Winning the Orc's Heart (Trollkin Lovers #7)

Chapter 1

Graz

T he one thing I’m absolutely certain about is that magic is real. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I’ve experimented on it. I’ve witnessed what it can do, and it’s just as marvelous and powerful as it is dangerous.

I slow my horse, Jaks, and glance down at my map. I’m approaching the third-closest marker, and I should be there within the day, as long as whatever used to be out here still exists. So far, though, I’ve had miserable luck.

The first ruin—which was closest to home—collapsed, utterly destroying any evidence of what was inside it. I still can’t believe my idiot best friend, Lo’zar, obliterated an ancient site to save his and his woman’s hide.

I never pictured that horny player would settle down. He’d always been the first to find a pretty face in a bar and head upstairs. He lived a life in the shadows, flitting from one bed to the next, one job to another.

Yet... something in him changed when he found her. Lo’zar told me that he’d come across his mate, the one destined for him, the very thing that few of us trollkin ever manage to come across in our lifetimes.

And he’d discovered it in a human.

I can’t deny that it makes me wild with envy. That asshole. Yeah, sure, I’m happy for him, but it’s so unfair. Finding a true mate of my own is unlikely at best, and seeing my playboy friend get what I’ve always wanted bites.

Gritting my teeth, I steer my horse off to the right and follow the fork in the road, veering deeper into the swampland. It’s slow going, even with what remains of a path here. My horse’s hooves sink deep in the mud, and he grumbles under me as he lifts his foot out and continues plodding along.

The pyramid that Lo’zar destroyed wasn’t the only evidence of magic to go down in flames. So did my second lead. Quite literally, it exploded.

That experience does unsettle me.

When I’d gotten to the second mark on the map, outside the neutral city of Morgenzan, I’d found a great battle underway. The city guard and a pack of wild orcs had picked a fight with one another, and in the middle of the scuffle, the top of the mountain blew right off.

Most certainly the work of magic.

I had waited in the city for the fires to cool, and then I’d gone in the middle of the night to inspect the remains, only to find the mine had collapsed, and all evidence of any magic that might have been there was gone, too.

I grumbled the entire train ride home. Waste of a trip—and a long one, as far north as it was.

Now I’m headed to the third marker on the map I pilfered out of one of the boss’s shipments. All his illicit goods come through my mechanic shop, and Kugara doesn’t mind giving me a first look at the “intellectual” things, as she calls them: books, maps, and rolls of parchment paper with ancient inscriptions. Gusak smuggles historical relics like this for collectors and other individuals of disrepute, and he wasn’t going to notice one scrap of paper missing. Kugara had kindly looked the other way when I took the map, and Gusak hadn’t been any the wiser.

That’s for the best, because our boss doesn’t take too kindly to disobedience or petty larceny. But the moment I saw that map, I knew it was special, and it was worth the risk.

I’ve since redrawn it, leaving the original curled up on a shelf in my shop where it won’t get damaged. I have two replicas with me, the other wrapped up in my saddlebag in case I drop the first one in the mud.

Considering that it’s me, a very likely thing to happen.

I hope that when I find whatever the map says is out here in the swamp, it won’t also disappear before I can study it. All I want is another few drops of that glowing purple magic so I can finally test its limits, find out what it does, and perhaps even learn why it’s here.

I curl one hand around the vial at my neck. It’s the last few drops of magic I have after building the amulet for Lo’zar and his human. I’d had to do so many experiments to get it right that at the end, I was left with only this.

Deciding to leave it raw, just in case I need it later, I poured it all into a reinforced vial so it couldn’t escape into the world by accident. I hope that I never have to use it, because I still don’t truly know what it’s capable of—though the explosion up north gave me some hint as to the breadth of magic’s destructive power.

I may not know much, but there are legends of humans and trollkin alike who once wielded such things, and I’m beginning to wonder if those legends aren’t founded in reality, at least in part.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if they were? If all the stories we grew up on were true? That would be the discovery of the century. I could use it to power all sorts of devices. Who knows what I could create?

