Lily, p.15
Grumpy Pucking Orc (Orcs on Ice Book 1), page 15
He grunted in agreement. “Three ribs broken and the muscle torn. Blood filled that lung and needed to be drained. It was five days before the healers could take the tube out and let the muscle fully heal. We orcs heal fast, but I needed to walk and move, or my lungs and muscles would have been forever damaged. I bled for ten more days, but the wound eventually healed.”
“That’s a very dangerous injury, even here with our medical technology,” I told him. “The risk of pneumonia and infection are high.”
He nodded. “Orcs rarely have infections and our healers are good, but I was lucky to have survived.”
I leaned forward and kissed the scar, my lips trailing its length. “Do you have any others? Scars, that is?”
I felt him shrug. “Many small ones that are no longer visible. I do have one from when I was an orclet that is very embarrassing. Few know about it.”
“Tell me.” I looked up at him, intrigued.
He laughed. “My friends and I climbed Skilmagh Mountain. They turned back because it was almost dinner time and orc parents are very strict about family dinner. I was…conterous? Contras?”
“Contrary,” I helpfully supplied.
“Contrary. I was a contrary orclet. If there was a rule, I was ready to break it.”
“Seriously?” I couldn’t imagine Ozar as a rebel. He seemed to be an orc of honor, whose word was his bond. I would have thought him the last orc to break the rules, even as a youngster.
Ozar laughed. “I broke many rules. And that day, I kept climbing to the summit long after my friends had gone home. The view was amazing. I could see clear to the sea. But the climb down was more difficult and slower, partly because it was close to sunset. I slipped and fell and went over a cliff. When I awoke, I was soaked in blood, my head ached, and everything was blurry.”
The thought of a child Ozar with a serious head injury halfway up a mountain made tears spring up in my eyes. If he had been my child, I would have covered him in bubble wrap and locked him in his room for the rest of his life.
“I very slowly made my way down the mountain. It was not easy since my vision was affected, and it was so dark. I cried,” he admitted. “My parents had organized a search party, and thankfully my father found me. He carried me home, swore the healer to secrecy, and told the others in the search party that I’d made it home on my own and was going to be confined to the house for weeks as a punishment.”
“Was it so shameful to have a serious head injury from a fall? You were a child. I can’t imagine why your father would need to keep your injury a secret,” I said.
His smile held a hint of nostalgia. “It was considered a private matter, for my family to deal with. If the others had known how injured I was, it would have painted me as more than a rebel. It would have shown me to be a fool, who makes poor choices and can’t be trusted to lead others. I can see that you don’t understand, but what my father did allowed me to correct my mistake and eventually become a Clan Guardian.”
I didn’t understand, but I kept an open mind, knowing that his father had done the right thing according to their culture. And he’d saved Ozar, finding him and carrying him home where he could get immediate medical attention, then covering up his recuperation as though he’d been “grounded.”
“Your mother must have been so worried.” I couldn’t help but think of how I’d feel in this woman’s place, on the edge of a panic attack as others searched for her missing son.
“She was. My mother feared I’d never make it to adulthood after that. It’s one reason I have no siblings.” He sighed and the sound was full of grief. “She and my father delayed having more orclets, planning to wait until I was older. But then she died.”
I reached up to cup his face. “Oh God! Ozar, I’m so sorry.”
He swallowed hard. “An illness swept among the orc clans and while all it touched became sick, more females died then males. It is why we have no children in our clan. The females who survived were young and have only been recently wed, so we hope to have children soon. We were lucky, though. Some clans only have two or three females that survived the plague; others have none at all that survived.”
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated, unable to process how horrible this must have been for him and the others. “There was nothing your healers could do?”
He shook his head. “They tried but could not stop the spread or the deaths.”
I stroked his cheeks, leaning forward to plant a soft kiss on his jaw. “Tell me about her.”
