Page 28 of Claimed By The Orc

“Well your job for starters would be nice. Mike, the part-timer called you and you ignored him.”

Sheriff Johnson sighed heavily. “Tanner, c’mon now. I can’t be showin’ up to the store every time a customer gives y’all a hard time.”

I squeezed the steering wheel, tempted to swing over to the station and have this conversation in person. But, I had a family to feed and I couldn’t do that if I caught charges for assaulting a police officer.

“No…but when they start destroying the store, refuse to leave, and are threatening the employees? Oh, and probably under the influence? I think that might warrant a visit, don’t you?”

“You don’t think you’re exaggerating a little?”

By then, we pulled up. “I just got here. I’d be happy to send you a video if you’d like.”

The sheriff grumbled a few more things under his breath, but finally relented. “Fine, I’ll send a car out.” Which meant either him or Marcy. The police presence in this place wasn’t exactly booming. The forest had its own set of rangers, but they didn’t deal with anything outside of it.

“Thank you,” I replied with as much sarcasm as I could muster. I hung up to go inside. I had no intention of waiting for that asshole and leaving Mike alone inside.

I hadn’t bothered parking in a spot and had pulled directly up to the front door. I hopped out, Mahk immediately at my back. I didn’t need to be inside to already know this was a fucking mess. I could hear the screaming and the thunderous bangs of shelves hitting the floor.

What the fuck had happened? I’d had to deal with asshole tourists before, but this was extreme. Mahk’s eyes flashed and his fingers opened and closed at his sides. He was fighting the urge to grab his blades, and I almost told him to go ahead and do it. What were these fuckers doing?

Straightening my shoulders, I pushed the door open, ready for fucking war. “What the fuck is happening in here?” I barked as soon as the glass door closed behind Mahk.

The woman, who was literally standing in the middle of the store and screeching in an octave so high, she rivaled Mariah Carey, stopped suddenly after the words left my mouth. Her chest was heaving like she was exhausted, which I guessed made sense. Screaming like that sounded like hard work.

A man who had been pounding on the door to the back room paused and his head snapped to me. He stalked forward, and I immediately confirmed Mike’s suspicions. They were high as shit. Two other guys were tearing up the store and another woman who seemed the calmest. She was sitting on the counter, sucking on a lollipop, and watching her jackass friends.

“You. Are you the manager here?” He got right in my face and jammed a finger into my chest. Mahk rumbled behind me, and I blindly reached for his hand before he orced out and killed every one of these fuckers.

I pushed his hand away and stared him down. “Do not touch me.”

He scoffed. “I should do way more than that. What kind of establishment are you running?”

Was this asshole for real? It was a gas station for fuck’s sake. I didn’t get to respond before Mahk was in front of me, growling at the asshole, one of his—thankfully less ornate—blades in his hand. It always fascinated me how they were hidden until he needed them. I called it his Mary Poppins magic.

At first, the guy smirked as he gave Mahk a scathing once-over. I got it. In this form, he was smaller than the asshole customer in this form, and in his highlighter colored, mismatched clothes, it wasn’t incredibly intimidating. .

“You need your little boyfriend to protect you?” The fucker sneered at me.

“No, he doesn’t,” Mahk snapped, his voice deeper than usual. It went right to my cock. “But you touched and threatened what’s mine, and I cannot allow that to stand.”

Fuck, what was it about his formal, medieval ass phrasing that got to me so much? And yeah, the protector thing was kind of hot. I wasn’t afraid of these assholes, and I definitely could handle my own, but everyone wanted to be defended sometimes, right?

I squeezed Mahk’s shoulder in warning. As sexy as it would be to get a firsthand demonstration of his knife skills, I was well aware of the audience we had. All the fucker’s friends had stopped trying to destroy the place and now formed a semicircle behind him—except the girl with the lollipop. She was still chilling on the counter. Not to mention Mike, who I guessed was still locked in the back room.

Mahk’s shoulders shook, but the knife stayed at his side, his grip loose and relaxed. Was that a good thing? I had a vision of him throwing it across the room and lodging in one of these sorry asshole’s throats. What did it say about me that the thought didn’t bother me much?

The guy was high and apparently had no sense of self-preservation. It didn’t matter what Mahk looked like on the outside—he was radiatingdanger. If I weren’t in love with the man, I’d be running the other way.

“Fucking freak,” the guy muttered, and then he made what could very well be a fatal mistake. He took a swing at Mahk.

Not fatal because of Mahk’s fancy knives, but because every fiber in my body burned with uninhibited rage when I saw his arm swing back to aim directly at Mahk’s beautiful face.

It was like everything slowed down. I could make out every detail, every motion, and my body was moving before my mind could catch up. I was in front of Mahk and catching the asshole’s fist in my hand before it could land. There was so little strengthbehind it that I wanted to laugh. Mahk probably wouldn’t have even blinked at the weak-ass punch. But that didn’t matter. Mahk was pissed that he’d poked me? Well, that didn’t compare to the rage I’d felt seeing that fist flying toward my man . . . my mate. Mahk wasmine. Nobody touched him.

The guy’s eyes widened as soon as he realized I’d blocked him. He tried to stagger back, but I held on, squeezed his fist.

“Fuck,” he gritted out. “Let go.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” I squeezed and twisted. The asshole screamed at the crunch in his arm and then he fell to his knees.

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