Page 48 of Grumpy Pucking Orc (Orcs on Ice #1)

Ozar

T here had been no time for a lengthy discussion.

There probably had been no need for lengthy discussion. Love, a mate bond, a companionship like none I’d ever felt before…and it had all fallen apart before Jordan and I had ever had a chance at a life together.

I dumped my two bags with the others beside the transportation beast I’d been told was named “Bus” and climbed the stairs. The beast rumbled with caged energy, impatiently waiting while humans loaded our gear and bags underneath. Thankfully the beast was large because we orcs occupied many seats.

My teammates were mostly at the back, so I found a spot midway between them and the half-asleep driver. No one spoke. No one approached me. Which was a good thing, given my mood.

I’d told Jordan about my home, about my clan and my upbringing.

She’d seemed interested, fascinated even.

Why wouldn’t she want to make a life there with me?

Never had there been the slightest hint that she would not want to marry me and make a life with me.

She’d said she loved me. And I knew that humans married, had children, and grew old together just as orcs did.

We’d talked about marriage and children during our courtship. Jordan had clearly longed for that sort of partnership, although she’d accepted the possibility of a life without it and had resigned herself to replicating that connection through friends and family.

A sort of bitter anger rose from deep in my chest.

She won’t be able to have that same connection with anyone but me. I’m her mate . No one will ever be able to please her as I have. No one will ever stir her heart like I have.

My stomach turned at the thought of Jordan laying with anyone but me.

I shoved that thought away and tried in vain to push that anger back into the depths of my body.

Humans were not like orcs, and it was possible that Jordan’s declaration of love had meant something different in her culture than in mine.

Take her. She’s yours. The orcs of old had the right idea. Grab the female you love and force her through the portal to our home. You’ll both be gone before the angels know, and she’ll come to love your clan and way of life in time, just as human females in the past have done.

No.

I could never do that to Jordan. If she didn’t love me enough to be my life-mate, then I would not force her.

Escellates climbed onto the bus, and the door swished shut behind him. “Twelve hours until we hit Chicago. Get some sleep and be prepared to draw in the crowds tomorrow night.”

The beast roared, and the driver steered our conveyance out of the parking lot and away from the arena.

Away from Jordan .

We’d joined the other vehicles on the speedway when my phone beeped. I glanced down at it, expecting to see some message acknowledging my pause in milk deliveries or from the humans who seemed insistent on discussing my non-existent car’s extended warranty.

It was Jordan. My breath caught, and I debated whether I should read it or not.

She was probably telling me this was over and that she never wanted to hear from me again.

I didn’t want to know that. I wanted to keep some sliver of hope that maybe she’d change her mind, that she’d miss me enough while I was gone to rethink her hasty rejection of my proposal.

I’d suffered enough rejection tonight. To have her completely toss our love aside would destroy me, and I wasn’t ready to face that level of hurt.

I was Ozar, the Guardian of Clan Heregut, son of Meig and Oala.

I did not hesitate in battle. I was known for my bravery and fierce defense of our clan against our enemies.

But there was a limit to bravery, and I’d reached it, so I silenced my phone and stuffed it into my pocket with the message unread.

A fter hours of staring at passing cars, the rhythm of lights and the purr of the transportation beast finally numbed my mind and lulled me to sleep.

I dreamed of walking through Patterson Park with my son in my arms, only to have him vanish by the time I reached the swings.

I dreamed of the building that housed my dwelling burned to the ground, and I needed to live in the arena locker room.

I dreamed a human hockey-enemy hit me in the face with a stick made of steel, knocking both of my tusks from my mouth with a rush of blood.

I’d fallen to the ice and looked up at the stands to see Jordan, dispassionately turning away as if repulsed by my disfigurement.

That dream had been the one that jolted me awake.

The transportation beast still purred as the human guided it along a looping stretch of black road.

Huge buildings appeared before me, with a large body of water to the right.

I stared, awed at how strange it felt. Baltimore was giant compared to the largest of cities in my clan’s territory, but this…

this was beyond imagination. Lights stretched as far as I could see—to the left, in front, and toward the stars above.

Once more, I was reminded of how the human world had changed since the time my ancestors had brought back their white- and brown-skinned brides.

Sorrow gripped me at the sudden thought of Jordan, but I loosened its claws and tried to focus on the lights and on the huge expanse of water to the left of us.

“That’s Lake Michigan.” Bwat had moved to the row of seats opposite me sometime during the night and he pointed out at the water, dark gray in the pre-dawn dimness.