The sun crosses the sky as Jaks and I wade deeper into the swamp, and the mud grows ever thicker. We pass dead trees, cattails, and ponds with lurking creatures in them. Around midday I come across some dry land, where I dig out my rations and chew the dried meat while Jaks browses for what grass he can find.

For an orc who hates travel, I sure chose a peculiar path. I miss fresh-cooked meals with a mug of bubbling beer. I can’t hunt to save my life, so dried rations is what I get. Believe me, I tried a few times to bring down prey, and it was an embarrassment for me as much as it was for the rabbit. Even Jaks judged me.

But I know I’m close to my destination now. I can almost taste it. And when I get there, maybe I’ll finally have answers to all my questions.

The trees grow denser as we reach the point where I have to venture off the beaten path. My horse does not like this idea, and objects vehemently as I guide him away from the road and into the deeper mud. His hooves stick with every step, and soon he comes to an abrupt halt.

He won’t go any farther.

Fuck. I need my damned horse, and I can’t leave him here tied up to a tree, either. What if I don’t come back?

That’s a haunting thought, but one I must seriously consider after seeing what’s become of the other two markers. If there’s magic here, who knows what could happen?

I hop off Jaks’s back and try leading him instead. He goes a bit farther now that I’m not weighing him down, but the path becomes more treacherous the more distance there is between us and the main road. I just have to hope I estimated my destination right.

Finally, one of my legs sinks into the mud up to the knee. Damn it, that’s not good. Jaks stops again, unwilling to risk life and limb for me in the swamp, and I don’t really blame him.

I’m about to turn back around when I peer up at the sky, and there, I see it: a rock face, high above the branches. Something that definitely does not belong in the middle of a swamp.

“Fine,” I tell my horse, wrapping his reins around a tree. “Wait here. I’m going to take a look.”

He huffs and takes a bite of a reed instead.

Squaring my shoulders and sliding my goggles down over my eyes, I head off toward the structure, even as the mud threatens to swallow me up. I’m going to find answers, no matter what it takes.

I need to know the truth. I need to understand why magic exists, why it found me, and what I’m meant to do with it.

* * *

Vienne

Raiden is such a fucking asshole.

“Gear up, everyone,” he says, his rifle slung over his shoulder. “We’re almost at the target location. We have no idea what we’ll find there.”

He likes acting as if the King’s History Corps is some kind of military unit, when we’re really all just a bunch of intellectuals. We like relics and artifacts, investigation and understanding.

He pauses in front of me. Everyone knows that Raiden and I have a sexual relationship. We tried to keep it under wraps for a time, but it was too obvious when we disappeared into the same tent together and the others could hear us gasping. Instead of treating his “girlfriend” with favoritism, though, he’s even harder on me than the other members of the Corps, as if to show them he has no bias toward me.

“You’re heading in first, Vienne,” he says, pointing a finger in my face. “Go down, take a look around, and come back with your report. I want to know what to expect down there.”

Just great. I don’t even get a partner? Of course Raiden would never go down himself, not when he has a minion to take the brunt of whatever we might discover.

I’m never sneaking into his tent with him again.

I get to my feet, working hard not to show how he pisses me off, and straighten my clothes. I run a hand across my gun on one hip and my pick axe on the other, then check my pack to make sure I have my tools. I might find what we’re after buried under dirt or sand or even rock, and then I’ll have to chip away at it to get to what I want.

“Sure thing, boss ,” I tell him.

Raiden smirks. “Good.”

We all get prepped, and then it’s time. The ruin rises high overhead, a rather monstrous figure in the otherwise misty, dead swamp. Yesterday we studied the exterior, investigating how carefully the massive stones were laid at a time so far in the past. How did they manage to move these? Now we have trains, which can carry great objects a long way, but back then? Each rock making up the ancient building is set in such a way that it doesn’t even need mortar to hold it together. Instead, the pieces are fitted with notches, creating tall walls that still haven’t given way to time.

