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Saber
There was always a huge sense of relief when I finished a big project. The online school I was enrolled in went by the trimester calendar, which made for a faster graduation, but intense sessions in between. This was my last project until the new semester started in two weeks, and I needed my time off. One more, and I was done.
I sat back in my desk chair, listening to Menace click his antiquated mouse. He was watching the cameras again as though something in the landscape was going to change. The only real things that changed around here were the recipes Draven made and the seasons. Everything else was mundane, but I wasn’t complaining. I liked the simple life. All orcs did, I supposed, not that I knew a lot. We’d left our rage years ago, having outlived their ways and old laws that governed everything in the name of safety. But our numbers were dwindling, and no human woman wanted to live under the grunting and barking of older orcs who thought they knew better than anyone.
The three of us didn’t do well with power hierarchies anyway. Once we were old enough to go out on our own, we fled. Draven, Menace, and I had been best friends since we were in school. We knew once we hit puberty, which was early for orcs, we would share a mate. It wasn’t a whisper or a growl like other paranormals had —it was more of a knowledge, a wisdom that was unquestionable to my soul.
As I logged off from the school website, I went to check my email to make sure there was no assignment I was missing before I embarked on my little vacation in between semesters.Once I knew that I hadn’t missed anything, I checked the hated spam folder, but an email caught my eye.
An advertisement for a mating app that catered to relationships of all kinds. Every need met with this innovative app design and algorithm.
Interesting.
A glance over my shoulder told me Menace wasn’t paying any attention to anything except his quest to find someone hunting us through the woods. That was the only damned thing that orcs worried about. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I thought he blamed me for the failures we’d had when we last tried the online dating thing.
Draven and I were disappointed in all of them, but Menace, well, he always came off as angry. I’d known him since I was a child and yet, sometimes I couldn’t peel through his layers to know which emotion was which.
I roamed around the Mail-Order Matings site, checking everything out, and tried like hell not to hope. We needed a mate. Strike that. We needed a human female willing to contend with our more unique features in order to produce children. She would be protected and cared for, but there would be no romance—no dating or giggling in the darkness. The most she could expect from us would be friendship and a mutual respect as parents working together for the good of the children.
It wasn’t like we were going to find our fated mates.
I didn’t even fully believe that orcs had fated mates. Sure, there were stories that fathers told their sons and daughters around a campfire, but no one I knew and no one in our previous rage had ever found theirs.
We were well aware of not only our reputation in the world, but our forms weren’t exactly what people searched for on social media. Our bodies were sculpted like them, but the tusks, theears, and grayish-green skin threw people off. They screamed and got their pitchforks before even getting to know us.
The site claimed that thousands had found their mate or mates by creating a profile and answering their precise and personal questions.
But there was no mention of orcs, nor did I see any profiles when I searched for them. Orcs were often forgotten as a species or forcibly not remembered. I didn’t know which.
The temptation to sign up and see if there was a female for us was too great, but the last thing I wanted to do was to sign up and be rejected because of how I’d been born and others’ prejudices against my race.
I decided to email the company and ask the question.
Does this site include mating for orcs?
I hit send on the email and then pushed away from the desk. As I went through my daily chores, I thought about the site over and over. It wasn’t a dating site like we’d tried before. It was a mating site. Did that make a difference? I didn’t know, but for the rest of the day I scoured my emails, wanting that reply.
I told the others that night I needed some time to myself, so I packed a few things and headed out to the treehouse that I’d built years ago. At first, I’d built it for hunting but, over time, it had evolved into a place where I retreated to regroup. I’d set up a bed and a fireplace inside. When I went there, I brought my books. When I put the bed in, I stupidly thought that one day, it would be a secret place where I could bring our mate. Have some time with her alone, but I’d long given up on that silliness.
We would be beyond blessed to have a human female to agree to have children with us, but to have a mate who would love me for me, and us for us, seemed too much to ask for. Eventually, I gave up on the thought. The impossibility was too overwhelming.
“Here. Take some food,” Draven said, handing me a large container with leftovers from the night before, along with a fresh-made loaf of sourdough. We orcs ate our weight in food. We had high metabolisms, and our body temperatures stayed warmer than most.
“Thanks. I’ll be back,” I said. They understood. I craved my time alone.
That night, while the leftovers bubbled in a pot over the fire and I was deep in a fantasy book, a notification rang on my phone. I picked it up, thinking that it was Menace or Draven, but instead, it was an email. It was from the Mail-Order Matings customer service.
Orcs are welcome and accepted. We encourage you to make a profile and find your match.
It was already late but, tomorrow, I would go back and tell the others. We had another chance, and I wasn’t going to pass it up.
Chapter Five
Ilya
I got a notice from an attorney I’d never heard of that the closing would be within the week, and the new owners would appreciate the courtesy of moving my butt out of there before that time or eviction proceedings would begin. They said it differently, worded in legalese terms that meant the same thing. Sure, eviction would take time, and I could dig in my heels just to be difficult, but why? I would end up having to pay the new owners’ costs as well as additional rent. Then it would end up on my credit report. I’d worked far too hard to keep my rating high to let my brother’s perfidy cost me that, too.
Really, it was all I had left.
