Page 31 of Orc's Pride

He’s straightforward—when he thought I might be a spy, he wasn’t shy about it. And he enjoys the food with the samedirectness, devouring everything with satisfied groans that make my cheeks heat even more.

It’s refreshing.

“I’m sorry for making you suffer through my food,” he says. “Trust me, it’ll never happen again.”

“Because I’ll teach you how to cook!” My eyes narrow, and he laughs from his belly as I playfully chastise him. “You’re not getting out of domestic labor that easily.”

He raises his hands in surrender. “I’ll do the dishes tonight, how does that sound?”

It sounds domestic as hell, and I can’t help my gaze from lingering on his wide hands and muscled forearms. Somehow, everything that frightened me about him before—his size, his shrewd eyes, his direct demeanor—has become appealing.

“How was your training?”

He laughs again. “If it went poorly, I wouldn’t be eating with you now. I’d be defending my title. There would be a crowd shouting at the arena by now, trust me.”

Every day, he wakes up before the sun rises just so he can be the first at their gymnasium. He says that he needs to lead by example, but I don’t see any other orc working half as hard as he does. He doesn’t come back until the sun’s almost set, and I suspect if he didn’t think I needed to be entertained and fed that he’d stay out even later. Working, plotting, training.

“Doesn’t it get exhausting? Always having to be the strongest?”

He says, “Not when you’re the strongest.”

But his eyes do something else. We share a long, honest look. His eyes are unshielded and almost grateful that I understand what he’s saying beneath his words.

I think about his mother, and what he shared with me. He didn’t have to tell me anything at all. If anything, it puts himat risk. If I were a spy for dark elves, that kind of psychological damage would be something useful to exploit.

And he put it in my hands like some sort of trinket.

He trusts me.

This week keeps getting stranger by the minute. It gets stranger still as we chat over dinner, and his chair scoots closer to mine every time he refills our water glasses with the earthen pitcher I filled.

“What do you train for, anyway?”

“War, sneaky dark elves, other orc challengers.” His eyes gleam mischievously. “Secretive humans. Although I have to admit, this secret,” he says, gesturing to the food left on the table. “Is one I am very pleased to discover.”

“Is it now?”

“Very much.”

“Then you should prove it.” I finish my meal with one last bite and leave the dish in the sink.

He laughs again, and makes good on his promise to clean up. He’s surprisingly practiced at it, though I suppose he must be, since he lives alone and his home is quite clean. He portions away the leftovers without complaint and carries the rest of the dishes into the polished sink.

He hands me a towel, and I dry the dishes after he scrubs them clean.

“In case you couldn’t tell by the lack of leftovers,” he says. “Dinner was delicious. Thank you.”

It’s impossible to believe he isn’t in a relationship already. He’s the leader of his clan, handsome as hell, and he does the dishes with a smile. How can he not be into relationships? It’s like he was made for them. He must be dodging female orcs every time he steps foot outside.

Maybe that’s why that woman always growls at me.

Not that we’re in a relationship. Nothing close to it. He’s just watching out for me as a concerned Chieftain, making sure that I’m not physically torn into pieces by a bunch of angry orcs by keeping me safe in his home.

In his home that he never cooked in before I arrived, judging by how bare his pantry and stale his bread had been.

He shuts off the tap water, and for a moment I admire how planned his base is. Not all orc bases have such well-maintained plumbing—many have nothing more than a well in the center of the residential huts. But here, the homes are built strong, out of stone, and they’ve repurposed old pipes to lead to each one.

“That’s that, then,” he says, lingering by the sink. His broad shoulders stretch as he turns, and I can’t keep my eyes from trailing down his chest.