Page 38 of Claimed By the Wild Orc
Crooked rooftops, clay chimneys trailing smoke, the distant clang of a blacksmith’s hammer, the squawk of chickens somewhere down a muddy side lane…
It was all exactly as I’d imagined it.
And yet everything was different, because this time, I wasn’t alone.
I walked beside Gorran, the fang pendant resting just above the neckline of my dress, glinting in the midday sun. The forest path had opened into the village square, and we stepped together beneath the low stone arch that marked the village’s northern edge.
Every head turned.
Of course they did.
A Hvalgar warrior in full armor—even just leather and steel, as he wore now—was a rare sight in these parts. A terrifying one. His shoulders towered above every other man. His black hairgleamed where it had come loose from its ties, and the weapon strapped to his back was the kind you didn’t so much wield as you did unleash.
But it wasn’t just that.
It was the way he walked: straight, unbothered, and utterly certain. It was the way his gaze swept across the street, cataloging every window, every hand that shifted too quickly, every man who looked at me for too long.
And gods help the ones who did.
One boy—young, maybe seventeen, eyes flicking nervously to my chest—stared a fraction too long.
Gorran didn’t say a word. He simply stepped once, slow and deliberate, into the boy’s line of sight, and bared his tusks in a silent, pointed smile.
The boy turned a lovely shade of grey and tripped over his own feet trying to retreat into the alley.
I bit back a laugh.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I murmured as we continued past the stall-lined street. “He was harmless.”
“He was looking.”
I nudged him with my elbow. “You’re a menace.”
He only shrugged. “He’s lucky I didn’t gut him.”
I rolled my eyes, but the truth was, I loved it.
Not because I needed protection. Not because I was some helpless thing who couldn’t handle a stare or a snide comment. I’d lived through worse. Much worse.
But because it felt good to be defended. To be claimed. Not in the suffocating way men at the keep had tried: out of control, or entitlement, or lust.
No, Gorran’s possessiveness was different.
It was grounded in something solid and immovable.
Love.
We paused at a spice merchant’s cart, the air rich with crushed cumin and roasted coriander. I leaned in to inspect a jar of smoked paprika, and before I could lift it, Gorran had already handed a gold coin to the wide-eyed seller.
“Anything you want,” he said simply.
The merchant bowed, not even daring to meet my eyes. I wasn’t sure if that was deference to Gorran or terror. Probably both.
I turned to him. “You’re going to make every trader in this village think I’m a spoiled princess.”
“You are,” he said without blinking.
I laughed, and it startled me—that it came so easily now. That I could smile without that twist of caution behind my teeth. That I could walk through a crowd not fearing who might follow me back to the kitchens, or what punishment I might earn for speaking too freely.
