Page 53 of The Orc and the Innkeeper

His words are like a slap in the face, a harsh reminder of the lingering prejudice against humans that still festers within orcish culture. A history of forced exile and oppression have left deep scars, and even now, in a town as progressive as Elderberry Falls, those old wounds still ache.

Ma reaches out to me, her eyes shining with tears. “Even if you don’t think Ygra is right for you, surely we can find you an orc woman who would be a better fit. Someone who shares our values and traditions. Please don’t marry that woman.”

I can see the pain in her eyes, the desperation to cling to the old ways. But I know that I can’t live a lie, can’t pretend to be someone I’m not just to please them.

“I’m not marrying her. It was a fake engagement in order to help secure a distribution deal with a human investor,” I tell Ma.

Relief washes over my parents’ faces. It only fuels my anger.

“But here’s the thing,” I growl, my voice rising with each word, “fake engagement or not, I’ve fallen for Mariah. Hard. And what you did, interfering with Ygra, has fucked everything up. Mariah broke things off with me, and I lost the distribution deal. All because you couldn’t respect my choices.”

My chest heaves with the force of my emotions, and I have to pause to collect myself. I know I’m not entirely blameless here.

“I take responsibility for not having this conversation with you sooner,” I admit, my voice gruff. “In fact, I never should have had a fake engagement to begin with, it was a shitty way of doing business. But that doesn’t excuse what you did.”

“We were only looking out for you, Thorak,” Da interjects, scowling. “The decisions you’ve been making over the past few years—well, they just don’t make any sense.”

I growl at him, my frustration boiling over, years of pent-up resentment spilling out in a torrent of words. “They don’t make sense to you because you haven’t tried to see anything from my perspective. You don’t like that I left the family business to start my own brewery. You don’t approve of me wanting to distribute my brews to human lands. And you can’t stand the thought of me being with a human woman.”

My hands clench into fists at my sides, the muscles in my arms tensing beneath my green skin. Anger courses through my veins, hot and potent, but beneath it all, there’s a deep well of hurt and betrayal.

“But guess what?” I continue. “It’s my life, and I get to make my own choices. And I am done being polite about it for the sake of respecting you when it’s clear you have no respect for me. You say that me being with Mariah would ruin our family? Mariah makes me happier than anything I’ve ever experienced. You are the ones ruining our family.”

Ma is quietly weeping now, her shoulders shaking with each sob. Da remains stone-faced, but I can see the flicker of pain in his eyes, the realization that his actions have driven a wedge between us.

“I love you both,” I say, my voice softening slightly. “But things need to change between us. You have to learn to let me live my own life. And it’s time you rethink your feelings towardshumans. Until you can do that, I think it’s best if we take some space from each other.”

With that, I stride out of my parents’ home, both relief and sadness washing over me. The weight of years of expectations and disapproval lifts from my shoulders, but in its place is a hollow ache, the pain of knowing that I may have just severed the bond with my family.

I slowly make my way home, lost in thought.

I can’t help but wonder if I’ve made the right choice. I hope that Ma and Da will come around eventually, that they’ll accept me for who I am and the choices I’ve made. I hope they’ll learn to be more open-minded about other species, too.

Things are very likely too late for Mariah and me, and I’m going to continue giving her the space she clearly needs. But with all of my truth finally out in the open with my parents, we now have a chance to get to a more honest place as a family.

Suddenly, my phone begins to ring, startling me out of my thoughts.

I pull it from my pocket, my heart pounding as I see Robert’s name on the caller ID.

What could he want?

With a deep breath, I answer the call, steeling myself for whatever comes next.

25

MARIAH

Asprawling skyline of towering skyscrapers looms before me as I inch toward the city where my parents live, stuck in rush-hour traffic on the freeway.

The glass and chrome and congested, car-filled highways are a stark contrast to the quaint, old-fashioned charm of Elderberry Falls. Car horns blare, and someone in a fancy sports car cuts me off in my lane, as if switching from his lane to mine will get him where he’s going any faster.

It’s jarring every time I come back here, even though this is the world I once called home.

Finally, I turn onto my parents’ tree-lined street, the neighborhood both familiar and foreign. The houses here are a patchwork of brick and siding, tidy lawns and chain-link fences. My parents moved here after they left Elderberry Falls, and though it’s not the same human neighborhood where I spent my first few years of life, it’s similar enough to make me nostalgic.

I pull into my parents’ driveway, their old minivan still parked in its usual spot. The front door swings open before I’ve even cut the engine, and there they are.

Mom and Dad. The love and joy to see me on their faces almost makes me start crying then and there, still sitting behind the wheel.

---