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CHAPTER ONE

Myra

I turned the knife over slowly in my hands, barely feeling the cold winter air. My eyes were locked on his back…and really, who could blame me?

Vartok, the Bloodfire smith, had the most delicious back.

The late afternoon sun had warmed the village—not warm enough to melt the snow, of course, but warm enough that I didn’t wear my bulky wool gloves—and the clan members took the time to linger in the rare sunshine. Midwinter in the Highlands tended more toward gray and wet, so today was a treat.

I wish I could appreciate it.

Instead, I was standing here in the door of the smithy, my heart in my throat and my mother’s knife in my hands, contemplating the unthinkable: asking Vartok for help .

As I watched, he shook his head, sending the beads in his braids quivering around his pointed ears, and muttered to himself.

He swung his hammer again—the smith’s hammer, not the war hammer I’d seen him practicing with on the sparring field—and I tried not to notice the way the muscles of his shoulders and back bunched and moved.

Was the male not cold? Even a little?

Despite the midwinter air—even warmed by the sun, there was no mistaking that Midwinter Feast had only just passed two days ago—he wore only his kilt, the material bunched around his waist instead of protecting his shoulders.

Sweat glistened on those broad green shoulders, and I wondered if orc skin would be salty were I to?—

What ?

Nay, I did not wonder what his skin tasted like.

I did not .

Hardening my jaw, I straightened my shoulders, forcing my fingers to wrap around the broken hilt of my knife so I stopped fiddling with it.

I did not like Vartok.

I did not .

Vartok was charming and flirtatious and outgoing…

with everyone but me. I’d arrived in Bloodfire Village last summer, before the catastrophe which had forced Vartok to take on the role of chief.

Even then, even when he didn’t have the hopes and fears and future of the whole clan resting on his sweaty shoulders, Vartok had treated me differently .

He didn’t flirt with me. He didn’t smile at me. When he teased me, it wasn’t to draw me closer, but to push me away.

And I hated the confusion he caused in me.

He was the most attractive male I’d ever met, and the way the females—orc and human alike—in the village whispered, he was a talented lover. But he treated me, not as a potential lover or even friend…but as someone he wanted naught to do with.

I had told myself this was fine. His attractive smile or tempting back should not bother me. It wasn’t as if I wanted him to like me. I was fine the way I was, with my sister’s pregnancy to focus on, and my friends to keep me company.

This is enough .

Gruptor strolled by, his giggling two-year-old son slung over his green shoulder and a half-barrel tucked under his other arm. He nodded politely to me, but his gaze flicked between me and the smithy, curiosity in his eyes.

It was no secret among the villagers of the animosity between Vartok and myself. After all, I hadn’t been one to accept his disdain quietly and did my best to shoot barbs right back.

Soon Gruptor wouldn’t be the only one wondering why I stood here. Best to get it over with.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped over the threshold, my winter boots making no sound on the hay Vartok had spread over the dirt floor.

But somehow, he knew .

Orc senses were so much stronger than humans’, so mayhap he’d heard me or…smelled me? Either way, he twisted to glare over his shoulder, his fingers gripping the hammer tightly…and he froze.

“Myra?”

He sounded disbelieving. As if he’d known it was me but hadn’t trusted until he’d verified.

I lifted my chin. “I need your help.”

There. That was a simple, non-combative opening, aye?

I hadn’t expected the intensity of his response. Vartok turned back to his work, scooped up the blade he’d been pounding away at, and thrust it into the water barrel. The steam almost obscured his movements as he hung his hammer and turned back to me, wiping his hands.

Receiving Vartok’s full attention was almost as hard as receiving his disdain.

I didn’t like the way he looked at me, so…strongly. Was there another word for it? I shifted uncomfortably, dropping my gaze to his chest, then realized my mistake when his muscles flexed ever so slightly, causing my pulse to jump in appreciation.

I forced my eyes to return to his face so he wouldn’t think me afraid, and resisted the urge to pull my blue cloak tighter around me.

It was made from a beautiful soft wool, not armor.

It wouldn’t protect me from Vartok’s stares, or the way they made me feel so different from anyone else at whom he looked.

If I hadn’t been looking at him, I would have missed the way Vartok’s brow—the one with the silver ring through it—twitched. Was he mocking me already?

And could he see the way my skin flushed in response—anger, or perhaps shame?

