“We’re not talking about me,” Dakvaar interrupted.
“Noted.” Torrk shrugged. “The point stands.”
I looked around the gym. Jord was grinning at the treadmill display. Dakvaar had started another set. Torrk had resumed whatever the Torrk Method required. Bardon was drinking his coffee and looking at nothing in particular.
These were my guys. They’d been my guys all along, and I’d spent months convinced I owed them a debt I could never repay, when apparently what I owed them was just showing up.
Huh.
“You’re still making that face,” Torrk observed.
“What face?”
“The happy one.” He considered. “It’s less weird now. You can keep it.”
When I rolled my eyes, I caught Dakvaar studying me. I expected him to look away, and when he didn’t, I twitched a brow at him. He considered me a moment longer, then tipped his head to one side—signaling toward the locker room—and got up to head in that direction.
I didn’t do anything so obvious as to follow him, but I finished my set, said mysee you aroundsto the others, and strolled toward the locker room.
Dakvaar was washing his hands, and looked up, meeting my reflection in the mirror. His dark eyes gave nothing away, and I remembered what he’d said earlier.
“Hey.”
He nodded once, his gaze not leaving mine as he rinsed.
Frowning, I stepped closer, wondering what he was trying to communicate in that silent way of his.
When Dakvaar’s gaze shifted back to his own reflection, I instinctively glanced at myself—and caught my breath. Stepping closer to the mirror, I studied the male in the mirror.
Sweaty and satisfied, yeah, but my eyes…
Have you seen his eyes?
Dakvaar had asked that, and now I knew why.
My eyes…instead of being black like his, there was a speck of green in the center of each one. Along with ourKteers, orcs’ eyes sometimes glowed green when we were caught up in some fierce emotion: rage, fear, lust?—
“You found your Mate,” Dakvaar said simply, and my breathwhooshedout of me.
Or Mating.
Was it possible?
I realized I was gripping the counter with both hands, likely to keep from falling over.
Mate.
Years ago—so many years ago—my older brother Korrad had found his Mate, and it had been disastrous. Two beings were never so poorly matched, but I had vague memories of those first few months, when his eyes had glowed, and he’d spoken of the unsatiable appetite for his Mate.
Was that how I’d been treating Lila?
Holy fuck, Lila was myMate?
I’d spent the weekend coming all over her! I mean, I’d tried not to comeinher, even though I knew orcs and humans couldn’t share diseases. But they could absolutely reproduce,if they were Mated, which we apparently were, so that meant?—
Why are you obsessing over this detail and not on the larger picture ofyou just found your godsdamned Mate?
I exhaled.