His smile was wistful. “Her parents were metal workers from a clan in one of the western mountain ranges. She was strong and gifted in her family’s art. I still have some of the knives she made me as well as the war hammer she’d made and gifted to my father on their wedding day. She was truly an equal to my father, his forever mate. The moment he set his eyes on her, he knew no other would hold his heart.”
“That’s so romantic,” I whispered.
He nodded. “Her hair was as dark as mine, but hers had curls. She was tall, and very muscular from working with metal. Three times she won the stone toss contest at our fall festival and was legendary across the region in Xalba, which is similar to your wrestling sport. As a mother, she always encouraged me, inspired me, and pushed me to expand my talents. While my father was a major influence in my becoming a Guardian, a commander of our clan, my mother encouraged me to explore what other orcs would consider silly hobbies.”
“Like what?” I asked.
Ozar smiled fondly. “I never had her skill at making blades, but she showed me how to use metal to create small creatures for amusement and decoration. On her name-day one year, I gifted her a tiny bird I’d forged. Her name was Gruexal, which is what the little bird is called in our language.”
Gruexal. I wondered if they were like the chickadees that visited my backyard feeder. It seemed odd for a tall and muscular woman to be named after a tiny bird, but I imagined as a baby it had seemed fitting.
“That’s such a wonderful gift for your mother.” It wasn’t a surprise that Ozar was so thoughtful when it came to gifts. He’d gone to such lengths to make tonight special. He’d given me a Starbuck’s gift card, and he barely knew me. I did love my coffee, so his guess had been correct. I bit back a smile, thinking of how he had presented me his teeth in an engagement ring box. For such a large, intimidating guy, he was sweet, sensitive, and funny. Even his grumpy side was endearing.
Reaching up, Ozar took my hands in his. His eyes were serious as they met mine.
“I came here hoping to find a bride, Jordan. We are compatible with humans and can have orclets with them. I hoped to somehow find a human woman, wed her, and have the family I never could have back home.”
My heart ached for Ozar. I grieved for his mother and the others who’d died of this horrible illness. And I absolutely understood why he had chosen to come here. Companionship. Partnership. Love. Creating a life together, a family.
He wanted commitment. He wanted to settle down. And while I’d thought those things would never happen for me, I found myself wanting the same. With Ozar.
“Does that bother you, Jordan?” He let go of my hand to take a lock of my hair in his fingers, weaving it between them. “That I want a bride? A family?”
I snuggled against his chest as he played with my hair. “It’s not so different than what we humans want.”
“But what do you want?” he pressed.
“I…I don’t know.” I hesitated, biting back the words my heart wanted to shout to the heavens. It hadn’t even been a week since I’d met this orc. And while everything so far had been hearts and flowers—and a Starbuck’s gift card—there could be a minefield ahead that I never suspected.
“So how many of these children are you thinking?” I lifted my head to smile up at him.
“As many as the mountain gods gift me. As many as my wife agrees to bear for me.”
“That’s not an answer.” I poked him just below his ribs. “How many do you want?”
He smiled sheepishly. “Six. It’s a good number, and the players needed for a Ghug team.”
I rolled my eyes. “And you’ll expect your wife to do all the childrearing in addition to cooking and cleaning and sitting by your feet every night?”
I tried to keep my tone light, but Ozar scowled. “Males…men are equal parents. We provide for our families and pamper our wives. We teach our orclets. We provide for their basic care, which involves cleaning and feeding and arguing over bedtimes.”
“Good. My dad was a very involved parent, so I’ve got high expectations.”
“Tell me about him.” Ozar’s voice held a soft nostalgic note that nearly brought tears to my eyes. “Tell me about your family, about growing up as a human child.”
