Page 30 of Orc's Pretend Mate

The pounding comes so hard that I jump, jerking myself out of the dark spiral my thoughts are trying to follow.

I’m not putting myself on display. I have to do… something.

The only question is what. What can I do? Desperation brings a sense of overwhelm. As if the entire world is trying to swallow me whole. Hope becomes a distant fading light as I begin to sink below the waves of despair.

No.

I hear the bar on the door sliding. Still moving slowly, but this is it. There is no more time for indecision. One final glance around the room and finding nothing, I let go of my death grip on the fabric of my shirt. It falls open, my tits hanging in the open seam, right there for anyone to get an eyeful.

I’ve always been self-conscious. My tits were never as nice as the other girls I bunked with. A little too big, too saggy, not shaped as nicely. My stomach is far from flat too. Another ding againstmy genetic worthiness. All of which Todd took advantage of in the most clever, diabolical of—No!

Todd is dead. He didn’t survive the crash, and not to be hateful, but he doesn’t matter. Worrying about him, what he did, or what happened between us will get me absolutely nowhere.

Vapas doesn’t care. The way he looks at me…

Warmth suffuses my skin, chasing away the doubts and fears. Undermining uncertainty because it’s true. The way he was looking at me, the passion in his kisses, the way he came when we were in the marketplace, he likes me the way I am. Not some idealized version of myself.

And I love him for that.

Vapas speaks, making me jump yet again. The door is open. Whomever it is down there, they are in the house. I hear them coming in. Loud. Insistent. Terrifying.

Grabbing the bottom seam of both sides of my shirt I pull them tight together, crisscross and tie them up. There is no mirror to look at myself but I can see well enough and hate every single inch of it but I’m out of options.

My shirt is now a mid-riff leaving the soft bulge of my stomach exposed but most men won’t notice that because their attention is mostly going to be on the cleavage that is on full and very, very uncomfortable display.

There is yelling below, all in the Urr’ki language. No matter the rough, coarse nature of the language itself there is no mistaking that the conversation is heated. My stomach roils, twisting and untwisting itself into knots over and over.

I ball my hands into tight fists, then slowly force them to relax. Concentrating on my breathing, trying to keep it slow and steady, I wait. There is nothing else I can do. Eyes darting around in the vain hope of finding a weapon. A gun would be so nice right now.

As if I’d know what to do with a gun. We didn’t have them on the ship. Only the armed forces carried guns, or so I assumed. I never saw them with one either. All I know about guns I learned from old Earth vids. Apparently they were quite common and popular at some point in the long and mostly sordid history of humanity.

Maybe this is what the human race deserves. Crashing onto a planet that makes the brutality we’ve created look like child’s play. A universal, karmic level of ‘hold my beer’.

“Phoebe, please come down,” Vapas calls.

20

VAPAS

The two Maulavi glare, impatiently waiting. I affect a calm exterior that is far from what I am feeling. They shift their heavy gazes around my home with imperious judgment. A growl slips free before I can stop it and one of them locks his eyes onto me.

“Something you want to say?” he asks.

This one speaks softly, unlike his partner. He is, by far, the more dangerous of the two. As with many of the Maulavi they are not physically imposing. I am certain in a fight I could take both of them, but it’s not them that would be the problem. There are too many of them. The Shaman has too many allies among the people even beyond the number of Maulavi who are all in on his visions of doom and destruction.

“Nothing,” I grunt.

I hear her as she steps onto the stairs. My heart beats faster knowing she is approaching and worse knowing the danger she is walking into. All without even considering what I almost did to her.

She was willing. I did not force it.

Does it matter? It is still a betrayal of her trust. I gave my word. Not only to her, but to my dragoste.

She would want me to live, not waste what time I have left in this world before we find one another again in the next.

“Hurry up!” the loud Maulavi barks.

“She does not speak our language,” I point out.

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