Checked Out By The Orc (Knotted By The Monsters #3)

1. Esme

One

Esme

I’m standing in the staff room of the Greymark Public Library, trying not to sweat through my best blouse.

New city, new job, five hundred miles away from home and my friends and family.

I’m starting in my new position as senior librarian.

With a real grown-up salary, in a town where the air smells like fresh pine, and the bay sits right outside the big library windows.

It’s like a goddamn dream come true. And I’ve never been so excited or terrified.

I unpacked my new place in three days because I couldn’t sit still.

“You must be Esme.” A woman pops up next to me. She’s short, wears her hair in long, stylish box braids, and has an easy warmth about her. Her badge says JANEY.

“That’s me.” I stick out my hand and she takes it. “Esme Williams. Don’t tell anyone I have no idea where the bathrooms are,” I add in a fake whisper.

She laughs. “Janey, I work in Circulation. I’ll show you everything.

The bathrooms, the good stapler, which microwave actually works.

” She drops her voice. “And who to avoid in the break room.” I like her instantly.

Which is a relief because I’ve been bracing for a room full of strangers.

“But first, we have a staff meeting,” she says, steering me by the elbow.

The conference room is small, full of people, and they’re all…

quiet, even tense. Holding their coffee cups clutched, there’s barely any small talk.

I get a few nods, a couple of friendly smiles, somebody slides me a sad little plate of store-bought pastries with a whispered welcome to the team, and I take a Danish I don’t really want just to be polite.

I’m doing my new-girl smile, the ‘I’m so glad to be here’ one, when the door opens.. and the whole room changes.

A literal giant walks in, sits at the head of the table, and the poor excuse for small talk completely dies. Everyone gets very interested in their coffee. The friendly woman who gave me the Danish goes stiff as a board. And I forget the Danish even exists.

He is huge. Even seated, he’s enormous: with shoulders the size of the doorway, a chest like a wall.

His green skin is a deep, mossy forest tone that makes me think of cool places, shade, and deep water.

Strands of thick, dark hair fall over his forehead.

A pair of tusks protrudes over his full lower lip.

A shortly trimmed beard covers his cut jaw.

He has thick, inky eyebrows and a strong, masculine nose.

He’s in a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up forearms that have no business being this corded, this veined, this THICK!

Two short horns curve on top of his head, and he’s wearing a single gold earring.

He looks like what you’d get if you crossed a sexy pirate with a massive lumberjack. Absolutely yummy… my poor ovaries!

And nobody meets his eyes. No one speaks. He asks something low about the quarterly numbers, and a guy sitting two seats down nearly knocks his coffee over answering.

Yeah. Alpha. Obviously. I don’t even need to catch his scent to know; it’s in how the entire room rearranged itself around him. The same way prey behaves around something with sharp teeth.

And then the AC kicks on, pushing the air from his side of the room to mine and… Oh. Oh.

Cedar, wood smoke, and something dark and warm under that goes straight down the back of my throat and lands low in my belly.

My skin prickles, and the little hairs on my arms stand up.

My body feels like it’s been waiting my entire life to find this exact scent, and here it is, at work, coming from my new boss…

I’m an omega, I know what this pull is, and I’ve never once in my life felt it this hard, this fast...

I press my thighs together under the table and pray to God that orcs can’t smell that far through a room.

Thank God, he’s working down a list of questions and announcements in his deliciously low, flat, rumbling voice, not looking up.

I’m a professional; I gotta get myself under control.

But then Janey says, “Oh, and we have our new senior librarian starting today. Esme Williams from California.” She smiles my way.

He looks up, and his eyes find me. They’re brown, dark-rimmed, deep-set under his heavy brows; they land on me and fucking stay, and the room goes dead silent.

Something moves over his face. Not exactly a smile.

I don’t think this guy can smile, and I don’t think the staff would survive it…

But something eases around his eyes, in his jaw.

The hard set of him goes the smallest fraction softer.

He looks at me like… I don’t have a word for how he looks at me.

“Welcome,” he finally rumbles.

That’s it, one word. Low and gravelly, in the kind of voice that vibrates through your chest and travels somewhere it has no business going in a staff meeting.

I feel myself go warm all over, barely managing to let out a small “thank you.”

He holds my gaze a beat longer, then goes back to his agenda, and I sit there with my heart beating like crazy.

Janey leans close, making big eyes.

“Okay,” she whispers.

“What?!” I ask, dying to know what exactly she thinks happened.

“That.” She tips her head towards the head of the table, at the enormous green alpha. “Sven Greymark does not do that. He doesn’t say, welcome. Shit, he barely says, good morning, and he just,” she gestures, “looked at you like that!” she whisper-shouts.

“Like what?” I insist, my voice coming out a little strangled.

“Like that,” Janey repeats, like it’s obvious, like there’s no other word. And I guess there isn’t…

Oh no. I moved five hundred miles to build a career, a life, and I’m gonna lose my entire damn mind over my boss. I’m in so much fucking trouble!