and the concrete floor, covered by a thick layer of dirt and who knew what the fuck else, did nothing to keep his already icy extremities warm. He’d began shivering the moment his retching had subsided, and though he knew his body was only trying to survive, it only furthered his exhaustion.That was about the time the door swung open.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~The sudden input of light against his dilated pupils left him squinting and damn near blind as he did his best to examine who he could only assume was his captor.All other obvious indicators aside, his job as Detective at the Wako City Police Department regularly gave him insights into others’ behaviors. And this woman had just pulled the oldest trick in the book: wait until your subject is weary and completely out of sorts – that’s when you’ll get exactly what you want. Her footfalls were somehow absolute in the cellar’s silence as she stepped down from the stairs, closing the door behind her.She was tall – and as she stepped into the dingy lighting, Almus noted that she was green. Gravel spilled from his chapped lips. “An Orc? What’s an Orc need from Güngören escort a guy like me?” She didn’t say anything as she studied him. Her eyes glowed green in the semi-darkness, and as she sized him up, he returned the favor. Though – how much of her he could actually see was limited by the heavy cloak she wore. Her head was uncovered, and though the unruly mane of dark curls that framed her face did the job well enough, he could see the small canines protruding from beneath her bottom lip. She also wore the toeless socks that were so common with female orcs.Her own voice was soft – but the fury leashed in that voice pulled his exhausted mind straight to attention. “It is not what I need, Detective Davidson,” she said, “but rather, what you want.” He’d always listened to his instincts, and though he had a nag for trouble, they’d given him a nag for surviving.Almus was silent for a moment as he ran her words through his still shaken mind. Damn it all. “And what does that mean?” Muscles flexed beneath his tan skin as he tested his shackles. She didn’t respond to him immediately – but he didn’t miss the cursory glance she slid over his body. He made a derisive noise. “I do hope your motivations for a felony offense are more important than fornication.” Still, she said nothing, and as impatience and outright annoyance ate at him, he ground his teeth. But he was in no position to piss her off – so his best bet, not to mention the safest bet, was to not.It was several moments before she spoke again. “Would you like to leave this cellar, Detective Davidson? Alive?”His answer was immediate and bitten out: “Yes.”He wasn’t quite sure when she moved, but the general consensus was that he hadn’t seen it – her hand was wrapped around his throat, sharp nails easily piercing the skin there as her emerald eyes peered into his. Her face was mere inches away. “Then, you will tell me why your last case ended in my sister’s death.” Blood trickled from where her nails dug in, and Almus swore. His last case hadn’t ended exactly how he’d intended it to – and part of the reason was because he’d lost his informant. He hadn’t known the girl had had family; in fact, beyond her name and skillset, he hadn’t known anything about her at all.“Because,” he growled at her, “she got caught in Ogre’s warehouse, and Ogre doesn’t take kindly to visitors he doesn’t drag there himself.” Ogre was a fiend son of a bitch – but he knew how to conduct his business low enough beneath the radar that even Almus hadn’t been able to catch a whiff of evidence in the last eight years. His eyes must have betrayed him – because the next words out of the Orc’s mouth were, “And who sent her there?”Silence.Her grip tightened as she leaned closer. “Who sent her?”His own grey gaze turned to steel as he met her eyes. “I think you already know the answer to that.” And with sudden, startling clarity, it came to him that he might not be leaving this cellar after all.“What you think is of little consequence, human.” She spat the words as she released him and stood. Her emerald gaze was cold as she brought forth a small dagger from her cloak’s depths – Almus went İnnovia escort bayan rigid, jaw clenched as he glared at her. Perhaps, if he’d spoken sooner, she may have exacted her punishment quicker; as it was, Almus said nothing as she carved a symbol into her hand with the dagger, staring unflinchingly as blood pooled in her palm before dripping down her exposed arm and onto the floor beside him.“You have two choices,” she said. Her voice was grave, and her brow hung low above her eyes – as if she were displeased that she’d give him a choice at all. “You can die right here – on the ground, on your back like a bitch in heat.” Teeth ground together, hostility rising quickly as his nostrils flared. “Or you can surrender yourself to me.”The snort that fell from him was derisive, to say the least. “Surrender myself, you say. And what, pray tell, does that mean?” It should have been obvious – naked as the day he was born and a heavy cloak? He’d played this game before.