Page 21 of My Orc Contract Husband (Eastshore Isle #9)

Don’t get me wrong; I loved Bramblewood.

It was cozy and hidden, a refuge from the human world when we’d needed one.

But now I’d seen how life could be, accepted into a community like Eastshore where we all lived openly and in peace?

Where orcs and their Mates found happiness and peace and were building a future together?

I was addicted.

And I kept finding myself thinking about my future with Sami.

She’s not your Mate. Try to remember that, idiot .

But she was my wife, and my feelings for her …

Shaking my head, I pulled my truck into Aswan’s driveway, uncertain why I’d come, but knowing I needed to talk to someone.

“ T’mak !” he greeted me at the door with a grin. “You’re just in time!”

I was? I followed him into the kitchen, where he was clearly in the middle of something.

“Joshy’s in the middle of his afternoon nap, but hopefully the blender won’t disturb him,” he told me as he dropped a big handful of spinach into the device.

“Peanut butter, almond milk, chocolate protein powder, a frozen banana…”

“And spinach?” I asked doubtfully as the blender began to grind it all.

“A lot of spinach. More than you think you need. You won’t be able to taste it,” he assured me, but I raised a skeptical brow. “Ready to try?”

“Are you experimenting on me?” I took the offered cup and peered at the concoction. “Have you tried this before?”

“It’s delicious, Tark. Drink your smoothie.”

To my surprise, it was. “You can’t taste the spinach at all!”

“I told you.” Aswan jerked his head toward the living room. “So, did you just stop by because you were hungry?”

In Bramblewood, Aswan had owned his own restaurant, and had taught me how to cook. But I preferred his cooking, and it became a joke between us how often I would show up unannounced just in case he’d been preparing something delicious at home.

But now I didn’t answer since I didn’t know how . He halted in front of the large picture window that looked out over the backyard, and I followed.

Hannah and her children lived in a two-story house, and my practiced eye could see it had been built this way, rather than converted. When she’d hired Aswan to be the kids’ live-in nanny, it hadn’t been difficult to incorporate an orc into their lives, thanks to the size of the house.

And the size of their hearts.

In the backyard, under the shade of an oak— a live oak , I corrected—Aswan’s new daughter Tova played with Emmy in a sandbox. Both had just started the third grade and were best friends.

“They’ve been complaining about school already,” Aswan admitted, taking another swig of his smoothie. “And fussed when I told them no more TV, but they seem to be having fun out there.”

Sure enough, the two little girls were doing something arcane with a bucket of water in the sand, and a half dozen little plastic horses. Emmy was Sakkara’s daughter, and I smiled to see how well she was fitting in here on Eastshore.

Emmy might be half-orc, but she’d found a place here, accepted by humans. So had Aswan, and Sakkara, and Cairo, and Luxor, and Akhmim, and Abydos’s brothers Memnon and Simbel. And now…I’d found my place as well .

It wasn’t how I imagined it. I’d planned on buying property, building my workshop, settling down. I would miss Abydos if he stayed in Bramblewood, but here on Eastshore, I had a future.

Do you? That contract was for a year and a day.

Montgomery hadn’t shown up yet, and each day that passed made me wonder if he would. But the thought of walking away from Sami next summer already made my stomach churn with dread.

The realization came slowly, but I straightened as it settled in my chest.

“Tark?” Aswan asked.

Dazed, I stared out the window. “I think I love her.” My Kteer purred, and I knew this was right. This was true.

My friend smiled. “Yeah, Tova’s pretty wonderful.” He turned back to the window. “All the kids are, even Emmy. I’m a lucky male.”

He’d misunderstood my blurted confession. My lips curled. “You are, but I meant Sami.”

Aswan’s brows shot up as he swung on me. “ Sami ?” But as he studied me, his slow grin grew as well. “You do love her. You found your Mate.”

Mate ?

It hadn’t been a question, but I shook my head. “Giza used to say that Mates are chosen by the gods. I can’t force Sami to be my Mate just by marrying her first.”

Although, in that moment, hearing the words Sami and Mate in the same sentence, I knew a longing I’d only previously imagined.

My Kteer thrummed restlessly, and that strange itchiness crawled across my limbs.

I wanted Sami to be my Mate, but wishing wasn’t going to make it so, and the irritation at that realization was enough to make me howl.

Still, Aswan merely shrugged, that knowing smile on his lips. “You’re all itchy and irritable about it, yeah? Go talk to Giza about it, he’ll know.”

Ridiculously, I swung about, as if I could see Giza’s home—he lived near the bakery on Main Street—from where I stood. And Aswan chuckled again.

“You do have it bad, T’mak ,” he murmured, clapping me on the shoulder. “Tomorrow afternoon he and Harper are bringing Raina to the Sunflower Maze with us.”

“Us?” I parroted stupidly, my mind still stuttering from his casual observation.

“Hannah and I are taking the kids—I think Sakkara and Nikki are coming too. Have you heard about the maze?”

I just stared, my half-drunk smoothie in my hand, trying to make sense of his words.

His teasing smile told me he knew this. “A farmer—apparently one of the ones who supplies the market on Saturday morning—planted an acre of sunflowers and then cut out a maze? Or something like that. Hannah says there will be food trucks and local goods. Tova is mainly going for the cotton candy.”

Well, I was a sucker for cotton candy.

Was Sami free? Would she want to go with me? With us ?

Here was a prime example of what I’d been obsessing over before: humans and orcs living and playing together. Accepting one another in a peaceful place. Humans and orcs Mated , with kitlings, both biologically their own and adopted.

I imagined myself one day bringing foster children of my own to an event like the Sunflower Maze, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else at my side but Sami. Was this a futile dream? Was our marriage set to dissolve in eleven short months?

Or could I convince her that we could have a future together?

You are worthy of pleasure, Tarkhan. You deserve happiness.

Last night, she’d broken me, emptied me…and then began to fill me back up again. How could I explain to her that my own chance of that happiness, that pleasure…was with her?