Page 7 of Healed By the Orc

He was a good guy, orc, and he didn’t deserve to get hurt. His mate, that’s what he wanted me to be. The idea was preposterous. Nobody got married after a day, at least, no one sane. They certainly wouldn’t stay together long if they did; it would never work, even if I wasn’t dying.

“That’s far too much heavy thinking this early in the morning,” Blade drawled sleepily. His eyes sparkled with flecks of gold, his lips curling around his ivory tusks. He always seemed happy, even as he said that. Didn’t he know that I was going to take that smile of his when I had to go?

Or would he shrug one of his brawny shoulders and move on? I didn’t believe that. You didn’t make love like he did, and did not have it mean something. “You can tell me, Hannah,” he said, but when I helplessly shook my head, he gave me a solemn nod and rose on his elbow above me. I should have stopped him, but when he kissed me, I melted and clung to him.

Later, we had breakfast, and I knew it was time to leave, only I didn’t want to and I didn’t know how to tell him anything. His eyes were too sharp, too clever. It felt like he already knew too much about me, maybe not my favorite color (green certainly), but the things that mattered, the heart of me. How the hell was that even possible? Why did I find someone with whom I connected that much when I couldn’t have it? It didn’t feel fair.

“You know,” he said conversationally as he strapped his saddlebags onto his hoverbike. “I don’t think I told you what my clan is known for, what we do.” I tilted my head and gave him my best inquisitive look while I continued to nibble on the flaky pastry he’d handed me. Though squashed from being in his bags, it still tasted fantastic.

He smirked; his tusks gleaming in the morning light. His eyes were dark, with no gold flecks this time, but maybe that was just a trick of the bright sunshine. “Ironheart Pharmaceuticals, that’s us. We manufacture and design a very large amount of the medicines available on the market. Most of it from herbs and plants we grow ourselves in special greenhouses.”

He held out his hand to assist me onto the bike, and I gazed at those thick fingers with their rough callouses, gained from honest, hard work. “Does that mean you have a green thumb, Blade?” I asked with a smile, simply because I couldn’t imagine him working in a garden. He was too active, too restless, and it just didn’t jibe with the bad boy image he portrayed.

His green skin glowed with a warm hue as he stood next to me, catching the morning rays. I watched as he grinned and raised both his thumbs, which were literally green, and wiggled them in front of my face. “Nope,” he said, “I’m no gardener. I head up the security department.” Head up he said, which made it sound like he was the boss, but I couldn’t imagine him as the boss type either.

Security? That I could definitely see. He seemed to dislike wearing shirts; maybe his thicker skin meant he didn’t need one to stay warm. But it allowed me an unimpeded view of his beautiful, tattooed, and muscled chest. The black ink dipped lovingly over the curves of his pecs and down along his abs. With only a few leather straps tied around his biceps, and leather pants clinging to his swimmer-trim hips, he made one hell of a sight. My libido firmly reminded me it existed each time I looked at him.

“Alright, no gardening for you,” I said, mildly disappointed when I realized I could suddenly vividly picture him in a pair of dirt-stained coveralls and little else. He shook his head, his mohawk jauntily swaying, and swung his leg over the saddle behind me. Instantly, my body heated. It was his scent, all warm and masculine, and the way he surrounded me and made me feel safe.

We set off slowly, drifting up into the sky so I had all the time in the world to stare at the cozy little cabin with the moss roof, hidden between the branches of a giant tree. It boggled my mind to realize we’d been fifty feet up in the air that entire time, but now it was all too obvious. Then Blade sped up, and we left the little cabin in our wake.

Soon we’d reach those stones, stones that should take me back home. Though Blade had stressed more than once that the stones were fickle and that he’d only rarely heard that they worked. Humans that came here had tried, but if your tie with Earth was not strong enough, nothing would happen. That made me worry, because honestly, except for a distant cousin, I had nobody tying me back home. Would my desire to return be strong enough? After last night, I felt so conflicted…

I sank into silence as I contemplated my options and thought about what I really wanted. I didn’t know. That’s what this boiled down to. If I had all the choices in the world, if I wasn’t sick, I might actually want to stay. It seemed crazy to fall for a guy in just a few days, but if I’d been dealt a better hand, I would totally want to find out if Blade and I could make it work. He made me smile. A girl deserved a guy who made her smile, didn’t she?

A few hours later, Blade silently raised a hand and indicated the stunning view in the distance. “That is Central City, the capital of the planet. We’re about to get to the border of Ironheart land.” It was all the explanation he gave me; I was left to study the silver spires of strange, futuristic buildings on my own. If I squinted, I could see little blips coming and going through the sky, some of them vanishing all the way up into the clouds.

I lost track of the silver city altogether when Blade angled his hoverbike down into the trees. We’d arrived.

