"Boss," Vrok starts carefully, his massive frame shifting with unspoken questions, "did you actually?—"
"Fifteen minutes. Conference room. Now."
They scatter with gratifying speed, their expensive loafers thundering against the hardwood floors as they scramble to obey. Even the most senior among them, the ones who've built empires and survived hostile takeovers, know better than to linger when that particular edge enters my voice. It's the same tone I use in board meetings when someone has fundamentally misunderstood the quarterly projections. It's the tone that reminds them why they answer to me.
Vrok, however, remains planted in place, his nostrils still flaring, his amber eyes tracking the exact spot where Romee had been standing moments before. He's connecting dots I'm not interested in him connecting, and his mouth is opening with the kind of intrusive question that will require me to explain things I have absolutely no intention of explaining.
I level him with a stare cold enough to freeze the lake outside.
I manageto set up the first session, a brutally boring slideshow about communication styles that Romee prepared with color-coded charts and footnotes, when the door to the lodge opens and every functioning brain cell I possess immediately ceases operations.
Romee walks in wearing my shirt.
Not one of her aggressively tailored blazers or her perfectly pressed slacks. My black t-shirt, the one I discarded on the cabin floor last night, hanging off her smaller frame like a dress. It hits her mid-thigh, the neckline slipping off one bare shoulder, and her legs are completely exposed and unmarked except for a faint bruise on her inner thigh that I absolutely put there.
Her hair is still damp from a shower, pulled into a messy knot at the base of her neck, and she's holding her tablet against her chest like a shield, but her cheeks are flushed and her lips are slightly swollen and she smells like me.
Not just like she borrowed my soap. Like I marked her, thoroughly and repeatedly, until my scent soaked into her skin and announced to every Orc in this room exactly what happened in my cabin last night.
Garak, who was slouched disrespectfully in his chair and halfway through composing what was probably a scathing email, sits up ramrod straight. Vrok actually stands, his posture shifting into something that reads as deep, automatic deference. The low-level chaos that normally characterizes any gathering of Horde Tech executives dies completely, replaced by an almost reverent silence.
She pauses in the doorway, clearly registering the sudden attention, her grip tightening on the tablet.
"I'm not interrupting, am I?" she asks, her voice still carrying that clipped, professional tone, but there's an edge of uncertainty underneath that makes my chest tighten with the need to cross the room and remove any source of her discomfort, including my own employees.
"Not at all," I manage, keeping my voice level. "We were just starting the communication styles presentation."
She nods and moves toward the back of the room, clearly intending to observe, but Vrok immediately vacates his chair, gesturing toward it with a level of courtesy I have never once witnessed in three years of employment.
"Please, take my seat. You shouldn't have to stand."
Romee blinks at him, visibly startled, but Vrok is already moving, and Garak is shoving his notebook and coffee out of her path with uncharacteristic consideration, and the Orc sitting next to the now-empty chair actually pulls it out for her likewe're at some kind of formal dinner instead of a corporate retreat.
She sits slowly, her eyes narrowing in confusion, as she scans the room, taking in the shifted postures, the attentive silence, the complete lack of the usual mutinous grumbling.
Her gaze lands on me, sharp and questioning.
I keep my expression neutral and click to the next slide, even though my instincts are currently screaming with satisfaction at the visible proof that my people recognize and respect my claim.
The session proceedswith an efficiency that would be remarkable if it weren't so obviously motivated by the fact that Romee is sitting in the back of the room wearing my scent like a declaration. Every question I pose is answered immediately and thoughtfully. Every activity is completed without complaint. When I assign partner work, the executives organize themselves into teams without a single argument or attempt to abandon the exercise early.
It's unsettling. It's also deeply, primitively satisfying in a way I'm not entirely comfortable examining.
Romee notices, of course. She's too observant not to. She watches them, her tablet balanced on her bare knees, her brow furrowed in concentration as she takes notes on something that's probably related to future retreat optimization but could just as easily be a detailed list of questions she's planning to interrogate me with later.
The thought of "later" sends a fresh wave of possessive heat through my system that I have to actively suppress before it becomes obvious to the entire room.
Halfway through the session, her phone buzzes. She glances at the screen, as her entire body goes rigid, her jaw tightening in a way that immediately sets off alarm bells in my brain.
She silences the call without answering, but her knuckles are white around the tablet, and the tension radiating from her is palpable enough that Vrok glances back at her with visible concern.
The phone buzzes again, an insistent, grating sound that cuts through the otherwise attentive silence of the room. And then, before anyone can so much as shift in their seat, it buzzes again. The pattern repeats with an almost aggressive persistence, call after call, each one punctuated by that same harsh electronic chirp that makes Romee's jaw clench a little tighter, her fingers curl a little more defensively around her tablet.
On the fourth call, I stop mid-sentence. The words die in my throat, and I turn toward her slowly, deliberately, abandoning all pretense of focusing on the presentation I've been delivering. The other Orcs immediately sense the shift in my attention and fall silent, understanding without being told that something has my focus now, and it is decidedly not the quarterly metrics I was discussing.
"Problem?" I ask, keeping my voice level and measured, though I can feel the growl trying to work its way into my tone, that primitive territorial response that I've been fighting to suppress all afternoon. The question isn't really a question—it's an invitation to honesty, wrapped in a tone that suggests she would be very wise to accept it.
"No," she says immediately, far too quickly, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush to smooth over the moment. Her professional mask snaps into place with the precision of a practiced reflex, all polished edges and carefully curated composure. "Just my boss. It's nothing. I'll handle it later."