I did. I told him stories of my teacher father, and my mom who’d been a sort of administrative do-all at a local scrapyard. We’d had an ancient car held together mostly by duct tape, and a split-level rancher for our home. Both parents spent most weekends fixing what had broken in either the car or the house, and neither my brother nor I had owned the latest version of any electronic game. But we always had food, and we always were warm. Summer vacations were an excursion to tent camp for a week in a national park, or a week at Aunt Jan and Uncle Mark’s house only a few miles from the Jersey shore, and winter breaks were spent skiing at whatever east coast spot my parents got the best deal at. We weren’t poor, just solidly middle class. And my parents had spent our youth being carefully frugal, which meant that both my brother and I had been able to go to college with only a minimal amount of student loans.
My loans were bigger thanks to the dental doctorate my parents hadn’t budgeted for, but I still was absolutely grateful for their shrewd financial planning.
I told him how Dad had given me my love of the theater, and my inability to go for a hike without coming home with my pockets full of interesting rocks, how my mom collected old cookbooks and would spring strange side dishes of aspic and mysterious casseroles on us every week or so for dinner. About how she’d gotten me my first car from the salvage yard and secretly worked on it with Dad for months before presenting it to me for my eighteenth birthday.
I must have rambled on for an hour, but Ozar never interrupted. He continued to play with my hair, his breathing rhythmic and his chest rising and falling under my cheek.
Lifting my head, I met his eyes. “Sorry. It’s probably not a great first-date move to give you a not-so-abridged version of my childhood.”
“Courtship is learning about each other,” he said. “Physically and emotionally. These things either bring us closer, or pull us apart, but it’s important to show all of us to each other. Seeing the beauty is easy, but love is about knowing the scars, too.”
I traced the groove in his chest again. “I love your scars, even though how you got this one still scares me.”
He slid me up along his body and kissed me, softly, slowly, with tenderness.
“Now it is your turn. Show me your scars.” His smile was teasing.
“They aren’t from any battles,” I warned him.
“Are any of them from falling off a cliff as a child?”
I chuckled. “No. Well, there’s this one on my knee from when I came off a skateboard as a teen.”
“I will slay the skateboard beast for daring to harm you.”
He was teasing again, and I absolutely loved it.
“Then there’s this one on my thumb. I was trying to slice a stale bagel, and the knife slipped. Oh, and the one on my forehead from when I was little and decided to slide down the stairs on an outdoor lounge-chair mattress, like it was a toboggan.”
He examined each scar, tutting over every one as if they’d been life-threatening injuries. Most of them were tiny, barely visible after all this time. It’s not like I’d had a minotaur try to impale me or had fallen off a cliff.
“Stay the night with me,” he murmured, pulling me against his chest once more. “We can eat cannoli and the rest of the cake for breakfast.”
I sighed, wanting nothing more than to spend the night in his arms. Tomorrow too. Maybe the whole week. But when you owned your own practice and were the only dentist, you were in the office rain or shine, sexy new boyfriend or not.
“I’ve got some early patients tomorrow. I want to stay with you, really I do, but I need to be up early, showered, and in the office for work, and that won’t happen if I’m here having sex with you all night and eating sugar for breakfast.”
I expected an argument or pouting, but instead he kissed my forehead, then lightly patted my ass. “Next time?”
“Next time,” I promised, thinking that I should bring a change of clothes. Maybe leave some toiletries in his bathroom and take over a drawer in his dresser with some basic clothing. Yes, we were moving at the speed of light in this relationship, but I honestly had no worries at all. Ozar was incredible. No red flags. No friction. No doubts.
I’d never thought that an orc would be my soulmate, but that’s what this felt like.
With incredible regret, I eased out of his arms and out of his bed. It took me a while to find my clothing—especially since I was distracted by Ozar watching me with a satisfied smile on his face. I pulled on my bra, a wrinkled shirt, and pants, stuffing my underwear in one pocket. When I was slipping shoes on, Ozar finally rolled out of his bed. He stood and stretched, and my eyes were riveted by the perfection of his body.
“I will walk you to your car,” he informed me in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Like that?” I waved a hand to indicate his undressed state. “First, it’s close to freezing out there. Second, nudity in public is a crime, and I don’t want to watch the police cart you off.”
