Page 3 of Loved By the Orc

Of course, I didn’t know any of that. I just knew I was desperate to get away from the office and from Mr. Price and his cruel comments and arbitrary rules that reminded me so much of my abusive past. So I missed all the details like the gorgeous Fall foliage and the quaint shops lining Main Street.

My eyes were blurry with tears as I came running through the doorway which had magically appeared in place of the ladies room door back home. So blurred, in fact, that I ran right into someone as soon as I came through.

That someone was Tark and it was like running into a brick wall. I mean that literally—I bonked my head on his chest plate (he wasdressed in traditional Orc armor for a festival that day)—and fell on my ass right in front of him.

“Ouch!” I cried, my hand flying to my head, which was already throbbing. Had I run into a wall? But there had never been a wall right inside the ladies room before!

“Fuck! I’m so sorry—are you all right?” an inhumanly deep voice rumbled.

An enormous figure was suddenly looming over me. An enormousgreenfigure with glowing golden eyes and wild black hair that spilled around his broad shoulders. He hadfangs,too—(I later learned these were tusks)—and he was absolutelyhuge.

I was at a serious disadvantage—disoriented and with my head still ringing from the abrupt blow I’d taken from his armor. Also, I had never been into fantasy much, so I didn’t even know what the Creature looming over me was. To me, he just looked like a monster. I was so overwhelmed that when he leaned over me, trying to get a better look at the mark on my head, that I tried to scramble away.

“Hey, no, Babygirl!” Tark rumbled. Reaching for me, he scooped me into his arms.

“What are you doing? Put me down!” I gasped, struggling to get free.

But he wasn’t letting me go. His arms tightened gently but firmly around me.

“I don’t think so—not until I see how hurt you are.”

He rose, lifting me to an immense height, and peered anxiously into my face.

At that point, it was all just too much. I felt like I had stepped from one nightmare—my boss’s office—and into another one—whatever the hellthiswas. My brain overloaded like a computer that’s been asked to run too many programs at once and I fainted.

The last thing I remember was seeing Tark’s golden eyes staring into mine…and then everything went black.

2

HARMONY

When I woke up, I was in a dim room and for some reason I was lying almost horizontal instead of sitting up. Something hard and warm was pressed against my left side but I couldn’t see it clearly—the room was too dark and my vision was blurry.

“What…where am I?” I blinked and tried to look around, which made my head ache. “Ohhhh,” I moaned, clutching at it. “What’s wrong with me?”

“You ran into me and bumped your head,” a deep, rumbling voice informed me. “Then you blacked out.”

“What…? Who…?” I peered up towards the source of the voice and saw two golden eyes looking down into mine. “Oh my God—who are you?” I demanded, my voice coming out in a gasp.

“My name is Tark—I’m a Creature—an Orc,” he rumbled. “Please don’t be afraid—I would never hurt you. It’s just that all you humans are so small and breakable!”

“Breakable?” I didn’t know what to think about that but I had other questions. “An Orc? Like…from the Lord of the Rings?”

I wasn’t much into fantasy, as I said, but a friend of mine from college had gotten me to watch several of the movies with her. The guyleaning over me didn’t really look like the Orcs from the popular franchise, though. He wasn’t covered in oily goop for one thing and his face wasn’t all misshapen and weird for another.

In fact, aside from the tusks, the glowing golden eyes, and his green skin, he looked like a normal, handsome guy. Well, if a normal guy was over eight feet tall and extremely muscular, that was. Also, he smelled really good—a kind of woodsy, spicy, masculine scent that drew me to him almost against my will. I was pretty sure the ugly baddies from the LOTR movies didn’t smell likethat.

Tark frowned at my words.

“I’ve heard of those movies but I haven’t seen them. They don’t paint my people in a very good light, I don’t think.”

Oh my God, had I just offended him? Were the Orcs in the Lord of the Rings like some kind of racist caricatures of his people? I immediately felt bad and guilty.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that you’re the first Orc I’ve ever met, er, in person,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“No offense taken,” he said mildly. “I hadn’t met many humans either—until I moved to Hidden Hollow.”

“Hidden Hollow?” I asked and put a hand to my head again. “Ow! Is that what this place is called?”

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