Chapter 13 #2
Pit Mining = Land Rape
Go strip your own world!!
Humans Respect Nature, Orcs Destroy It
Frowning, I leaned toward the monitor. I didn’t know a single orc who wanted to destroy nature. In fact, Abydos seemed to revere it, respect it.
“What is this?” I whispered, my palms flat on his desk as I tried to make sense of the chaos. “Where is this?”
Abydos’s sigh ruffled my short hair. “These are the protestors at my mine in Colorado. They’ve been there for a few weeks, but Garrak says they’ve tripled overnight.
They must have planned something big—most of my guys have been sleeping in the barracks rather than risking trying to get in and out through that crowd. ”
What? “They’re scared of these humans?” Dammit, I thought we’d made progress on Abydos accepting most humans wouldn’t hurt him, and then these assholes show up?
A pause, then he shifted under me. “They’re afraid of hurting them, I think. These humans are passionate, and my guys don’t want to give them a target.”
“Passionate about the wrong thing!” I slapped my palms on the desk as a young female protestor got in close to the camera, shouting something I couldn’t hear. “They clearly don’t know you—don’t know any orcs. You respect the land, you don’t…don’t rape it!”
It took me a hot second to realize Abydos hadn’t responded. I twisted to catch his eye, hoping to show him how incredibly ridiculous this whole thing was.
Except, he wasn’t looking at me. Or the cameras. He was staring down at his hand, where it curled around the armrest of his chair.
“Abydos?”
“They’re right,” he whispered.
Stunned, I couldn’t answer, and his fingers flexed around the leather.
“They’re right,” he repeated, his voice a little firmer.
“It’s why I haven’t had Garrak scare them off.
They’re right.” He lifted his gaze to mine.
“Pit mining is destroying the land. We’re careful with environmental concerns, so we’re not worried about poisoning the water or things like that…
” His eyes shifted to the video of the protestors as he lifted his fingertips to rest against his ruined cheek.
“But Vengeance Mine is a scar on the earth, and I caused it.”
Oh shit.
I lunged for his hand, twisting his fingers in mine, pressing both of our hands against his scars.
“Abydos, you could never…”
“I could. And I did.” His gaze was locked on those shouting, angry people. “When I started the mine, I was only thinking of revenge, of proving myself more than the beast humans thought me to be. But I’ve done something horrible, and I’m not sure how to fix it.”
Okay. Okay. Okay, this could be fixed. He wanted to fix it. It was my job to help him, so I was going to help him figure this out too.
I took a deep breath and twisted in his lap, pulling both of his hands against my stomach and forcing him to look at me. Then I smiled softly. “So how do we fix it?”
His lips formed the word “We?” but he didn’t say it. I saw his gaze searching mine, as if looking for the truth, then he exhaled and glanced down at our twined fingers. “I’m thinking about selling the mine.”
“Oookay… And what would that look like?”
A flash of green beneath his lashes. “What do you mean?”
“So let’s say you sell the mine to another company that wants to produce lithium. You’ll still own the refining plant to process it, so you’d still be working with them. The males you have working out there would keep their jobs…”
“But the mine would still exist,” he intoned dully. “It wouldn’t be me hurting the land, but she would still be hurt.”
Ah.
So this wasn’t just a guilt thing, this was a conscience thing. “Okay, so what’s the alternative?”
Abydos took a deep breath and lifted his chin. “I close it down. I ensure the land is protected. I ensure nature can start to heal the scar.”
How could I not love this male and his quiet honor? I smiled. “Like, turning it into a quarry? That’s what happens to old mines, right?”
But he was already shaking his head. “I’ll want to do more than that. I want to use the land so people can experience the nature I grew up loving before I destroyed it.”
That’s right: Our land mirrored his, and he remembered what all of this looked like before development. I squeezed his hands proudly.
“Would you be able to do all of that?” I murmured. “You would be losing a significant portion of your income.”
“Not too significant, though,” Abydos said thoughtfully as he stared at the screen. Did he even remember I was there? I could see him calculating. “I’ll fly out to Colorado tomorrow to talk with Garrak and the lawyers. The shareholders will have to agree, but I think I could buy them out myself.”