Well, I didn’t care if he resented my presence in his smithy. Aye, I realized with his new—hopefully temporary—role as the chief, he rarely had time to work with his metals. But I was here for his help with those metals, and I was a clansmember too, by damnation!

I might not be Mated to an orc male like every other human female in the village, but Nan had welcomed me with open arms, and I had a place here. The Bloodfire clan needed me, and that knowledge set my chin rising again as I thrust out my hand.

The one with the knife in it.

Vartok’s brow did more than twitch this time as he glanced down at it, then back to me, one side of his lips twisting cruelly.

“Ye need my help stabbing me?”

I scoffed. “If I wanted to stab you, Vartok, I would have done it when your back was turned, before you knew I was here.”

The hard lines of his jaw softened, as did his eyes—just slightly—and his smirk turned mocking.

“Och, I kenned ye were here, wee human. I was waiting for ye to get up the courage to stab me.”

He thought I lacked courage? When I’d stayed with my cruel uncle until his death, then packed up my belongings— and my sister’s—and left behind everything I knew to come through the veil to live with her in the orcs’ world?

‘Twas my turn to mock him as I waggled the broken knife.

“’Tis not courage I lack, smith, but a forge.” I wasn’t going to admit that I also lacked his talent with metal, or his tools. I wasn’t going to admit aught to him.

Especially not the way the sight of his lips curling knowingly like that makes your insides warm.

Aye, especially not that.

His gaze had dropped to the knife again.

“Ye need a forge?” he asked as he reached for my blade. “Ye want— fook ,” he muttered as the wooden handle gave up its fight and fell away from the metal. “Human-made trash.”

Before I could tell him that the knife was decades old, he’d curled his fingers around it, hiding my heirloom from me.

“I’ll find ye a new one. This is for yer herb chopping and whatnot?”

I couldn’t hear any dismissal in his tone as he spoke of my profession, but it must be there. So I sniffed.

“I do not want a new knife, I want this one. Can you fix it for me, or no?”

“I can fix aught.” The statement didn’t ring with arrogance as I’d expected, but had been mere statement. Without looking down at my mother’s knife, he said, “I’ll give it a new handle and reinforce the blade.”

That was what I wanted, aye? So why was my heart still pounding as if we were in a confrontation? Why did I want to snap back something mean ?

He is doing what you asked, you idiot.

Aye. I needed to respond to his words, not my feelings. I swallowed.

“I…thank you.”

It seemed that’s what he’d been waiting for. With a nod, Vartok slid the blade behind him to his anvil and rested his arse against the heavy slab of metal as his lips curled upward.

Not his mocking grin.

His charming one.

The grin he’d never turned my way, not even in the beginning when I was a scared human in a strange world, clinging to my sister and whatever offers of friendship I could get.

Why now? He flirted with everyone he met, but never me . What was he doing?

“I’ll fix it for ye, pretty little human, then use it to chip away at yer icy heart, eh?”

Ah. So he could mock me.

I told myself it was stupid to be disappointed. I set my chin and glared up at him.

“I do not have an icy heart!”

Except, mayhap he thinks you do, because this is how you respond? Well, it wasn’t as if I was going to start flirting , not like him.

“I am not like you, Vartok, throwing away your smiles on people who?—”

My lips snapped together before I could finish the lie with people who do not want them .

His smile didn’t waver, but his brow inched upward again. “People who what, little beauty?”

Flirting again to fluster me? I scowled and planted my hands on my hips beneath my cloak.

“Do you honestly think me icy, you arsehole? I am a midwife, a healer . How could I possibly be unfeeling yet care for those who come to me?” A horrible thought hit me, and I reared back with a gasp. “You think me a bad healer?”

He suddenly straightened, his palm open as if reaching for me…but then he froze.

“Nay, Myra, I think ye a brilliant healer and midwife. Ye care, and the clan is lucky to have ye.”

His words…

He sounded as if he meant them. My scowl eased to a confused frown.

I swallowed, hating the uncertainty in my stomach. I didn’t like being uncertain, and that seemed to be the main way I felt around this male. Bah .

As I began to back away, my arms wrapped around my stomach without any prompt from me. Vartok made me feel small, helpless, confused… Or mayhap that was just my response to him.

“Myra, I am sorry—” he began, but I was already speaking.

“The knife was my mother’s. She was a midwife and ‘tis all I have to remember her. ”

My heel reached the threshold and I could feel the sunshine behind me. But my attention was locked on his expression…and the way it softened.