Page 27 of Charming the Orc's Mate

He caught Tate’s tail just before those jaws could close around me. With a roar that shook the windows, Torainyanked. Tate’s strike went wide, his huge head crashing through the bookstore’s front window instead of into me.

Glass rained down as the two clashed and grappled. Torain’s muscles strained as he tried to keep his grip on the thrashing serpent. But Tate was pure muscle, writhing and twisting with unnatural speed. His coils wrapped around my mate’s chest,squeezing. Torain’s face turned red as those massive loops tightened.

No. No no no. I couldn’t lose him. Not when I’d just found him.

“Hey!” The word tore from my throat before I could think better of it. “It’s me you want, not him!”

Tate’s massive head whipped toward me, jaws still dripping venom. His coils loosened just enough for Torain to drag in a ragged breath, and oh, fuck.

I scrambled backward, my heels catching on broken glass and splintered wood. The serpentine body unspooled from around my mate, moving faster than anything that size had any right to move.

My hip slammed into Chelle’s overturned booth. Her protective book covers lay scattered across the ground among tarot cards and crystals. My fingers closed around leather as Tate’s shadow fell over me, his head rearing back for the strike.

I threw my arms up, the book cover clutched between me and certain death.

Light exploded outward. The leather jerked in my grip like something alive. Where Tate’s massive form had loomed, now only empty air remained.

The cover thrashed in my hands. A muffled, inhuman shriek echoed from within.

I dropped the book as disgust and fear drove ten thousand trucks down my spine. It jerked and writhed as something inside fought to escape.

I brought my heel down on the cover. Again. And again.

The writhing finally stopped.

“What is going on here?”

Mayor Grace Weatherby’s voice cut through the chaos. She stood at the edge of the crowd, face pale as she took inthe destruction. The shattered glass and overturned booths. Unconscious fae. The blood on my temple.

I met her eyes, still breathing hard. “Tate Gerrard has been drugging people to steal their property. Including my aunt.” The words burned in my throat. “He killed her when she tried to resist.”

Grace’s face drained of color. Her hand flew to her throat. “The bottle he sent for Christmas. He said it was a very fine vintage...”

“Yeah,” Torain grunted as he stepped beside me. “Might want to pour that one down the drain.”

I spun around, heart in my throat. Relief swelled through me as I saw Torain standing tall and whole. Bruises blossomed along his exposed forearms and dark stains marred his clothes, but he’d survived.

We’d survived.

I flung my arms around his neck, clinging tightly as the weight of everything settled heavily around me.

“Sugar.” His fingers ghosted over the cut on my temple. “You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.” I pulled back enough to examine his injuries. “Are you okay? When he started squeezing?—”

“I’m fine.” He caught my hands, stilling their frantic movement. “Takes more than an oversized garden snake to keep me from my mate.”

His arms tightened around me as the block party descended into chaos and cleanup. Grace barked orders into her phone about securing the scene. Vanin grumbled about everyone needing a drink after all the excitement. Beverly’s voice rose above the din, directing people to right overturned tables and bring brooms for the glass.

But all I could focus on was Torain’s heartbeat under my ear. Strong. Steady. Here.

CHAPTER NINE

CARISSA

The gravel crunched under my tires as I pulled into the driveway. Exhaustion weighed heavy after the long drive back from Seattle, but something lifted in my chest at the sight of the rental house.Ourrental house.

The thought still made my heart skip, even after signing the lease last week. This little craftsman might be temporary while Torain got his storefront up and running and I figured out how to run a bookstore that actually made money, but its weathered blue paint and crooked shutters already felt like home.

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