Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 23383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 117(@200wpm)___ 94(@250wpm)___ 78(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 117(@200wpm)___ 94(@250wpm)___ 78(@300wpm)
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 laughs at not with as 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.
Chapter
One
Ivy
One month later
The clanging of 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 Levi chewing. 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 of orcs now. We were lucky enough to be right here, straddling the new Glenrose and the old state of Oregon. We’re spread eagle, taking it up the—”
“Shut up,” 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.