Page 45 of My Orc Package Deal

Except…

Not quiet. That was the thing. Still humming underneath, some low note that hadn’t resolved. Like a chord you’ve played right but one string is still slightly out of tune. I kept running the inventory, because decades of living with that primitive part of me had taught me it was usually pointing at something specific.

Kesha. There. Married. Loved. In my bed, coming home to tonight.

Check.

The boys. Both of them, strong, growing, mine in the way that mattered—Jay calling Milo T’mak without hesitation. Milo calling me Dad and meaning it.

Check.

The house. Home, finally, eight months of functional and two months of real.

Check.

My Kteer had no business still humming like it was waiting for something. I had everything; I’d checked.

It kept humming anyway.

A large hand came down on my shoulder hard enough to rock me forward.

“There it is,” Brakkor said.

I straightened up. “Don’t.”

“You’re getting it.”

“I’m not getting anything, I’m watching our mechanic work.”

Dravik glanced up for the first time. He looked genuinely unsettled, like he’d rather not be a part of this conversation. “Get what?”

Brakkor was grinning at me with the full force of a male who had found his Mate and could not be humble about it.

Asshole.

“You’re getting it. You’re falling in love with Kesha, aren’t you?” my twin said.

My instinct—born of decades of living with this male and sharing a womb—had me lashing out, wanting to prove him wrong.

“No, you dipshit,” I snapped. “I love her. And Milo. They’re my family.”

Brakkor’s grin turned to a harsh bark of laughter. “I’m happy for you, T’mak.”

“Fuck you, I’m older. You’re my little brother.”

He was already moving when I got my arm around his neck, and we went sideways into the grass like we were twelve, and somewhere above us Dravik said something low and profane and went back to the engine.

I wrestled there with my twin’s elbow in my ribs and my knees trying to pin him and thought: yeah.

My Kteer hummed. Low, restless—still not settled, still holding that unresolved vibration I hadn’t figured out yet. But…home.

Chapter Ten

Kesha

I was humming.

Not on purpose, exactly. It just kept happening…all morning. I’d catch myself mid-verse and stop, and then forty-five seconds later, there it was again. Me and My Shadow. The Supremes. Some commercial jingle from 2011 that of course I still remembered by heart despite not having tasted the gum in a decade.