“Much larger than our lakes back home,” I commented.

He nodded. “It’s actually considered a freshwater, inland sea. There are a joined group of these great lakes, marking part of the border between this country and the one to the north.”

I nodded, trying to take any interest at all in these facts.

“Chicago is a city with a lively history,” Bwat continued.

“Blues music. Various ethnic groups of humans. Incredible varieties of food choices. They are fiercely loyal to their sports teams, even though they yell slanderous insults to them when they perform poorly. Their city is under the control of an angel and a demon. The demon serves as the mayor of the city, and the angel…well, I’m not su re what the angel does besides keep her demon spouse in line. ”

That got my attention. “An angel and a demon are married ?”

Bwat shrugged. “Evidently it is not uncommon. Even the Ha-Satan is married to an angel—an archangel, to be precise.”

I wasn’t sure what most of that meant, but I wasn’t about to reveal my ignorance to Bwat, who prided himself on knowing everything.

So instead, I just grunted and turned to look out the window at the passing buildings.

Bwat continued to prattle about mermaids and sirens in the lake, and some rich human, who was evidently a famous recluse living north of the city.

He continued on about steak and some sort of root dumplings until Eng threw a red plastic cup at his head, yelling at him to shut-the-fuck-up.

After that, we rode in silence until Bus pulled to a stop in front of a large building with brass-framed glass doors and a human standing at attention out front.

The door swooshed open, and Escellates hopped down the stairs.

The team rose and walked along the narrow space between the row of seats as if we were sedated.

Bwat and I were the last to leave Bus, grabbing our bags from the pile alongside the transportation beast. Inside the opulent building, we waited for Escellates to procure our key cards and inform us which rooms we’d have.

I’d expected that we’d share rooms, but I was annoyed to find that my roomie for the next two nights would be Eng.

Eng didn’t seem pleased either, but he probably wouldn’t have been pleased to share a room with anyone since he considered himself above us all.

The pair of us took the lift-box up to the sixteenth floor in silence.

It took us a bit of walking around to find our room, then longer to figure out how the cards worked to open the door.

Once inside, we dropped our bags and looked around, each of us scouting out how to divide up the minuscule territory.

There were two narrow beds separated by a tiny table with a plastic lamp, a clock, and a blocky plastic device with a glowing set of numbers.

Two feet from the right-side bed was an open closet door and another door leading to a cramped room with a toilet, a sink, and a shower so small I wasn’t sure either of us could comfortably fit in.

The left-side bed was so close to the heating device that the thinnest human couldn’t squeeze between them.

Over the heating device was a thick swath of curtain.

At the end of the left-side bed was a narrow desk with a chair barely wide enough to accommodate one of my butt-cheeks.

“This is the shit of Morfests,” Eng snapped. “Do they know I am a prince of a kingdom? An orc of significance.”

“You’re nobody here,” I informed him. “Just another oaf entertaining humans on the ice.”

“Well, this entertaining oaf is claiming the bed on the right.” He threw himself down on the mattress before I could protest.

Mine would be the bed on the left—the one inches from the heating device. I sighed and headed into the bathroom. Eng might have claimed the better bed, but I was going to shower first.

The hot water washed away the grime of travel but did nothing to soothe the ache I felt all through my body and heart.

Thinking of Jordan, I brushed my teeth, taking special care to scrub my tusks to a shining white.

When I went into the room with the beds, I noticed Eng was fast asleep, even though he’d slept the entire ride from Baltimore.

Naked, I sat on my bed, pulled aside the curtains, and gasped.

We were high above many of the buildings around us, and our tiny room with its minimal luxuries more than made up for any deficiencies by this view.

In a straight line between two high-rises, I saw the giant lake before me—the inland sea of Michigan.

Tiny waves rippled toward the shore. The lake was so vast that I could not see anything but an expanse of water before me.

A boat bobbed in the dawn light, and as I watched, a woman breached the surface of the water, arching her back and flinging her red water-drenched hair over her shoulders. A pod of mermaids followed her path.

I smiled, awed by the wonder before me. Homesickness always retreated when I saw these sights. Children at a playground. Judy-the-cat playing with a reflected light. Jordan’s expression when she looked up at me as we cuddled together.

Would it be so horrible to stay here? Could I? There were promises I’d made, a life I’d mapped out. What would happen if I remapped that life? What would happen if I tried to create a new future for myself?

With Jordan. Because without her, the old plans of my future seemed empty.