Page 66 of That’s My Orc, Tusk Off

I opened it.

Rue stepped inside, and Mandy removed the collar and leash, stepping back.

The moment the gate closed, Fern’s flowers rippled, gray turning pale lavender. Pale lavender turned to deeper purple sprinkled with pink and yellow.

Rue’s went from coral pink to brilliant salmon.

They didn’t make a sound, but they didn’t need to.

Traig and I stood out front as the family drove away. When they were gone, he pulled out his tablet and typed.

After a moment, he turned the screen toward me.

He’d added bonded pair to both files and changed the adoption status to must be placed together. He’d also added a note: Behavioral bond confirmed by observation and response to stress. Separation not recommended under any circumstances. Assessment credit: Willa Enford.

Pressure pushed up beneath my ribs.

“You didn’t have to add my name,” I said.

“Yes, I did. You saw what I couldn’t, and that matters. You matter.”

We went back inside the building together, a team.

Traig set his tablet on the reception desk and picked up the cookie container now empty except for crumbs.

He opened it anyway, staring at the bottom.

“I’ll make more,” I said.

His gaze lifted. “You will?”

“If you want.”

“I want.”

The way he said it made me forget we were talking about cookies.

CHAPTER TWELVE

TRAIG

My cottage was dark when I finally made my way home. I didn’t turn on the lights.

The letter sat in my jacket pocket. I’d been carrying it around all day. Through the adoption meeting and lunch with Willa in the break room. While watching her drive away, I stood in the gravel lot, unable to leave until her taillights disappeared around the bend.

I pulled it out and set it on the kitchen table.

The wax seal gleamed dull red in the moonlight coming through the window. My family’s crest pressed into it. Three mountain peaks above a horizontal line representing the Cassarian Sea.

I sat down in my usual chair.

The seal cracked when I broke it, pieces of wax falling onto the table like drops of blood.

The paper inside felt thick, expensive, and from a glance, I could see the script was formal. Written by a scribe, not my parents. They wouldn’t waste their time writing to me themselves.

Traig Valtresh of the House of Valtresh,

By decree of the Ancestral Council and in accordance with the Pact of Surface Integration, all single-orclings residing beyond family outposts are required to demonstrate Domestic Excellence, proof of a stable, permanent mating bond, within three years of relocation.