Page 50 of Grumpy Pucking Orc (Orcs on Ice #1)

Ozar

T he enemy Blackhawk team slaughtered us.

Try as we might, we weren’t able to gain control of the puck even once.

Our net-defender was useless, and the ending score was twelve to zero.

Worse, we were unable to even lay a bruise on our enemies.

They laughed at our attempts to enrage them, which enraged us and made our skating even worse.

I didn’t care. All I could think of was Jordan.

Back home, I was an important orc, a Guardian of my clan. Back home, I was someone Jordan would be proud to marry, an orc she would be honored to spend her life with. Here, I was a fool for the entertainment of the humans.

If I stayed, I’d be the sort of man she’d grow to not respect. I would never be her equal. Any love she felt for me would be chipped away bit by bit with each lost game, with each failure. Even if I left hockey, what could I possibly do in this human world to prove myself as worthy of her?

The future I’d dreamed of had vanished in a sea of self-doubt and frustration.

If I went home to my clan, it would be without Jordan. If I stayed here, she’d grow to despise me, and I’d end up without Jordan as well. Either choice resulted in my losing everything.

My mate bond was proving to be just as doomed as this hockey team.

With barely enough time to shower and change, we were back on the transportation beast again, heading south for a game in Tennessee.

Then after losing that game, we went further south to lose in Texas, then twice in different parts of Florida, then somewhere on the east coast before heading north again.

I was losing track of the locations as well as the names of the teams that humiliated us each night on the ice.

It had been a week since I’d seen Jordan, since she’d turned my offer of marriage down. I’d buried the ring deep in my duffle bag, unable to stand the constant reminder.

As if I needed the ring to remind me. The constant ache in my chest would never let me forget.

On the bus once more, I stared out at the other vehicles on the roadway, at the lights that flashed by.

Then, as I always did, I pulled the phone from my pocket and stared at the empty black screen.

I’d turned it off while in Chicago, unable to continue seeing the notification of Jordan’s message, and I’d never had the courage to turn it back on.

I should have stowed it in my duffle bag with the ring.

It wasn’t as if I really needed the device.

Jordan was the only one who would text or call besides my teammates who were all on the bus with me.

And I hardly needed to use the language application or the internet library with Bwat at hand to cheerfully answer any question.

What if she never wanted to see me again?

I swallowed hard, trying not to let the agony of that thought overwhelm me.

If that was her text message, I’d just go home to my clan.

She was my life-mate. There would be no other for me.

Staying and trying to find another bride would be a logical next step, but that woman would never have my heart.

It would be unfair to her, and I would feel I was betraying Jordan every time I took another to my furs.

No, if Jordan rejected me, I would return home. Like my father, I would not allow my loss to end my life. I would continue, helping my clan any way I could until I died a natural death. Or maybe a hero’s death in battle.

Stop with that maudlin nonsense . You don’t even know what her message says. You don’t know if she’s tried to call you or sent another message. What if it wasn’t a break-up message, and here you’ve been sulking around with the text unread for a week.

I was Ozar. Guardian of Clan Heregut. Son of Meig and Oala. My future, my fate, was in this small magical box that humans used to transmit knowledge and to communicate across great distances. And Ozar was not an orc to shy away from his fate.

I turned the phone on and waited for the screen to light up. A few seconds later, I was staring at the notification. No missed calls. No additional texts. Just that one sent last week—the message that would seal my fate.

Inhale. Exhale.

I closed my eyes, waiting until my heart rate had returned to a normal pace before opening them to click the notification and read the text.

I’m so sorry. I love you, and your proposal both thrilled and terrified me. I can’t abandon all I’ve worked for and who I am to just be your wife and the mother of your children in a place where I know no one and have no other value. I need to be more.

My heart twisted, and I struggled to breathe. The words blurred, and it took a few seconds before I could continue to read.

This isn’t something we can fully discuss a few minutes before you leave for weeks on the road.

When you get back, I want to talk about this some more.

I love you, and I hope there is a way we can both be happy together forever.

Because I do want to marry you. I want to spend my life with you.

I’m going to have faith that there’s a way we can work this out.

I’ll be watching and cheering for you. Always.

The whole way to Ohio I thought about the text.

There were moments of elation—she hadn’t given up on us.

She loved me and seemed confident we could come to a solution.

Then there were moments of understanding—she was struggling with the same dilemma I faced.

Living in my homeworld meant she’d have to give up a huge part of her identity that brought her joy and fulfillment, that made her Jordan.

And by staying, I was afraid I would be giving up the same.

Being her husband, her mate, and the father of our orclets…

would that be enough? Would I still be Ozar if I had to leave all of my dreams for the future behind?

But the most terrifying part of Jordan’s text was the last bit. She was watching our games. Cheering? Her rooting for me and the Tusks was a small comfort. I was painfully aware that she’d spent a week watching the human teams decimate and humiliate us.

Uncertain what to say, worry that I’d waited too long to reply, and the embarrassment of our losses kept me from texting her back.

