Page 9 of My Orc Pen Pal (Mated to the Monster: Season 3)

Akhmim

On Monday, I gave up working around noon, unable to concentrate, and headed back to the apartment. Thank the gods that Tarkhan and Abydos were out—I wouldn’t have been able to handle their ridiculous cheer and glowering grunts, respectfully.

Instead, Aswan was sitting at the kitchen table, writing on a pad of paper. “What are you doing?” I barked as I stomped through the door.

The older male lifted one cool brow my way. “I’m making a grocery list, if that’s okay with you? It’s frustrating that the store on the island is so limited. And overpriced.”

I felt my shoulders begin to relax when he didn’t give me the fight I was itching for. “Most of the locals shop on the mainland.” I tossed my wallet and phone onto the credenza by the door, since I’d walked to the library, and shrugged my laptop bag off my shoulder. “Rosemary goes on Saturday morning.”

Aswan hummed and made a note at the top of his list. “I’ll investigate. Meanwhile, t’mak …” He placed the pen down and gave me his undivided attention. “What has you so wound up? I thought things were going well with your Rosemary.”

With a sigh, I threw myself down on the couch, making sure I stayed to the side Tarkhan’s balls hadn’t rested.

“I thought they were too,” I admitted. This weekend, she’d given herself to me. And it had been magnificent .

Just the memory of the way Rosemary had responded to my touch was enough to stir my cock, and I would have thought it had nothing left to give. Saturday night had been a… festival of touches, as I took her in every way imaginable.

After that first time, I used condoms, which had allowed me to finish inside her, but as the night wore on, it became more about her pleasure, and I’d reveled in it. Sunday had been more of the same; I’d made her eggs and bacon, then brought her more pleasure. In the afternoon, I sat with her as she’d graded, loving her insights and the way she’d appreciated mine.

“But?”

Aswan’s question jerked me from my reminiscing. “What?”

The older male was watching me in amusement. “You said you thought things were going well with Rosemary. But now you’re sitting there as if someone just stole your favorite mkaanah .”

I snorted at the analogy, then scrubbed my hand over my face. Well, if there was anyone who would listen without judgement, it was Aswan. “She’s my Mate. I told her this, and she said she wanted to take it slowly.”

“Hence the dates?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’ve spent two weeks trying to prove to her that we’re meant to be together. That this is forever. And I thought, finally …” After I’d claimed her as mine, surely she’d recognize our connection? I blew out a sigh and dropped my head back on the couch. “She called me boyfriend material . I don’t even know what that means!”

“It means you are made out of fabric that is ideal—” Aswan cut off his joke when I glared at him. Smirking, he explained, “She thinks of you as a boyfriend. Not a Mate.”

“Exactly,” I groaned. “The weeks have been wasted!”

“Have they?” Aswan shrugged. “Of course, I’m not an expert on females, but it seems to me that this is not a loss for you. If she thinks of you as a boyfriend, she will eventually think of you as a Mate.”

He was right.

I just…hated the thought of waiting. My fingers dug into my chest, scratching at the itch I couldn’t reach, my Kteer throbbing in impatience.

“I need her,” I murmured, and frankly, I was pleased it didn’t emerge as a whimper. “ I need her, Aswan. I need to know she’s mine, I need her to know I’m her Mate. ”

Sighing, my friend stood up from the table. “It will happen, t’mak . I’m sorry it’s not happening quickly enough to suit your Kteer , but you cannot rush a female. She is in command of your relationship, and it is up to her when you two become Mates.”

“So what do I do?”

His large, dark eyes were sad when he shook his head at me. “You wait. You wait and rejoice in what she is willing to give you, and you pray to the gods you can be convincing enough that she’ll come to accept you.”

Fuck .

Ro

“Oh, Hannah, it’s really not that bad.” I couldn’t resist the urge to reach across the table and place my hand on the other woman’s arm, who was staring down at the paper she held in shaking hands. “Really. Benjamin can turn these grades around. I just wanted you to be aware…”

“It’s an alarming trend,” the other woman rasped, trying to control her emotions. “His grades began to dip right around the time…”

Right around the time her husband finally left.

“They’re only recently becoming alarming,” I pointed out, leaning over to tap the most recent grades. “He can pull his average up, if he wants. ”

“Thank you.” Hannah Woods took a deep breath and carefully placed the paper down, then smoothed it out. “I will… I will talk to him about this. And if third grade just isn’t his year, then…” She shrugged, not meeting my eyes. “Well, he has a good excuse. He’ll rebound next year, hopefully.”

I hadn’t removed my hand, and now I squeezed her arm. “Is he okay? At home, I mean?”

