Page 51 of My Orc Contract Husband
Emmy might be half-orc, but she’d found a place here, accepted by humans. So had Aswan, and Sakkara, and Cairo, and Luxor, and Akhmim, and Abydos’s brothers Memnon and Simbel. And now…I’d found my place as well.
It wasn’t how I imagined it. I’d planned on buying property, building my workshop, settling down. I would miss Abydos if he stayed in Bramblewood, but here on Eastshore, I had a future.
Do you? That contract was for a year and a day.
Montgomery hadn’t shown up yet, and each day that passed made me wonder if he would. But the thought of walking away from Sami next summer already made my stomach churn with dread.
The realization came slowly, but I straightened as it settled in my chest.
“Tark?” Aswan asked.
Dazed, I stared out the window. “I think I love her.” MyKteerpurred, and Iknewthis was right. This was true.
My friend smiled. “Yeah, Tova’s pretty wonderful.” He turned back to the window. “All the kids are, even Emmy. I’m a lucky male.”
He’d misunderstood my blurted confession. My lips curled. “You are, but I meant Sami.”
Aswan’s brows shot up as he swung on me. “Sami?” But as he studied me, his slow grin grew as well. “Youdolove her. You found your Mate.”
Mate?
It hadn’t been a question, but I shook my head. “Giza used to say that Mates are chosen by the gods. I can’t force Sami to be my Mate just by marrying her first.”
Although, in that moment, hearing the wordsSamiandMatein the same sentence, I knew a longing I’d onlypreviously imagined. MyKteerthrummed restlessly, and that strange itchiness crawled across my limbs. I wanted Sami to be my Mate, but wishing wasn’t going to make it so, and the irritation at that realization was enough to make me howl.
Still, Aswan merely shrugged, that knowing smile on his lips. “You’re all itchy and irritable about it, yeah? Go talk to Giza about it, he’ll know.”
Ridiculously, I swung about, as if I could see Giza’s home—he lived near the bakery on Main Street—from where I stood. And Aswan chuckled again.
“Youdohave it bad,T’mak,” he murmured, clapping me on the shoulder. “Tomorrow afternoon he and Harper are bringing Raina to the Sunflower Maze with us.”
“Us?” I parroted stupidly, my mind still stuttering from his casual observation.
“Hannah and I are taking the kids—I think Sakkara and Nikki are coming too. Have you heard about the maze?”
I just stared, my half-drunk smoothie in my hand, trying to make sense of his words.
His teasing smile told me he knew this. “A farmer—apparently one of the ones who supplies the market on Saturday morning—planted an acre of sunflowers and then cut out a maze? Or something like that. Hannah says there will be food trucks and local goods. Tova is mainly going for the cotton candy.”
Well, Iwasa sucker for cotton candy.
Was Sami free? Would she want to go with me? Withus?
Here was a prime example of what I’d been obsessing over before: humans and orcs living and playing together. Accepting one another in a peaceful place. Humans and orcsMated, with kitlings, both biologically their own and adopted.
I imagined myself one day bringing foster children of my own to an event like the Sunflower Maze, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else at my side but Sami. Was this a futile dream? Was our marriage set to dissolve in eleven short months?
Or could I convince her that we could have a future together?
You are worthy of pleasure, Tarkhan. You deserve happiness.
Last night, she’d broken me, emptied me…and then began to fill me back up again. How could I explain to her that my own chance of that happiness, that pleasure…was with her?
Chapter Twelve
Sami
“You kids really don’t mindme tagging along?” Aunt Sharon asked from the back seat of Tarkhan’s huge truck.
