Page 53 of Secret Twins for the Orc

Nerves? Am I nervous?

I scoff and bang on her door loudly, shifting the bag of groceries in my hand. I’m an orc, I come from a long line of warriors, and I am absolutely not nervous to see a woman I only just had a coffee with a few minutes ago. No matter how that coffee date went.

Ella opens the door, looking flustered as she holds her wailing little girl in one arm and a ladle in the other, kicking the door open further with her foot. “Hey, Rho, could you just…”

She dumps the little one in my arms and rushes back to the kitchen, and I blink down at her scrunched, chubby face.

“Hungry,” she wails, pushing her tiny fists against my chest as if she could brute-force her way out of my arms. “Mamma!”

Fat tears roll down her plump, green cheeks, which are beginning to redden with the effort of her cries.

“Uh…” I step inside and kick the door shut behind me, and have no idea what to do next.

“Hungry!”

“Ro, baby, come into the kitchen!” Ella calls out, and I feel my brows raise into my hairline as my stomach does an odd flip-flop. Rho, baby? “Come and eat with your sister.”

The fluttering immediately drops straight to the pit of my gut in disappointment. Huh. Apparently, I quite like the idea of her calling me ‘baby’. I watch as the boy waddles out of a room to my left and makes his way to the kitchen.

But then another thought slides through my brain, one I don’t quite know how to process, as his name registers in my mind.

The little one in my arm wails louder, wriggling so intensely that she nearly slips out, and I clear my throat and stride after…Ro.

“Uh, where do you want her?” I ask Ella, putting the plastic bag I carry on the far edge of the counter and wrapping both my arms around the wriggling toddler, who immediately tries to do a screaming back-bend over my forearms without the slightest fear of dropping headfirst to the cold hard ground.

“Get them both in their highchairs if you can, please!”

Ro is standing placidly beside one of the chairs, staring up at me with huge, curious dark eyes as he waits his turn, but try as I might the girl absolutely will not allow me to get her into her own seat.

I feel a frown form, frustrated at myself that I can’t do something so simple. “I don’t understand,” I mutter gruffly, as she kicks desperately away from the highchair. “Isn’t this what you want? Aren’t you hungry?”

“Mamma,” she wails, and it’s now the only word coming out of her. “Mamma!”

“I’m sorry, baby, I’m coming.” Ella hurries to the table with two plastic bowls of pasta, popping them down before gently prying the girl from my arms, who immediately turns to bury her face in her mother’s neck. Ella throws me an apologetic look and gestures towards Ro as she soothes the girl. Feeling extremely flustered, I turn and eye him.

“Do you, uh…” I huff through my nose as we stare at each other. How am I already screwing this up? “I’m going to put you in your chair,” I snap, although I don’t mean to. I’m frustrated at myself, not him.

But he doesn’t seem at all fazed as he gazes at me, and when he lifts both his arms up, I grunt.

He’s so light when I lift him, so delicate and small in my arms, it makes my chest tighten for some reason.

Ella is still trying to sooth the crying girl, so after I get Ro in his chair, I sit awkwardly and pick up his bowl. There’s chopped spaghetti and Bolognese sauce mixed inside, and a small spoon poking out the side.

I look between the boy, and the bowl dwarfed between my fingers.

“Can you…feed yourself?” I ask as I pop it in front of him, and then wonder if he even understands me. How much does an eighteen-month-old know? Should I feed him? Should I just wait for Ella?

Ro’s dark eyes are keen as he looks at me, but he doesn’t say anything, the complete opposite of his sister who I can now hear muttering nonsensically to her mother. He just lifts up his spaghetti, stretches his mouth as wide as it will go, and carefully directs his unsteady spoon into his mouth. Or at least he tries to, although he hits his tooth and drops half his cargo on the first go.

My lips stretch in a smile, I absolutely can’t help it. My son is just…

A shiver runs through me, and I can’t even finish that thought in my own head, it still barely even feels real. I have a son.

And a daughter with a warrior’s set of lungs, apparently.

I gently take the cutlery from him as he smears sauce all across his cheek while he chews, and he just gazes at me with his gigantic eyes, watching what I’ll do next. I wipe his cheek with a napkin, and when I scoop up another spoonful and move it towards him, he opens his mouth as wide as it will go again, and waits.

My heart feels warm as I feed him. I want to do this every night.

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