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Ruugar

Two Months Ago

T he half-wild sorhox shifted, scraping his forearm-long claws on the dirt as I ran a brush along his green-furred hide.

This one liked to kick, so I'd secured him to the hitching post in front of the bright red barn, and I watched out not only for his back legs that could kick sideways but his spiked tail that could impale a male if he wasn't paying attention.

As long as I remained away from his head, I was relatively safe from his spear-tipped horns.

It took time and patience to tame a sorhox, and as a single orc male, I had plenty of the first. I was still working on the latter.

The afternoon sun blazed overhead, baking the wooden boardwalk spanning the front of the long row of buildings of the new tourist destination my six brothers and I had recently completed, Lonesome Creek Ranch.

Heat swam around me, and the scent of leather and clawed hoof oil hung in the air.

Voices swirled through town, human chatter blending with the creak of stagecoach wheels and the distant clang of my brother’s blacksmith’s hammer.

We hadn’t opened for business yet, so the town wasn’t in full swing.

But my Aunt Inla was inside the saloon, giving a tour to a human couple who planned to hold their wedding here in a few months, after we’d opened.

A woman's laugh carried on the breeze, soft and sweet.

My hand paused on the sorhox’s hide, and I squinted in that direction, though I didn’t see whoever had laughed. Something in that voice tugged at me and made my heart start kicking against my ribcage.

Halfway down the street, the human couple stepped out of the saloon, my aunt not far behind them.

The man was tall, though nowhere near as tall as a six-foot-ten-inch orc.

Muscular, though also not as broad as an orc.

No human male was. He shot an easy smile at my aunt, his arm wrapped possessively around a woman's back.

His bride, then. Her pale blue dress clung to her frame, and her long blonde hair hung loose, catching the light as if it had been crafted by the sun itself.

When she laughed this time, it came out a touch too high-pitched.

Her shoulders remained stiff. As her smile fell, she dragged her gaze away from the male.

Beth.

I must have heard my aunt say her name over the past few days. She’d talked a lot about how exciting it was that a couple wanted to get married here at our Wild West tourist destination during our opening week.

Funny how I hadn’t remembered his name.

I tightened my fingers on the brush as I tracked their movements down the street. They were walking this way, which made sense. The wedding and reception would be held inside the barn that had been built for functions, not to house animals or store hay.

They came closer.

Why was my pulse thudding so fast?

There was something odd about Beth, but I couldn’t quite give it a name.

It could be in the way she moved, as if she was carefully walking on ice.

Which could be related to the spikes on the backs of her shoes.

How did anyone walk wearing something like that?

Or maybe it was the way she kept peering around as if she was looking for an escape.

I was imagining things. She was getting married. She must be blooming with happiness inside. This must be what humans called pre-wedding jitters. My aunt had mentioned the term along with a bunch of others I was trying to keep straight in my head.

Something about Beth kept drawing my eyes.

I'd only known need in the most practical sense. Hunger, thirst, the ache in my muscles after a long day’s labor. This was different. When I looked at her, a craving I couldn’t explain sliced through me. As if my soul had spent its entire existence waiting for this one person to arrive .

She was beautiful. No denying that. Not in the way human poets spoke of attraction, all soft words and springtime metaphors.

No, this was more an odd thing my body recognized before my mind could make any sense of it.

Golden light glided across her cheekbones, and her lashes cast shadows as she looked down.

I’d thought she’d be brimming with happiness.

Instead, something in her expression was wrong, like she was wearing a mask that didn’t fit quite right.

The male said something, and she nodded.

From the first glance, I could tell she was different.

There was a softness to her I didn't understand, a light that didn't belong in a tumbledown place like this. She didn’t just walk, she glided, like she was made of silk and summer air, too delicate for my rough world of beasts and rough riding.

For whatever reason, I ached to reach for her, knowing I never could.

As they came closer, I stepped over to one of the big barn doors, opening it for them to enter. Why was I doing this? I couldn't say. My aunt was perfectly capable—and she’d tell me so if our guests weren’t with her. I could see it in her dark eyes.

I swallowed hard as they approached, unable to drag my eyes from Beth's tiny, curvy form.

I could already tell that she belonged to a world of crystal glasses and fine clothes, of lilting music and candlelit dinners.

I belonged to the wild, the untamed, the temporary.

A tent beneath the stars. Meat cooked over an open flame.

The kind of life that would stain a woman like her, ruin the softness in her hands, steal away that glow in her eyes.

Even if the possibility existed, she wouldn’t want this life. She wouldn’t want me.

The sorhox shifted, but I hardly noticed as they walked closer. Her fiancé’s voice was a hum in the background, full of meaningless sounds. Beth’s skirt swayed across her legs, and her steps almost seemed to drag.

Aunt Inla and the male strode inside the barn, and I nodded politely as they passed, my gaze only for her . If I hadn't been watching her so intently, I would've missed it.

She stumbled. Not much. Just a small misstep on the uneven ground. Her hands flew out as I moved forward to help her.

As she righted herself, her fingertips brushed my arm. My wrist.

Heat surged through me like a strike of lightning. The wind got stuck in my throat. A mark scorched across my skin, spiraling in gold as it spread in a delicate ring on the inside of my right wrist.

Everything inside me stopped. The town. The voices.

The tumbleweed clusters. Even the sunlight.

All of it faded to nothing. Only her touch remained, searing into my flesh, into my mind.

She pulled away without noticing, and murmured a hurried, “Sorry,” before she stepped inside to join the male and my aunt.

