Page 3 of Shared By Two Orcs

But the heavy steps rushing up behind me tell me that I’m not going to get away in time. I pull to a stop just as a heavy hand lands on my shoulder. My body tenses up from the touch, making my skin crawl.

I turn to face the orc who has been following me, moving enough that his hand falls off my shoulder. It was a reach for him anyway, given how I’m several inches taller than the standard orc.

Before me stands another mine overseer with close cropped black hair and a broken left tusk. He lost it in a pickaxe incident years ago.

“Milug.” My eyes roam over his face as I lift my eyebrows. It’s not that I’m not friendly with the orc, but I don’t know what he could need with me.

“I’m so glad I caught you.” He slips his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels as he looks to the left and then back at me. “You’re just coming out of the mines, huh?”

I jerk my head in a harsh nod.And you’re wasting my time,I want to say, but I bite my tongue. The less I engage, the faster this will over. I’m in no mood to talk – though when am I ever? – and I just want to get away.

But Milug doesn’t seem inclined to leave me to my peace.

I huff irritably. “Just get out with it.”

I’m surprised when Milug’s jaw clenches. He’s often a rather optimistic orc – as rare and annoying as that as – but that isn’t to say he’s not an orc through and through. I’ve seen him rip apart prey – animal and orc alike – with his bare hands. I don’t underestimate him like others around the base.

Though most orcs have a struggle with pride, I do not.

“Kalnak has challenged me,” he huffs out, his eyes cutting back to me. In them, I see the fire that he tamps down, one that many forget can easily rise to the surface.

As a fellow overseer, I’ve spent my fair share of time around Milug, not to mention in the training arena. Maybe that’s why it’s so blatant to me that Kalnak has made a grave error.

I snort humorlessly. “For what?”

He puffs his chest out. “Pride. What else?”

His comment insinuates that Milug has somehow threatened Kalnak’s pride, but I don’t push further. I’ve already asked more questions that I should have bothered with.

“What does that have to do with me?”

He runs a hand over his close cropped hair that he shorts with a blade. “I have a shift overseeing the mines that I…forgot about.”

In other words, he couldn’t give less of shit about his boring ass duties of pacing between humans when he could be pounding into another orc’s flesh. For that, I can’t blame him. I’d make the same choice.

“You need me to cover you?” His eyes flick up to me, and I raise an eyebrow, my upper lip curling up into a partial snarl. If he thinks I’m going tooffer, he’s more fucked in the head than I previously thought.

“Yeah,” he finally sighs. “Could you?”

For a brief moment, I almost turn and walk away from him. I’ve just spent hours underground, which is not a place for an orc, especially not one of my stature. It’s not prideful for me to admit that I am large, even by orc size. At this point, after years of ducking under door frames and hitting my head in the fucking tunnels, it’s factual.

But I know what would happen with Milug. Either he’d not supervise the humans in favor of a fight, the more logical outcome, and I’d be forced down there anyway, or an all out brawl would occur when Kalnak shit talked Milug’s honor.

It’s easier to just say, “Yeah.”

He smirks, patting me on the upper arm and gripping me tight. “Thanks, Yamarz. You know how much a challenge means.”

I clear my throat as I shift away from him. What is with this guy and touching me?

“I do.” My head tips back as I look at the sun. I guess this is all the daylight I’ll get for the day. “Better get going then.”

I don’t wait for Milug’s response as I turn around begrudgingly and walk back the way I came. I swing past the canteen to swipe something to eat before I arrive at his section of the mines – one that I have surprisingly never been in in all my years here.

Thinking about it, I have to admit that I prefer my routine. I stick to my tunnels, my workout regime, my daily activities, never deviating if I can help it. It’s easier to structure, to keep surprises from shocking me. After what happened with…

I shake my head, leaving the thoughts on the surface as I descend into the tunnel. The sun’s warmth is immediately blocked, and my skin feels cold and clammy in the stuffy, cramped space beneath the surface.

Huffing, I start my path down the rows of humans chipping away at the rocks. Many orcs scream, trying to intimidate their works into moving faster and producing a higher product.

---