Page 24 of His Orc Warrior

And I was going to change that tonight.

Maybe it was a human thing, and I was getting all weird about it, but I wanted it to be special. Likestorybook, woo the pants off of him, make him teary-eyedspecial, and I had a plan to do exactly that.

I went to the store, grabbed some supplies—including something I had custom-ordered—and went home to set up the perfect date night.

Or at least, the perfect date night for us.

I had a lasagna in the oven and had turned the living room into the perfect spot for Go Fish. I was recreating our first date, which was probably silly, considering it wasn’t that long ago. But I thought it would be fun and the ideal time to share my feelings.

And the perfect way to give him his gift, the one I saw and had to order, while I told him I loved him for the first time.

He came over at our normal time, and of course, the first one to greet him was Bolg. If that little furry ball of adorableness had his way, it would be all Thrain, all the time. And with a dog as fabulous as he was, I didn’t even mind that I was playing second fiddle, once again.

It was absolutely adorable watching how much my scaredy cat of a dog was all about my huge green mate.

“I missed you.” I pulled Thrain down for a long kiss once Bolg let him have a moment’s peace. “So very much.”

“I’ve only been gone a handful of hours.” He wrapped his arms around me.

“Yes. Hours. Not minutes. Hours.” As if logic had any place here.

I thought the need to be around him would lessen over time, but it hadn’t. I still preferred to be with him every second of every day. Not that that was ever an option. But if it became one? I was there for it.

“What smells so delicious?”

“I made some lasagna. And I thought maybe we could stay in tonight.” We stayed in a lot, partly for the dog and partly because I was a homebody.

His brow lifted in curiosity.

“I picked up a new game.”

That piqued his interest.

“It’s on the coffee table.”

I knew the second he saw it, because he barked out a laugh so fast. “How did you find orc-themed Go Fish?”

I smirked. “I have my ways.” And by ways, I meant that I got every orc-themed pop-up ever, and one of them mentioned this new release.

“Sexy ways?” He squeezed my hands.

“Very sexy ways.” If sexy ways were googling recipes.

We ate dinner, and, of course, I gave him a couple of bites of mine. How could I not when he responded so viscerally from the simple act?

And then, as we sat down to play cards, I took out the gift box I’d hidden behind the couch and set it on top of the deck.

“I got these for us.”

He tilted his head.

“You got these for us?”

“Yeah. I know mating is deeper than marriage and all of that. But I saw some of this artist’s work on social media, and I thought… Well, it reminded me of you.”

He opened the box, and inside were two rings. There was nothing innately special about giving someone a ring, especially when they were already mated. But these rings were special. They looked almost identical to the bracelet he wore.

His lips parted. “How did you—”

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