The sun was coming up as the transportation beast pulled up to our hotel. We staggered down the steps as humans unloaded our luggage and our demon owner yelled at us about when we needed to be ready to ride to the arena for our practice today and our game tonight .

It was six in the morning, and we were shuffling into the lobby like we’d just returned from a two-week march through the mountains. We were terrible skaters, terrible with the sticks and puck, and in terrible shape. I winced to think of what Jordan would see during tonight’s game.

The same thing she’d seen for the last week, no doubt.

That was what motivated me to quickly change into workout clothes and begin banging on the doors of my teammates and barking at them to dress and be in the lobby by seven-thirty.

Humans poked their heads outside their hotel-room doors, initially protesting the noise until they saw me.

Then their eyes widened, and they quickly darted back inside, slamming their doors.

The sound of chains and bolts quickly followed.

I didn’t care.

Honestly, I did feel a bit guilty that I’d woken all the human guests so early in the morning, but I hadn’t been able to figure out how the plastic hotel communication systems worked, and no one had answered their cell phones.

Those who arrived at the lobby at or before 7:30 were able to have coffee and the offered light breakfast. Those who didn’t had both the front desk staff harassing them on the plastic phones as well as me returning to beat on their doors.

Finally, the whole team was assembled, with a good number of human guests as well as staff watching us with curiosity.

“Attention!” I shouted in Orcish with enough volume to startle the humans and snap the orcs’ heads my way. “We will not have a repeat of what happened during the last six games.”

“Seven games,” Bwat corrected. “Actually, all of our games if you’re talking about losing and not just getting our asses handed to us. ”

I ignored him. “Our skating and hockey skills require more practice, but one thing we can work on as well is the level of our fitness. You have grown soft and lazy. You are an embarrassment to your clans, your ancestors, and your future descendants. Each morning, we will run and perform acts of strength. And before each game, we will strategize how to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies and keep them from shooting their puck into our net.”

One orc snorted. “Puck. Net.”

I rolled my eyes and switched to English. “Fucking your mother, Mohak. An extra twenty bench lifts for you because you are not serious.”

“No. Ozar, no!” Mohak complained.

I cut him off with a glare. “I am leading the run. Ugwyll will be the tail and will punch anyone who tries to shortcut or cheat.” Ugwyll made a fist and hit his palm at that. I nodded to him. “Let us go.”

The team grumbled but complied. Each time I came across one of the glass shelters with benches, I made the team rotate through a series of handstands, push-ups, and presses-of-the-bench.

I discovered that humans had a strange habit of bolting the benches to the concrete and securing them with chains, which made our strength endeavors all the more challenging.

At each stop, humans watched, clapped, and encouraged us as we broke the benches from their chains and bolts, then pressed them upward, sometimes with humans still sitting on them.

I had never been to this city—or even this state before—but I figured that if I could navigate the dangerous, ever-changing fae forests back home, then a human city should be no problem.

I was wrong. My planned three-mile run became an unplanned fifteen-mile run.

Some of the team ended up puking their meager breakfasts into the streets, but that was their own fault for having allowed themselves to become so weak and feeble.

When we finally arrived back at the hotel, I was a little concerned. Yes, the team needed to be whipped into shape and to take our mission seriously if we were ever to become more than a group of fools for human amusement. And if we were ever to become a team I could be reasonably proud of.

We didn’t have to win. We just needed to not be fools.

And I needed to know that I’d guided the team in the same way that I’d guided our scouts and troops back home as a Clan Guardian.

But I might have pushed these orcs too far this morning.

I’d been running and lifting heavy objects since I’d arrived here among the humans, but I knew many of our team had not.

They’d eaten and drunk and become lazy, confident that their size and initial strength were so superior to the humans that they didn’t need to remain fit.

I hoped this morning had shown them the error of their ways, because I would drag every one of them from their beds each morning and force them to exercise as long as it meant I did not need to be ashamed of Jordan watching our game.

That afternoon, we rode Bus to the arena for practice and I noticed groups of humans lining the sides of the walkway.

I vaguely recognized some of them, realizing that many were either from the hotel or had been among the groups of humans who’d witnessed our early-morning exercises.

They nodded, a few of them shouting encouragement.

Given that we were intruders in their town, opposing their hockey team, I was surprised.

But there was no time to think about the humans.

Once inside, I bullied everyone into their knife-blade shoes and forced them onto the ice.

We skated around the edges, everyone following me and trying to keep up as I increased speed and began a series of circles and turns.

The ice was littered with fallen orcs, but I shouted for them to get up and keep moving, just as I would my troops back home.

Knowing I was depleting their energy, I considered cutting this practice short.

But I didn’t. Instead, I made them all shoot pucks toward each other, stopping the black turd-like object with their sticks before shifting it to their other side and shooting it back.

At first, everyone was chasing pucks across the arena, and we’d lost several into the stands.

Eventually the orcs learned some basic amount of control and were able to pass the puck back and forth, stopping it and controlling it with a minimal, basic skill.

It wouldn’t be enough for us to win, but hopefully we would not appear as buffoons. And with some luck and determination, we might end this game with a point on our side of the scoreboard.