The other woman shifted, pulling her arm out from my hold, but then taking my hand in hers and finally meeting my eyes, her own sad. “Since Travis left, I think Benny believes he…needs to be the man of the house.” Her lips twitched ruefully. “Not that his father was much of a help. Or a man.”

This was the opening I needed. “I…wanted to mention something else.” Hannah’s eyes turned scared, and I hurried to reassure her. “Oh, it’s nothing bad. It’s just that…you know on Fridays I do Q&A with the kids, and answer whatever questions they have about life? Well, for the last few weeks, all of Benjamin’s questions have revolved around love and marriage. Is love real , that sort of thing.”

Hannah smiled sadly. “Yes, I suppose it’s been on his mind a lot. His father and I officially split a while ago, but we cohabitated and tried to pretend everything was normal. At least, I was.” From her grimace, there was more to the story. “When Travis finally walked away and I won full custody, I had to sit Tova and Benny down and explain everything, which wasn’t easy.”

I squeezed her hand and whispered, “I can imagine not. ”

“Their little brother is too young to understand, thank goodness, but I had to come up with something to tell them, and maybe I should have given it more thought.” She blew out a breath and glanced down at the paper. “I told them that sometimes people fall out of love with one another.”

What a heartbreaking lesson for a third grader to learn. I winced. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t believe in love anymore?—”

The other woman’s head snapped up. “What? I believe in love.”

Flustered, I pulled my hand away and busied myself stacking papers. “Of course! There’s all sorts of love in the world, that’s what I told them. But I just meant romantic love… getting married love.”

Hannah was watching me now, head cocked to the side, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Ro, just because I put my faith and trust in the wrong man doesn’t mean I was wrong.”

I froze. “What do you mean?”

“Love is a partnership?—”

“Yes!” I interrupted. “That’s what I’ve always said!”

But the other woman was shaking her head, as if I didn’t understand. “A marriage is a partnership in which you trust the other person to love you enough to always put you first. If you both do it, it works.” She blew out a breath. “I guess I started putting the kids before Travis…”

I lunged forward again to grab her hand. “ Don’t blame yourself because he was a dirtbag who was jealous of his own kids!”

Her smile was soft, sad again. “Thank you.” She squeezed my hand. “You’re sweet. But… I do believe love is out there. For all of us. Just because I made the wrong choice once before doesn’t mean I’m going to do it again.”

That was… interesting .

I made it through the rest of the after-school meeting trying to focus as much as possible on the proposed plans to get Benjamin focused on his schoolwork and less anxious about his home life. But then, when Hannah went next door to pick up her two oldest from where they were hanging out in Nikki’s classroom, I sat back in my chair with a thoughtful frown.

Here was a woman whose marriage had fallen apart. Granted, it sounded like Benjamin’s dad had been a total deadbeat, but I didn’t know all the details. I just knew that the marriage had collapsed, despite them living together. The man she believed was going to be her forever had turned out to be wrong.

But she still believed in love.

She still believed there was someone out there for her, someone better.

Was that na?ve?

Shaking my head, I began to clean up.

Hannah deserved someone trustworthy. Someone who would put her first, through everything. Someone strong enough to take on half her life and more. Someone caring enough to open his heart to her and the kids and put her before himself.

Someone like…

Slowly, I straightened from where I’d been arranging the chairs. Someone like Akhmim .

This weekend, I’d been hella distracted by the whole “coming often enough to get dehydrated” thing, which was wonderful…and also kinda indicative of what Hannah was saying about a partner who would put her— me first. In the bedroom, Akhmim was kind, gentle, and giving.

And outside of the bedroom?

I leaned on the tiny chair.

He was kind, gentle, and giving.

He was funny, and interesting, and more importantly, interested . He treated me better than I treated myself, and I had complete faith in him. I’d known him for months now, and I’d seen him act fairly, honorably, and lovingly in all parts of life.

What was it that Hannah had said? Marriage is a partnership in which you trust the other person to love you enough to always put you first . If I were to marry Akhmim, I knew I could always trust him to put me first.

Trust…partnership…that was love .

Holy crap, I did believe in love!

It is a knowing . That’s what Akhmim called love— No , he was talking about Mating then .

I gasped and steadied myself on Rebecca’s desk.

That very first weekend, he’d explained Mating to me, and I’d thought it was just his word for sex. But then I’d realized he meant something more, something permanent . After all, he’d said that Mates were devoted to one another for the rest of their lives, yeah?

If that wasn’t marriage, I don’t know what was.

He called it Mating, but was he really talking about love ?

If I loved Akhmim, could I commit to a lifetime with him?

The real question was: How could I not?