Page 2 of His Orc Lady

One

The numbers in the ledger dance before my eyes. I stare blearily at the receipts, trying to check Jasmine’s work. I’ve been doing this regularly for several weeks now, but with how diligent she is, I don’t see the point anymore.

She’s been working for me most days, turning up early in the morning and never missing a thing. I told her she needed to shadow me for a while before I could pass some of my day-to-day tasks to her, and I thought it would take her months to get used to it, but before she arrived at the Hill and met her mates, she used to help her father run his inn in a village just across the border with the human kingdom. She’s smart and pays attention to details, always on time, and better than me at balancing the books.

I thought it would be hard for me to admit that—I’ve been doing this on my own for so long, it has become routine—but having someone else run the receipts has been a blessing.

I’d tried to recruit other helpers over the years, but there were so many more urgent tasks at the Hill. Orcs were needed to hunt, guard, and cook for the clan, to teach the children and to trade with the human lands. I was content to stay at the Hill, so I was the perfect choice for this task.

And it made me useful to the king, my ability to keep this massive anthill of a palace running smoothly. I’ve proven myself to him time and time again.

So I’d balanced the books and did sums every time the clan bought, sold, or traded something, hounding Ozork and his men for receipts and reports from the city.

Now all of those tasks will fall to Jasmine, though I’ll be there to lend a hand if she’ll need it. In time, we’ll train someone else to help her so she’ll be able to take time off work to have a baby if she wants.

At the thought of how happy she’s been to settle in with her mates, Morg and Torren, a twinge of the old jealousy flares up, a sensation so similar to heartburn, I swallow instinctively to push down the pain.

In recent years, I’ve watched so many of my friends find their mates—and happiness. One by one, they’d been struck by that sudden recognition as they smelled the one person they couldn’t live without.

Unbidden, the image of the human captain pops up in my mind. The memory of his scent, a mix of anise and cedar with a hint of leather, has been torturing me for weeks, but it was just that—a memory. The man arrived at the Hill to deliver a letter to my cousin, then left again less than an hour after my embarrassing accident. He was unaffected by me, so I have no idea why my thoughts keep returning to him.

He couldn’t possibly be my mate. The Fates wouldn’t be so cruel as to bring together two souls so wholly unsuited to each other.

I slam the ledger shut and wrench my mind off the infuriating human. I have better things to do than pine after a phantom of a man, a memory that’s becoming hazier with each passing day.

My stomach twists unpleasantly as another part of me reminds me that I’m fooling myself.

The Fates are never wrong.

It’s a saying I’ve been told ever since I was little. My parents, different as they were, belonged to each other so completely, one was lost without the other. And I’ve seen it with every one of my clansmen who fell in love—their instant, undying devotion to their mates.

But the human captain cannot be my mate. It would be the most ruinous, unsuitable match, for he is a human and lives in the south, where he likely has a family and all his friends, and I’m a mountain-dwelling orc.

Dawn has hinted that she wants to talk about him, but I’ve shut down all her attempts until she finally gave up. I couldn’t bear her disappointed expression, so I’ve been avoiding her lately. I don’t think she has noticed, given how busy she’s been with her firstborn, Arvel, but it’s never a good thing to be at odds with the queen. Gorvor might be my cousin, but I don’t harbor any illusions as to who he would choose if it came down to it. His human queen is so much more important to him than I am.

As Jasmine proved, Iamreplaceable. One task at a time, others could learn to do everything I know, and I would no longer have a place at the Hill.

A shudder goes through me, and I try to chase away the insidious thoughts. I know I’ll always have a place here, I do. Gorvor wouldn’t throw me out of the Hill just because I don’t want to speak to Dawn—that would be ridiculous.

But I’m afraid of what would happen if word got out that I’d scented my mate and did nothing to claim him.

So many orcs have been waiting for years—or decades, in Ozork’s case—to find their match, without success. Some would say that Gorvor cut our chances of finding happiness in halfwhen he led us away from the old clan, leaving behind so many who wouldn’t abandon the despotic King Trak.

But he’dsavedso many of us.

So when he found his human mate, I was so incredibly happy for him.

He saw Dawn, smelled her, andknew. She’d been terrified, a human alone in the orc lands, yet she’d come to trust him completely. He did everything he could to keep her, to make sure she stayed, and so did all the other orcs who were lucky enough to find their mates.

Apart from me.

I’d let the captain leave while I hid away in my rooms, sobbing and ripping off my food-splattered dress. I couldn’t believe the Fates had played such a dirty trick on me.

It had taken me too long to pull myself together, to change into a fresh dress, braid my messy hair, and make myself presentable again, but I did—and found him gone. Dawn had tried to tell me that hewouldreturn, but she was wrong. He’d left without so much as a backward glance, and I was never going to see him again.

Humans don’t form bonds as strongly as we do, after all. He only saw a clumsy orc woman who ran away.He returned to the human lands and will never know there’s an orc in the underground palace who’s been thinking of him every day since he left.

“Which makes me more than a little pathetic,” I mutter, standing to put away the ledger. I shove it into its slot on my shelf and wipe my fingers with a damp rag, trying to clean the black ink stains from the tips.

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