Chapter 11

Blade

My sweet little Hannah was quiet as she crossed the mossy ground toward the ring of stones. They stood in a small clearing, partially overgrown, and some had tumbled to the ground. Whatever technology made them work, it was still working, but it wasn’t working right anymore. The idea that she was about to attempt to touch them while she wished to be returned home made my chest ache. What if they did it? What if she vanished before my eyes?

I swallowed roughly and tapped my sternum with a knuckle; I’d follow her of course. I’d try to make those stones work for me as well. As she circled them, I tapped out a quick message to my brother, just to let him know what was going on, and why I might not be returning home. I was not the only one with heavy thoughts, my mate’s shoulders were practically up by her ears. Every line of her body screamed her apprehension, I hoped that meant that I’d changed her mind. That she didn’t want to leave me.

She glanced over her shoulder my way and that look in her eyes hit me like a gut punch. She was asking me for encouragement, for advice. I didn’t think she knew she was doing it, or what it did to my insides, that look. I was an Ironheart orc; we had courage in spades and even more determination. Other clans called us stubborn, and we took great pride in that.

“Go on. Touch them, Hannah,” I said, despite that being the last thing I wanted her to do. She needed this, she needed to find out, and frankly so did I. If the stones did not take her, I’d know that she wanted to stay, at least as much as she desired to leave. She shivered, one hand clutching her warm leather coat more tightly around her, but the other rose toward the stone.

I held my breath as her fingers brushed the stone. She muttered under her breath as she did it, but nothing happened. No change, no whirlwind struck us, no sign of a bolt of lightning. She did not vanish quietly either. Her eyes flicked my way, and she frowned like it was my fault the stones hadn’t done as she wanted. I shrugged, and she tried again, and then again.

At some point, she made me walk deeper into the woods as if it could be my presence that disturbed their ability. I didn’t know if that was true, and I was willing to humor her, only as long as there remained no sign of the overlords and their troops. She had resorted to talking, then shouting, and planting both her fists against their granite surface. But by now, she’d moved on to whispers and quiet prayers.

She was desperate, and I did not like seeing her that way; it made my heart ache to see the first sign of tears. Her desire to leave stopped hurting my ego a while ago, after her fifth attempt or thereabout. She was struggling with something other than my company. This wasn’t about leaving me, or maybe it was, but not in the way you’d first assume.

When her shoulders started shaking, I’d had enough. Though she warned me to stay back, I stalked toward her and swept her in my arms. She pushed with her fists for only a second, and then she relented, sobbing as she clung to my chest. I hated seeing her that way, I wanted to take away her tears and her hurt, but sometimes, you needed to go through it to see the light. Patience was not my strong suit, but for her, I stood my ground and just held her. Only when her sobs turned to quiet tears did I ask the question burning in my mind. “Will you tell me?”

She didn’t need me to explain that question, she knew what I was asking. Her fists opened so she could lay her palms against my chest, and I savored that contact. Her mouth opened a few times. She had trouble admitting it to me, but I was done waiting. With a fingertip, I raised her chin, so she had no choice but to look me in the eye. “I’m dying, okay?” she said, her lower lip trembling, her eyes red from her tears, and red spots riding high on her cheeks. “Cancer, too advanced to do much about. I chose not to treat it because… well, it would only add three miserable months.”

She bit her lip, then yanked her head to twist it out of my grip, but she did not shrug out of my arms, letting her slight body rest against mine. She shuddered, her forehead thumping against my chest and her shoulders slumped, betraying an exhaustion she had tried valiantly to hide before. “No, that’s not okay,” I said to her. “I guess there’s only one thing left to do, be my mate.”

This time, my words yanked her out of her misery and made way for a spark of fire. Anger sizzled in her eyes, her fists balled again and she ripped herself from me to shake one such fist at me. “Are you crazy? I can’t do that to you! You’ve been so nice. All I want to do is go home, not make someone mourn me when I die.” She jerked an accusing finger at the stones. “I have to go home. I can’t stay with you.”

She was like a skittish wild animal when I approached this time, and I had to sidestep twice before I could grab her by the shoulders. Her mutinous look made me grin when I jerked my chin in the direction of the huge capital city. “You did see that city, didn’t you? You were listening when I told you what my clan does? Don’t you think we’ve figured out how to heal what you have? Come home with me, if you still don’t want to be my mate. That’s fine. But I swear you will not die. Not on my watch.”

Her mouth opened in this lovely ‘O’ that made my cock twitch in my pants. I jerked her closer, so she could feel that, and swept my tongue into her mouth. I fed on her gasps and moans, let her release her frustration as our tongues tangled, and when we pulled back, I kissed the tears still clinging to her cheeks. “I’ll take good care of you, Hannah.”