Upon further investigation, we’d found an entrance covered by piles of vines we had to carefully cut and burn away. Then we spent two days trying to discover just how that entrance opened . It was clearly a door, but made of stone and far too heavy for us to move, even with the entire Corps working on it together.

Yesterday, though, just when we thought we might need to give up and bring in the military to help us chip our way through it, one of the other jerk-offs on the team found a button. When he pressed his hand to the circle of stone, it gave way, sinking into the wall.

And then the door opened. We didn’t dare close it again, so we left it that way, exposed to the elements.

Today it’s my turn to descend into the darkness with nothing but a fire starter and a torch to light my way. When we reach the top of the steps that lead to the entrance, the rest of the Corps members gather around.

“Don’t fuck this up,” Raiden says, and I scowl. I don’t know what I was thinking by sleeping with him in the first place. Maybe he’s a bit less abrasive when we’re alone together, but no dick is worth this.

“Yeah, yeah.” I wave him off as I light my torch, then start down the steps. The way is narrow and the stairs are steep, but I’ve seen much worse. Nothing compares to the time I had to climb a rope out of a dank pit filled with rotting corpses because we had a lead on some ancient burial ground. It was there, of course, underneath the disgusting offal both modern and ancient, so we had to remove the corpses in order to dig.

That’s my job, though, and most of the time I enjoy it. Being a part of the King’s History Corps is an honor not granted to many. I had to demonstrate a knowledge of ancient languages, world geography, and history to be eligible. My role here is important enough to keep me out of military conflicts, but we’re still paid well.

Best of all, we get to learn the secrets of the past and uncover mysteries that no one else has ever pieced together. Usually all we find is some ancient statue with big tits, but occasionally we come across a clue that tells us more about our origins, and that’s when it’s all worthwhile. We’ve found burial sites with evidence of how humans once laid our dead to rest, and artwork carved into stone caverns that tells us about how our ancestors lived. Ancient humans were hunter-gatherers, struggling every day to survive against predators and the elements—and often against trollkin, too.

I descend deeper and deeper into the ruin, and the walls hug me closer. But claustrophobia is not one of my faults, or else I’d never be doing this work in the first place. Spiders cover the rock faces, though they recede into the stonework as I pass with my torch. Spiders, snakes, and scorpions don’t love fire, to my benefit.

I’m wondering just how far down this goes, imagining I’ve already descended beneath the ground, when the torchlight catches something up ahead.

While the tunnel appears to end, the stairs continue on into what appears to be a large room. Yes! I could pump a fist into the air. This must be what we’re looking for. The joy of discovery washes over me—the reason I do this job in the first place.

When I take a step down into the cavernous space, I gasp. It’s fucking huge . The massive stone room spreads out around me. Hundreds of people could have gathered here once upon a time without much difficulty, and I’m guessing they did by the stone thrones erected on the far end of the massive room and the floors rubbed shiny by many feet.

But there’s very little else here besides the thrones. Intricate carvings decorate the walls, though, and as I descend the steps toward the floor, I raise my torch to get a good look at them.

“What the hell?” I come to a stop as I take in the image etched into the wall. There are two figures facing one another: one human, eyes wide open. The other is certainly trollkin, with tusks rising from the sides of its mouth. I may not have seen any up close before, but everyone knows what they look like. We have paintings and history books depicting the centuries of war between us.

I stare at the wall, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. What are these images doing here? What is this room trying to tell me?

Now this is a discovery. I’m sure the King would be fascinated by it.

That’s when I hear a noise. It’s faint footsteps, coming from down below. I pause on the stairs as I search the room for the source, and find a doorway on the other end of the room, behind the two thrones. A light bobs up and down along the wall.

My mouth falls open when someone appears there. He is large and green, with massive shoulders, and what are clearly two white tusks protruding from his mouth. His hair is wild around his head, barely tamed by a pair of goggles.

A fucking trollkin.