He smiled, then reached down and pulled on his pants. The fact that he had a half-mast going on meant he required some adjustments when zipping up.
“Better.” I figured he probably didn’t feel cold the way we humans did. The orc’s normal body temperature felt about one hundred degrees, and he had grown up in an area with high mountains, so our mild fall weather in Baltimore was probably nothing out of the ordinary for him.
I gathered up my purse, deciding I’d leave the bottle of white wine here along with the desserts. I hadn’t seen anything but the beer in his fridge, and it would be nice to have a decent Pino Grigio here when I came back. Ozar walked with me down the stairs, his hand gently on my lower back. I’d decided to carry my heels, so it was far easier going down than climbing up. Once we were on the ground floor, I balanced with a hand against Ozar as I put my heels on. Then he walked with me to where I’d parked my car, his eyes scanning our surroundings and his hand still protectively on my back. He waited as I climbed in and started the car, remaining vigilant even as I pulled away from the curb and down the street.
It was a little weird. I’d always been self-sufficient, bristling at any hint that I might not be able to take care of myself even in a large city that had far more crime than where I’d grown up. But Ozar’s attention and watchfulness didn’t feel like a slight on my strength or ability to take care of myself. It felt no different than a friend, a loved one who looked out for me just as I’d look out for him, a partnership where two people knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses and gratefully allowed the other to help where they could.
I was falling fast. I was falling in love with this orc. And that scared me. Would this be a love that flamed out as quickly as it caught fire? That worry hovered around the edges of my bliss, but I knew that nothing except time would prove my fears right or wrong.
Chapter 19
Ozar
Islept fitfully without Jordan in bed beside me. Her scent was all over my sheets, all over me. Every time I’d doze off, I’d reach for her, only to wake up in a panic when I found the bed empty beside me.
She was my mate, my soul-bond, the only woman I’d ever love. When she’d consented to our joining, I’d hesitated, knowing she had no idea what that action would mean for me. But in the end, I’d done it, willing to risk a lifetime of painful solitude for even a moment of that joyous connection.
I knew she’d felt it too. I could see it in her eyes. Sex between us had been more than just an orgasm for her. But she was human, and I wasn’t sure if the mate bond meant the same thing for them as it did for orcs.
I’d take what I could get, though. Whatever love she was capable of giving. And if her love was fleeting, not for forever, then I’d watch her leave. And I’d thank the mountain gods for every moment she was mine.
After tossing and turning, I finally got out of bed, finished off the pine-nut cake, and made a pot of coffee. My bed furs smelled of Jordan. My skin smelled of Jordan. Faint traces of her scent lingered all over my apartment. I debated taking a shower but decided to leave her scent on my skin for a little while longer. At six, I dressed, grabbed the box of leftover cannoli, and headed over to the stadium.
Just like yesterday, Ugwyll was on the ice. This time he wasn’t on his back, cursing with his legs and arms splayed out. I watched as he made his way around the rink, pushing a puck side to side in front of him with the stick. After two laps, he slowed and turned around, then began to skate backward, still maneuvering the puck as he went. These laps were punctuated with several stops and starts, but the orc managed it without falling or running into anything. I kept watching, letting Ugwyll have his solo time on the ice, then I went to the locker room to get my gear on.
By the time I joined him, Ugwyll was circling the far goal, shooting from a line of pucks as he came around. As I skated over, he halted and turned to face me. Lifting his head, he sniffed the air then put out his hand for a fist-bump.
I completed the human-style acknowledgement.
“When’s the wedding?” he asked, a broad grin on his face.
I shifted on my skates. “We’re not at the wedding stage yet. Humans take these things slower. I’ve got more wooing to do, but things are looking promising.”
Ugwyll gave me a worried look, then shot another puck into the net. “You locked your mate bond with her. Why would you do that when you weren’t sure she was ready for that kind of commitment?”
