Page 3 of Pursued By the Orc
My female. My mate.
I knew it with every molecule of my being. She was the one. And I was letting her walk away from me.
My foot dropped, deciding that Iwouldbe following her after all, when the harpy said—in the same squeaky voice, “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”
My eyebrows had to almost be meeting my hairline when I turned to look at her. “Sorry?” I asked, not sure what she was talking about.
She cleared her throat, pointing in the direction that my mate had gone. “Emma isn’t someone you can just talk to and expect to pick her up like you’re at a bar.” Her voice was lower now, much less squeaky.
Emma. My mate’s name is Emma.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I told her, tracking Emma with my gaze, annoyance and impatience bubbling up inside me at not being able to go to her.
“Do you want to date her?” she asked with a sigh, and my eyesjumped back to her, taking in the roll of her eyes. “And if you do, what’re your intentions?”
“I-Intentions?” I sputtered, never having been questioned by a stranger like this in my life.
She narrowed her eyes, looking me up and down while glaring. “I know your type. All hotness, no substance or staying power. Well, I’ll have you know, she’s too good for you,” she told me with vehemence.
“Yes, she is,” I agreed, conversationally. That seemed to stop her in her tirade, and her eyes squinted up at me with suspicion. “But I’d like to get to know her better.”
She studied me for another long moment, and perspiration slid down my back from the effort it took to keep eye contact with her and not look at Emma.
“She’s a good girl,” she told me, folding her feather-tipped arms. “And she has a big heart. If you’re not interested in it and you only care about her looks, you’re barking up the wrong tree, big guy.”
“I’m not,” I told her. “She’s—” I stopped myself from blurting my truth. Emma deserved it before anyone else. “I’d like to get to know her better,” I repeated.
“Hmm.” Her thoughtful tone told me that she wasn’t decided on me yet, but that I was making my case.
“Do you have any recommendations on how I should talk to her?” I asked, rubbing the back of my neck.
That made a huge grin spread across her face. “Why, yes. Yes, I do,” she crowed, moving over to a cubicle. By the time I swung around again to look at my female, she was gone.
I searched the area around us, lifting my head to sniff—to track—but I was stopped by a tap of a talon against my arm. I looked down and found a pen and a notepad being held out to me. I took them, brow furrowed, before looking up at the harpy again.
“I’m Lin, by the way,” she announced.
“Krusk,” I murmured, shaking the hand she had offered.
“You’ll want to take notes,” she told me, tapping the notepad and taking a deep breath before she started speaking again.
It was only a few moments later that I started scribbling furiously on the notepad.
CHAPTER 3
Emma
Iwalked away from where the overly-handsome orc had stopped to talk to Lin.
You’re such an idiot, Emma.
Ofcoursehe hadn’t been interested in me. Lin was a tall, statuesque beauty who would be the perfect match for someone like him. I’d thought on more than one occasion that she was wasted working at the Magickal Bureau when she should have been gracing the pages of magazines.
If the assholes weren’t speciesist against avians.
It was truly unfair that most clothes and fashion was aimed toward humans, who were the majority species. And most other human-like species took the forefront for modelling.
“There’s no place on any billboard for feathers,” Lin had once laughed, much more accepting of the deficiency than I would have been in her place.
