Page 22 of Claimed By the Wild Orc
“And if I never am?” I asked, defiant.
The corner of his mouth curved, slow and almost dangerous. “Then I’ll keep waiting. But we both know you will be.”
My face burned, and I turned away, angry at him, angry at myself. He stood then, the shadows clinging to his broad frame as he moved toward the cave mouth.
“Get some sleep,” he said, his voice rougher now. “I’ll keep watch.”
And just like that, he was gone, leaving me tangled in the furs, heart racing, lips tingling from a kiss that hadn’t even happened.
MIRA
Time passed in strange, heavy breaths. Days blurred together, stitched by the rhythm of the forest and the crackle of the fire.
Gorran kept me here. Not cruelly—never that—but with an unspoken certainty, like he’d decided and there was no undoing it.
How could he be so… certain, so patient, so unwavering?
Over… me?
The question burned in my mind every time I caught his gaze lingering, every time I felt the weight of his presence beside me. I should have been terrified. Should have fought harder. Acted like a truly frightened human in the presence of the big, bad, scary orc.
But he was steady and patient, and there was something in the way helookedat me, in the quiet moments when his guard slipped. Something I couldn’t name.
And gods help me, I wanted him more and more.
I’d never looked at any other man the way I’d looked at Gorran.
Anorc.
How could I fall for an orc, enemy of all humans?
How could he be so gentle with me, not treating me like chattel or something to be discarded?
That was the maddening part. I wanted him, but I couldn’t just give in. Not yet. Something in me refused to surrender—not when I didn’t understand what surrendering would truly mean.
And perhaps… Gorran understood that all too well.
He was in control, but he was giving me time… to come to an inevitable realization.
How did he understand humans so well? He’d probably killed—I shuddered to think—dozens, even hundreds of my kind.
And here I was, lusting after him.
And here he was, giving me time.
It was madness, and it was heady, addictive, like the most potent elixir.
The push and pull, the resistance before the inevitable.
I just hoped I wasn’t being too naive.
He brought me gifts.
A set of soft pelts, cleaned and cured until they smelled faintly of smoke. A pair of bone-handled tools, carved with spirals that looked almost ceremonial. And once, a pendant shaped like a fang, bone-coloured, elegant, smoothed by his hands until it gleamed like ivory.
I knew what it meant.
This was… orc courting.
