Page 33 of Summoning the Orc

Awed, I prodded the box. “Sing for me,” I demanded.

Rudgar snorted out a laugh and then fiddled with the box until it started singing a lullaby in Orcish that I hadn’t heard since my mother was alive.

“You sing so well,” I told it, trying not to break down in tears infront of this male and the box. “Do you know any others?”

Rudgar did something else with it and it started another song in Orcish. This one a bawdy celebration song that I’d heard at a wedding. The shift from one extreme to the other made me laugh.

“I want one,” I told Rudgar. “How do I capture one?”

“I’ll get one for you,” he told me, slapping my shoulder as the box went silent. “I’ll have it delivered today and then tomorrow we can work on how you use it. It’ll help, because you’re going to start working with me.”

I tilted my head at him, “When?”

It would help to be able to earn more coins to start my hoard again. Even if I couldn’t go back to my cave, I wanted to be able to provide for my female and any young we had together. This was the perfect opportunity.

“I can introduce you to everyone today. I’m working on getting some paperwork done for you,” he told me, leaning over the shiny stone slab in the center of the room and poking at the fruit before typing again on the little box in his hands. “I’ll get everything set up by the end of the week for sure. And I can have more food delivered today as well.”

“How much coin do I need to earn for all of that?” I asked him, brow furrowed.

His eyebrows swung up and he shook his head. “Your coin is your own, Rok. Dristan is working on converting it to dollars for you.”

“Dollars?” I asked, having heard him say something similar before but not knowing what it meant.

“It’s the currency here,” he said, pulling something from his pants. He opened the leather holder and pulled a slip of paper from it, holding it out to me. I looked at him, then the flimsy paper before taking it. I held it between my fingers with caution, worried that I would tear it.

“Is this dollars?” I asked, holding it up.

“It’s one hundred dollars, to be specific,” he replied with a snort. “And you’ll have more than enough once Dristan gets you set up. You don’t have to work ever again either, if you don’t want to. I just figured you were like me. I can’t stay at home without a purpose,” he said that with a shrug.

“Why wouldn’t there be a purpose?” I asked. “I’d want to stay at home when my young are born and when my mate needs me, but why would I be at home other than that?”

“Exactly,” Rudgar laughed. “If I had to twiddle my thumbs, I’d lose my mind.”

I glanced down at his thumbs before narrowing my eyes on him. “You are… very strange.”

Rudgar boomed out a laugh. “I suppose,” he agreed, slapping me across my back. “So let me take you to my place to set you up with some clothes first.”

He made his way across the room toward the door, and I followed him. He gave me a demonstration on opening the door with thekeyhe was giving me. Once again, it didn’t look like any kind of key I knew, but the strange magic of this realm had its purposes.

“My company installed all the locks and cameras in this building,” he said, “and this is where you’ll be based. I want you close to home in case anyone comes snooping around. With Dristan having a mate and then Becca moving in,” he said with a sigh and shake of his head, “we can’t take any chances. We need it to be safe here. So I’m leaving that to you.”

I nodded in agreement. I wouldn’t entrust the safety of my mate to anyone else and I was moved to hear that Dristan was entrusting me with Penelope’s as well.

“Thank you for this,” I told Rudgar in a gruff voice. “I’ll never let anything harm them.”

Rudgar nodded with a smile, making his way to the cursedtransportation device in the wall. I skidded to a halt, shaking my head, pointing at it. “Notthat,” I accused, sneering at it. The foul beast was a metal monstrosity that I didn’t trust for one second.

“It’s an elevator,” Rudgar said with a grin.

“It’s a death trap,” I corrected, tipping my chin up. “And I hate it.”

Rudgar’s grin grew. “How about I show you how it works on the way to your office? It’s going to be a big day of learning. I hope you’re up to it.”

“Of course I am,” I huffed out a breath, taking a cautious step towards theelevator.

I rolled my head on my shoulders as I rode in the death-trap that was called an elevator. I was a fast learner, and I picked things up with ease, but I knew that some of the things that Rudgar had shown me today would take some getting used to.

There was another magic box that showed the views of different areas of the building that Rudgar called acomputer,and he’d assigned a team to me. I was going to meet them later, but first, I wanted to go meet my Becca. I’d spotted her entering the building and I wanted to be the first person she saw when she got home.

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