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Now, my violence has grown when I am away from her. I kill in the ring—and out of the ring when it suits me or pays me. But when I look upon her now, I think of wrapping my rough palms around her waist, her blazing hair tangled around her face as I mark her throat with my tusks, thrusting into her, holding her against the wall as she cries for mercy, my cock impossible for her body to accept.
She screams my name, begs me to stop as she stretches around me. But I do not stop.
I cannot stop.
This is why I can never be truly close to her.
I can never find out if she is my mate. I do not feel things as the other males do. I cannot trust myself.
And yet, I will lay claim to her. Someway. Someday.
My pulse pounds in my ears as the sun sets on another day. She ties a line on a small sailboat as the man I now know as her grandfather stands by, telling her a story of her mother. I hear everything. Every word. And, in some ways, she is like me.
She has been damaged by this world and her solace is in her anger.
Her brother is her nemesis. He is arrogant and dismissive. He is gluttonous and lazy. He laughsatnotwithas the humans say. Always a can of cheap, watery beer in his hand. Thoughts of snapping the tiny bones in his neck assault me daily. I watch them eat their meals which almost always end with Ivy…her name makes me grunt…with Ivy storming away. Her plate of food untouched or thrown against the nearest wall.
She is small but mighty. I see care and devotion to her grandfather in her eyes. She works hard, tending the docks and boats at the marina. Cleaning the messes her brother leaves behind, listening always to her grandfather when he speaks. Her family is under threat of some kind, as are we all in this new world. But her, I will protect.
Her, I will watch over.
Even if from the darkness, I will live my life for her. The years lay out before me, empty of the joy I see in my mated brothers, but if this is my charge, if this is as close as my damaged soul comes to pleasure, as painful as it may be, I will be right here.
For her. Forever.
ChapterOne
Ivy
One month later
The clangingof lines against a sailboat mast and seagulls cawing from a gray fall sky drift through the open window, mixing with the sound of my brother Levichewing. I close my eyes and grit my teeth.
Not today. Just one day, finish your eggs, don’t let him get to you. Do it for grandpa.
Levi grunts, lips smacking, mouth curled into a taunting grin knowing it’s fingernails on a chalkboard for me.
Dread creeps in around me. The comforting scent of the bacon and eggs my grandfather cooks for us every morning barely masking the smell of the thirty-foot trawler that mysteriously caught fire in the marina last night.
“That’s the third one this month.” My grandfather scoops a bite of eggs onto his fork, glancing toward the open window. His blue eyes are like mine but tired. So tired. The lines in his face deepen with every month and the real knowledge that he is on his final countdown aches in my chest. “No one has insurance anymore. Not here in the occupied states. Bill Parson’s lost everything. The little bit of fishing he was doing went to pay for his gas and keep his little homestead in groceries and heat.” He shakes his head. “The world isn’t what it used to be.”
My brother clinks his fork on his plate. “Of course, it isn’t.” He chews while talking, making the tension in my temples vibrate as particles of half-chewed food spray over the table and over my own breakfast. “The world is full oforcsnow. We wereluckyenough to be right here, straddling the new Glenrose and the old state of Oregon. We’re spread eagle, taking it up the—”
“Shutup,” I bark, clenching my fists on the table. My eggs untouched. How I got to be a size fourteen at only five foot four is a mystery because I rarely finish a meal. That’s a lie, I go to the human market in Eugene once a month and stock up on any kind of salty, sweet and unhealthy junk food they have on the nearly-bare shelves. My grandfather is a fabulous cook, and it’s something he loves doing, but I don’t know if I’ve made it through a full meal in three years.
My brother isn’t entirely wrong. When the government cordoned off part of the northwest section of the country as the ‘occupied’ territory, we were right inside the border. It’s not that orcs can’t live elsewhere, but the climate suits them here and honestly, it was sort of a segregation thing no matter how anyone spun it.
Most humans fled south and east, but we dug in. It’s been a wild ride that’s for sure.
“I’m not shutting up.” He sneers my way. “We have an offer that will set us up and get us out of here and both of you are too stubborn to see the forest for the trees!” Levi shoves a stick of bacon in his mouth.
“We’renot selling. Not one inch.” My grandfather pokes a finger onto the tabletop. “My grandfather bought this land, my father started this marina and it’s all of ours.” He circles his finger in the air. “No one, orc or human, is pushing us out. We will stay strong, we will come through this. The world will calm down, you’ll see. These aren’t the first hard times to come around.”
Levi rolls his eyes on a huff and the ache in my stomach tightens into a hot ball. He wasn’t always this way, not this bad at least. After our parents died and the orcs came, the world lost its collective mind and the distance between us multiplied. He looks out for himself, masked as what is best for us all. He’s got my father’s dark eyes, but that’s all I see of my parents in him.
“Not. One. Inch.” I repeat my grandfather’s words, narrowing my eyes across the table.
“You’ll both be sorry. The offer expirestomorrow.”