He was leaving tomorrow? Oh. Well. I mean, I knew that sometimes he would have to leave Eastshore—No.
When I took this job, it was with the understanding that he would rarely be on Eastshore, which is why I had to live here.
Of course, I’d taken the job on a trial basis, and a lot of things had changed since then.
Hadn’t they?
Abydos wasn’t aware of my own train of thought, and still seemed to be talking through the argument about closing the mine.
“These days, most of Vengeance’s income comes from the refining plant and shipping organization. I could offer the workers places there, or here on Eastshore—that’s why I’m meeting with the developer, to talk about housing options.”
All of that would cost money, though, and I forced my attention back to his concerns. “That’s a lot of funds to drop if you’re actively losing income.”
His smile flashed quickly, his broken tusk catching his lip slightly. “I’ll be fine, Riven, don’t worry. And so will you.”
I sputtered, my hold on him loosening. “What? No, I wasn’t even—I mean, I wasn’t worried about you firing me or anything.” Should I be? My pulse sped up. “You like my cooking too much.”
“I don’t just like your cooking.” In my rattled state, I couldn’t tell if that meant he liked sex with me more than my cooking…
or if he liked someone else’s cooking more.
When I shook my head, he gently extracted one hand from mine to wrap it around my hip, pushing me away from him a bit.
“I’ve gone ahead and made certain you’re all set—”
“I’m worried about you, Abydos, not me.” Almost frantic to make him understand, I shook my head hard enough that I almost slipped from his lap. I caught myself at the last moment, realizing that he wasn’t going to. “I’m not doing this for money.”
When one of his brows rose in challenge, I sputtered, “I’m not! You asked if this—this this”—I stammered incoherently, gesturing between us—“was me just thinking of you as my boss, but it’s not. I’m doing it because I lo—”
Thank God my brain caught up with my mouth and snapped the damn thing closed.
There’d been nothing in these last weeks that suggested Abydos wanted to hear declarations of my feelings.
In fact, these last few days, when he’d been acting particularly strange, I wondered if it was him trying to pull away.
I swallowed down the panic that thought caused and forced myself to nod firmly at him. “I care about you,” I told him in as no-nonsense of a tone as I could manage.
His grin was rueful. “Thank you. I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters!” I slid from his lap and stood, still gripping his hand, trying to make him understand. “You need to ensure that you can continue to live the life that you love.”
“No, I just mean, all my big expenses have gone through for the year. The land purchase, of course, and I’ve paid off all your debt, so with that out of the way—”
“You did what?” I shrieked, dropping his hand and backing away as his words wrote themselves across the front of my brain.
Abydos frowned at me. “I had Sylvik figure out who owned your medical debt, Riven, and I paid it off.” He slowly stood. “That’s what I meant when I said you would be all set.”
Why couldn’t I breathe? My lungs didn’t seem to be working. “You… My debt…” I mumbled, backing away from him, shaking my head.
“Riven.” He slowly stepped forward, one hand out, his expression worried. “That’s why you were working for me, wasn’t it? To pay off your debt?”
On a trial basis…isn’t that right? This job is still temporary?
“Yes,” I blurted. “No. Do you want me as an employee? Is that what this is about?” None of this made sense, and I still couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. “You’re paying me off because you don’t like my cooking? Is my trial employment over?”
“Oh, dkaar, of course I like your cooking. And if you want to continue cooking for me, my stomach will be very happy.” He was using a soothing voice, but I wasn’t falling for it. He’d paid off my debt because he was trying to get rid of me.
Just like my last gig…he was finding an excuse to cut me free because I’d become too inconvenient?
“I don’t believe this.” I stumbled around the long boardroom table in the middle of the room, finally turning my back to him. “You fucked me and then spring this on me?”
“I made love to you,” he called from behind me. “And you weren’t complaining.”
No, I wasn’t. At the door, my knuckles were white from how hard I gripped the handle, I turned to him. The tears were already leaking from my eyes.
“Abydos,” I whispered, my heart breaking. “You don’t want me working for you?”
His face split into an uncharacteristic grin, his broken tusk prominent. “No, dkaar, I don’t.”