Page 7 of Secret Twins for the Orc

“Listen,” she says, waving the topic of Brad away with a flick of her wrist. “This isn’t about me right now, this is about you. And how awesome you’re going to be. And how amazing I’m going to be as the beautiful and wise co-parenting aunt. And how you’re going to have the most incredible half orc children and I can’t believe you’re having twins by the way…”

I feel a shaky smile stretch across my lips, and I sit up again, resting my elbows on my knees and dropping my face between my palms. “Ugh, Grace, I’m so freaking excited and so freaking terrified at the same time. There are so many complications, not least of all the fact that there’s like zero fae-friendly facilities around here. What if my babies need things that I don’t know how to give? Or that this community doesn’t provide?”

“Ella, baby, I don’t want you to panic.” Grace leans across the coffee table, reaching her hand towards me, and I grab it tightly. “We’re driving distance from Salt Lake, and there’s plenty of fae living there. Hell, you drive there every other day for work. If you need anything during your pregnancy or birth or afterwards, we can get it.”

“But what if they grow up here feeling like outsiders, like they don’t belong? They’ll be the only orcs, there’s no-one else here, but that one pixie—”

She squeezes my fingers hard, and I press my lips shut.

“We’ll figure it out, as it comes. Don’t jump too far ahead to things you can’t know. One step at a time. You’ve got this. And I’ve got you.”

I feel tears sting the back of my eyes, and I can’t tell if it’s from fear, or relief from hearing her words of support. Maybe both.

“You’ve got this,” she repeats, and I square my shoulders.

“I’ve got this.”

Chapter 3

Ella

2 years later

The dial tone that’s blasting through the Bluetooth in my car stops with a click, and I hear my sister’s voice as she picks up. “Hello?”

“I miss my babies!” I cry dramatically, as I turn onto the motorway and settle in for the long, long drive ahead of me.

Grace immediately bursts out laughing. “Ella, it’s been less than fifteen minutes since you left them here with me. But…I understand.” She chuckles a little more, and I can hear her moving around her home. “They’re safe and happy and asleep—well. Rylah is sleeping. Rowan’s wide awake and sitting up staring silently at his sister. That’s a bit creepy. Does he do that a lot?”

I let out a chuckle of my own. “Uh, yeah, he does. Protective instincts, maybe?”

“Well, if that’s what it is, then he makes a great twenty-minutes-older brother.”

I grin as I picture the two, relaxing tandem in the large cot I set up in Grace’s spare room, green skin, the same shade as their father’s, bright and healthy in the morning sun. Immediately my eyes fill with tears, and I sniff. My heart tugs painfully to get back to their chubby little cheeks flushed with pink, their big eyes shining trustingly up at me, such a dark brown they look black, just like their father’s…

“Did you just sniffle?” Grace’s voice softens. “Aw, baby, it’s okay! They’re going to be happy and safe, and it won’t be too long before you settle in, and I can bring them right over to you! They’ll be in your arms again in no time, you’ll see.”

It was one of the more difficult decisions in my life, but after nearly a year of dealing with judging looks masked behind smiles whenever I went out with my babies in my small town, always having to lug myself to Salt Lake for everything from specially shaped pacifiers to cater for when their little nub tusks came through at six months, to specialty formula since my human body couldn’t make enough to feedtwo big orc babies, and the last straw—not being able to find decent local daycare options to cater to their needs, I finally bit the bullet and chose to move out of town.

“I know,” I mutter to Grace. “I just miss them.”

“I know,” she repeats back at me, before I hear a loud clatter in the background followed by Lucas’s guilty voice, and Grace sighs. “Let me go make sure my son hasn’t destroyed anything important. How about I call you back when your twins are both awake, and we’ll see if we can get them to say hello?”

“Sounds like a plan,” I reply, and I hang up with a press of a button on my steering wheel, as I stare out at the road ahead of me.

It isn’t that I minded so much having to drive a little more to provide for my twins. It’s the feeling of not being one hundred percent welcome in my own town. Not entirely accepted. I was beginning to feel like an outsider in the very place I grew up in, and that’s just not something I ever want my children to feel.

And I don’t want them growing up in the cold grips of a big city, either.

So after a hell of a search, I’ve found myself what seems to be the perfect job, in what seems to be the perfect town of Whispering Pines, Idaho. An all-magical community with, according to my google searching, a welcoming attitude towards humans.

It’s almost fate, how this all came about. I’d been exploring fae communities around America, wondering if I’d have to switch career paths or move so far from home that I’d barely ever come back, when an older witch named Ismelda working at a small local government contacted me, having found me through my LinkedIn profile, and offered me a job.

A job that promised not only a substantial salary, but the opportunity for me to be able to continue as a project manager while working locally within her community, a community that would not only support my children, but allow them to flourish. And apparently, the project was one that would promote human-fae relations, which I was all about these days. I’d hit ‘reply’ to her email so hard I practically burned a hole in my keyboard.

I’d flown through the interview process, feeling so strongly that this was the exact right thing for me, I’m sure I probably put her off a bit with my enthusiasm. After a video interview with a minotaur, and a few more emails with the lovely witch who promised she knew the boss and would put in a good word for me, I was hired.

I immediately started looking for my new place, and within a month I had my entire home packed up and ready for transfer. My house has just been sold, the new townhouse I found is ready for me to start setting up once the movers arrive, and my first day on the job is hurling towards me at breakneck speed in just a few days. I’ve never been so excited for a fresh start in my life.

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