I should walk away. Forget I ever saw her. Let her continue into the life where she would be comfortable and safe, a life with him . But my body betrayed me, my feet refusing to move, my chest tightening at the sight of her hand sliding so easily into his.

My mate.

She would never know what she was to me. Never know the way the earth completely rearranged itself when she touched my skin. Never know that, in another life, I would’ve given her everything I was and all I could ever be to her alone.

She didn’t see the mark. Didn’t feel the way the air had shattered between us.

I stood frozen, staring at her, barely breathing.

My mate . Here. Now.

Sunlight caught the ring on her left finger, reminding me that she was with him. She had chosen him. Not me.

My stomach twisted with an ache so deep I thought it might split me in half. The fates were wrong. Unfair. Cruel.

The mark on my wrist burned, reminding me of what I could never have. She’d been carved into my skin, but I was left with no way to claim her. I clenched a hand over the mark, as if that could change anything, as if I could shut out the longing tearing through me, leaving an open, bleeding wound.

If only I’d never seen her. Never touched her. Then I wouldn’t know that something so perfect could be dangled in front of me, only to be snatched away.

I swallowed the clammer inside me threatening to break free. Pain clawed at my spine. Fate had bound me to her, but she'd already chosen someone else .

Releasing the door, I staggered back. I clenched my teeth and told my stupid heart to stop pounding.

I had to leave. Now. Before I made the same mistake I'd made with a best friend who'd rightly scorned me after.

Before the yearning in my chest made me do something unforgivable.

Present Day

The scent of fresh hay and roses clashed in the air. It should smell wonderful, exciting, relaxing even. Instead, that tight feeling in my chest I'd lived with for two months coiled into a knot that would never come free.

Sparkling lights strung around the two-story room twinkled, hitting the polished wooden beams and barn floor, creating a magical glow where rows of human guests sat on either side of the aisle.

Their excited chatter and laughter echoed in the big open room while I stood in the shadows, near the cracked-open side door. Unseen. Unwanted.

I shouldn't have come here, not tonight.

Every instinct inside me screamed for me to leave. Walk out the door before the ceremony began. But my boots remained stuck to the plank floor.

One last look. That was all.

I told myself I was doing it out of curiosity. A final glimpse of Beth before she became someone else’s forever.

Ahead, human men stood near the flower-decked altar.

The one standing proudly in the center was him .

Beth’s male. Broad shoulders, fur on his face, something unheard of in orcs.

Confidence shone in his eyes and his posture as he adjusted his jacket and exchanged words with the person who'd perform the ceremony.

His fitted black suit gave him the illusion of strength, but human males possessed none of the muscle or size of an orc.

Not that it mattered. He'd earned her love while I had not.

I turned my gaze to the closed door in the entryway beyond this big room that led to the bridal waiting area.

My throat tightened. Beth was behind that door.

Just on the other side. So close, but she might as well be one of the sparkling stars overhead.

I couldn't touch her any easier than one of them.

The dull ache that had settled in my chest two months and three days ago refused to go away. The first time I’d seen her, I hadn't known what she would become to me. That single touch, that moment of fate, had shattered my world.

And she'd barely noticed me.

The fates were cruel. They gave me a mate, but at the same time, they stole her away.

I tightened my fingers around my wrist where the mark still warmed my skin. Gold. Eternal. Only for her.

But she would never be mine .

The male Beth would marry cleared his throat, and a hush fell over the room. Everyone peered back, but I already knew what they were discovering. The bride hadn't appeared. Still, anticipation thrummed through the air.

My stomach flipped over, and nausea clawed up my throat. I should not be here. She had chosen. She was happy.

I forced my hands into fists, my nails digging into my palms as I swallowed the urge to stay, to watch, to see her in her white dress, walking toward a male who would never cherish her like I could. Who would never feel the soul-deep connection with her I already did.

He could not. That feeling was only for true mates.

My vision blurred as I turned on my heel, my boots thudding on the floorboards as I made myself walk toward the door. Each step took me further from the life I was never meant to have.

I could not watch my mate marry another.

I could not stay to hear them speak their vows.

I could not let my heart finish breaking.

The side door led to a wide dirt path along the structure, and as I slipped through it, the cool, dusky evening air hit my overheated skin. The last breath I took inside the barn had been shaky, but I held it and used it to shove the pain down deep.

I would not look back.

I spied movement out of the corner of my eye, a flicker of white slipping through the shadows, hurrying toward the back of the barn. Long blonde hair. A petite, curvy frame. That same slant to her cheekbones I’d been unable to get out of my mind.

Beth.

My pulse roared like a storm crashing across the plain.

She was fleeing with her dress bunched up in her hands, and her delicate feet stuffed into white shoes with impossibly high spikes on the back. Her hair trailed across her spine in a loose, glorious, moonlit wave.

Why wasn’t she walking down the aisle to marry the male inside? She couldn’t be running away. Maybe she had to go to the bathroom. Or she was hungry, and she wanted a snack.

She turned, looking back, and the moonlight highlighted her pretty features. Despair shone in her lovely eyes.

No bathroom. No snack.

She was leaving.

My mate, running through the dark like a whisper of something I'd never deserve. I was torn between chasing a dream or turning away before it could destroy me any further. She wasn’t running to me. She wasn’t mine to take. But if she had no one else…

The urge to protect her— save her—surged through me. I would not steal her from another male, but if she was rejecting him, that was a completely different story. Running away meant she was no longer with anyone else.

I barely had time to think before my feet were moving, closing the distance between us before she could disappear into the dark.