Page 45 of Secret Twins for the Orc

I turn to my daughter, leaning over Nib to wipe at her red-smeared mouth, before attending to her brother. “It’s okay, baby, it’s still good spaghetti, even if it’s cold. Try to finish it, please.”

“What do you know about orc culture?” Ismelda gently turns the conversation back on course, as she takes a napkin between her weathered fingers and begins wiping down at the table surrounding my twins.

“Pretty much nothing,” I reply.

“I know that they’ve got kind of strict hierarchies,” Grace puts in helpfully, “on account of their bloodied and violent warrior past.”

“That’s true,” Ismelda says, “although it’s starting to change these days, orc culture can be a bit tricky. They have a sort of social language, if you will, where the actions of yourself and those around youcan directly impact your reputation, or affect your social standing, which in turn affects how you’re received by your community.”

“It’s all very complex,” Nib says, “and if you’re outside of the community there are just so many rules it’s practically impossible to sort through it. But us fae have a bit more experience with it, since we’ve been interacting with each other a lot longer than humans have.”

“So let me get this straight,” Grace says, as I notice steam rising from Rowan’s plate once more after Ismelda stirs it. “You’re saying Ella flipped the bird, figuratively speaking, when she didn’t immediately tell the man who tried to fire her five minutes into her job, that he was the father of her children? Also, did you just magic the stains out of the twin’s shirts and bibs?”

Ismelda reheats Rylah’s plate with a mischievous smile at Grace, and then hands the cutlery to Nib, who immediately puts the stains right back again as she tries to feed my Rylah.

“I’m saying that the only males in orc society who are denied access to their children are abusers. Those who use violence against their females. Or those who used violence to get the female pregnant to begin with.”

Grace’s mouth presses shut, and I feel my brows scrunch as I process this.

“It’s basically saying to all other orcs that this male is dangerous and unworthy. Back in their warrior days, for a female to reject him from the start, it meant that her children were a product of force.”

“Jee-eez!” I let out a deep, soul-wrenching sigh and drop my elbows to the table, once more squishing my cheeks tightly between my palms. “Why does everything have to be so complicated!”

“But,” Grace says hesitantly, “but surelyRhokar knows Ella doesn’t mean this, or even know about it?”

“Yeah,” Nib says, smearing sauce over her cheek as she turns away from Rylah, “but just because someone accidentally slaps you in the face, doesn’t mean the slap doesn’t hurt.”

“Okay, fine! So I’m supposed to just ignore this morning?” I say, as I look back and forth over everyone. “Do I pretend he didn’t say the things he said? Go running to him, begging him to take me back?”

The waitress, a purple skinned woman with two small, pointed horns on her forehead, who has been cleaning up Nib and Ismelda’s table for a little too long now, tips something over and makes a show of clearing it off the floor.

I glare at her too, as if this is all her fault.

“I have feelings too, you know! And I’m tired of—of chasing Rhokar around! If he can’t step up and fix this, show me that he can think of me, too, then I don’t care anymore. Maybe he deserves to be shunned from his kids.”

“Ella…” Grace says with a warning tone and a raise of her brows, and I let out a huff.

“Okay, you’re right, that’s just me being bitchy and lashing out.” I cross my arms and lean back. “He doesn’t deserve that, but, still… If we’re going to have a working relationship, I need to know this isn’t going to just be a one-way street. Does he even think about me when I’m not there? Or is he too caught up in himself to care?”

“I don’t think he’s that kind of orc,” Nib says carefully.

“‘Scuse me, y’all, sorry to interrupt,” the waitress says as she sashays across to our table, a heavy southern twang to her voice, “but I couldn’t help but overhear…”

I close my eyes and let out a slow breath. For crying out loud.

“We’re talkin’ about Mr. Rhokar Strongarm over at that construction company, right? Grumpy green orc with a complex about women flirtin’ with him?”

“Wow, they don’t even pretend not to be nosy around here, do they?” Grace says in a stage whisper, and I pop open my eyes, resigned to my fate.

“Yes,” I sigh to the waitress. “That’s the one.”

“Well, he comes ‘round here every now and then with his minotaur friend for lunch, and I can tell you right now, they’ve been talkin’ about you more often than not these past weeks.” She cocks her hip and pulls a cloth out of her small apron, half-heartedly swiping it over the edge of our table near the twins. “That is if you are, in fact, Miss Davis? Which I’m guessin’ you must be, seein’ as there aren’t many human women here.”

I blink, unsure what to do with that information. “Uh, yes, I am.”

“Well that man has a heavy crush on you, I can tell you that much!” She grins and winks at me. “He brings you up in conversation every other minute, and then gets all flustered real quick-like. But he don’t get blush-y and frazzled when other girls come near, just kinda angry. I’m tellin’ you, when I flirted with him all he did was glare—although that handsome minotaur friend of his was quick to swoop in. He’s a charmer, that one… Anyway, sweetheart, I wouldn’t worry about that man not thinkin’ about you.” She finishes pretending to clean the three inches of space at the corner of our table and throws the towel up over her shoulder. “If anything, I suspect you’re constantly on his mind.”

“THIS IS TRUE,” the troll in the kitchen calls out in a booming Russian accent, and we all turn to see him leaning with his arms folded over the pass as he watches us. “HE IS IN LOVE, I THINK. IS VERY OBVIOUS TO ME.”

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