“It should be obvious to a man of your notoriety.” The way she’d said notoriety made it more than obvious that she knew his tastes were far and wide and not at all singular. He still said nothing; she hiked a brow – and with her bloodied hand, reached up to unclip the large buckle that held the cloak closed. And as it fell from her shoulders to pool at her feet, no amount of exhaustion could have kept him from drinking in the sight of her.The legends claimed that the Orcs had been crafted by the gods themselves, carved from the very stone of Angelo’s Bay and brought forth to protect the earth and its resources from greedy humans. Almus was tempted to believe it.Her green skin was the velvet that held her tight, toned body together. Her hips and shoulders were of equal widths, but the thin waist between the two gave her sublime curvature. Supple where it counted and tight muscle everywhere else, his eyes traced the slight outline of her ample ass — and flowed from her sweet center that was crowned by a trimmed thicket of dark hair, down her solid thighs, passed her tense calves, and to narrow ankles and flat feet that were tipped with the same black, sharp claws as her hands. Her head was held high with pride – and with that and the loss of her cloak, he noticed other things that had not been immediately obvious.With her body exposed as it was, he could gauge her height more accurately – and he was surprised to find that she was probably nine feet, maybe even a little taller. Her dome was mounted by a golden diadem that displayed a tear drop ruby in the middle of her forehead. Two golden dermal piercings speared that skin on the bridge of her nose, and as his eyes traced the white tattoos that mirrored her sinuosity, he came to rest upon a realization.He’d offended the Orc queen. How lovely.”Do you see now, human?” Her words were indifferent as she glared down upon him. His answering sneer was outrage incarnate.“I see now,” he growled back, even from his position on the ground, bound and at her mercy, “that you are fucking insane. I do look forward to the moment the Department of Interspeciatal Communications gets wind of this.” For years, Escort Kağıthane now, they’d been searching for a reason to cut the Orcs and Orges from their organization – and now, they’d finally have one.It wasn’t discrimination; not outright discrimination anyway. The trades they made with the Orcs and Ogres usually weren’t deemed to be worth the trouble because both groups were such an uncompromising, rigid peoples in how they dealt with humans. The information they gave (on the Elves, some of the rarer Anthro groups, and even information that pertained to war and government affairs) was so few and far in-between that, little by little, more and more humans were becoming intolerant of Wako City’s connection with them. But breaking off a decade old alliance needed a better reason than speciesism.Not to mention the Orc queen herself . . . . There were rumors about Queen Maj that were extravagant – and true. They said she’d won skirmishes and wars against the Ogres and Elves with soldiers she’d trained herself. The rumor mill was always turning, and these days, it spoke of the Orc Queen who was in more possession of land than the Orcs had been in centuries. She was a brutal, conniving leader who didn’t take well to disobedience or insubordination – but she was steadfast in her dedication to her people.Her answering grin chilled him to his bones. “The Department of Interspeciatal Communications may be losing patience with my people, Almus, but they are not stupid. Government, if you’ve ever noticed, is heavily invested in the survival of itself.” He was silent as Maj spoke, the only other sound in the room the drip, drip, drip of the blood leaking from the cuts in her palm. “They would willingly sacrifice you if it meant appeasing me to avoid war. After all – you brought death to an Orc queen’s sister. Treason, Detective, and punishable by death. At the very least.”Almus said nothing as she dropped the knife behind her. It landed silently on her discarded cloak. “What? Torture not your thing?” Nervous energy built as he watched her – and as her glowing emerald eyes met his, he would swear that mirth danced there.“I do what I must when I must,” Queen Maj retorted. His lips parted, ready to speak, to snarl, to do anything that meant reaching the door behind the Orc woman with the increasingly alarming mischievous gleam in her eye; Almus had nothing. Because she was right. He’d offended her – and valuable asset or not, Wako City’s mayor would choose the city over him, any day, any time.His glare beheld her as she moved to stand over him – and he viciously ignored the exposed, pink regions of her parted sex. “And?” he said instead. “How might one such as myself surrender to you?” His mind was everywhere at once – anger and pride battled his growing lust and fervor as the queen lowered herself before him. The neat brush of pubic hair did nothing to hide her sweet folds from his view as she squatted above his stomach, and though he typically preferred women who were smaller than him, he found his cock hardening with no problem at all.Weariness bit at him – exhaustion was still present, even after it’d been so long since his bout of sickness. But as he watched, furor adding to the plethora of warring emotions coursing through him, the woman leaned forward, and with her injured hand, she began smearing her blood on his chest, neck, face, and arms. Almus nearly blanched. “I’ll be the first to admit that my fetishes are a little out there, Maj, bu–”