AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We watched. We waited.
The sun escaped below the horizon, and guards on the fortress walls lit torches.
When the gate opened once more, we all tensed, even me who did not wish to hunt—ever.
A woman dressed in a blue skirt and lighter blue top stumbled out through the opening.
The gate banged shut behind her, and like so many others had in the past—poor frightened creatures that they were—she turned and threw herself at the solid panel.
“Please.” Even with the distance between us, I could hear her sobs. “Lyneth. Please let me see Lyneth!”
There was something about her voice . . .
My Azuris Clan pendant, a metal disc made up of swirls coming to spikes that represented waves and bound on a strip of leather around my neck, flared before dimming.
Around me, soft groans of dismay rang out. A few males leaped off the branches and jogged toward the clearing where we’d left our voxes.
“No running for the rest of us tonight,” one male said.
“Or rutting,” added Viskeete, cupping his groin.
Madr’s unusual green eyes echoed their disappointment, but a grin rose on his chiseled face as he smacked my shoulder. “I’m happy for you. Go claim her, brother.”
He wasn’t upset—not too much. A flaring clan pendant meant your fate had been chosen. No one denied the call.
Just like with all orc males throughout the kingdom, we had few chances to mate with anyone but a human. Ten years ago, while we battled dresalods on the seashore, some slipped past our defenses and clattered through our city. They found our women hiding in the central compound. Sweeping through it, they killed most of them, my mother and Madr’s among them.
To our utter horror, the dresalodsripped through those hiding. We slayed all the attackers, but there was no denying the devastation they’d wrought. Our funeral pyres had scorched the air for almost a week, and the mourning cries echoed in my city to this day.
Our species would die out unless we planted orclings in other females. That was when our gazes turned to the human village being decimated by the land creatures called shaydes.
Per our agreement, we protected the fortress from the shaydes, and they gifted us with two females each year.
“Bring her by the palace to introduce her to me,” Madr said with a tusk-filled grin. “In a month or so, when your heat for her has begun to wane.”
“Mine never would,” another orc said with a snort. “It’s said when the fates choose your mate, she’ll love you—and ache for you—forever. I’d like some of that.”
“As would we all,” Madr said ruefully.
“Go,” someone shouted at the woman from the top of the wall, drawing my attention that way. “Do your duty to your people!”
When the male threw a bag down at her and it hit her shoulder, a snarl ripped up my throat.
“Lyneth,” she cried plaintively before pivoting to face the forest. With the bag clutched in her hand, she stumbled away from the wall, crossing the big open plain. Her nearly white hair streamed behind her, and moonlight gleamed on her medium-toned skin.
“Lovely,” Madr said in awe. “The fates have been kind to you, Jaus.”
That would be a first.
When the woman stepped onto the narrow forest trail, she lifted her skirts and bolted, running beneath where we perched in the trees high above.
She disappeared into the dense brush.
“Aren’t you going after her?” Madr turned my way with his eyes wide with amazement. “She’s yours. You must claim her.”
So said the fates.
“I don’t wish for a mate,” I growled with a snap of my tusks. “I’m too busy commanding the army.”
