Claimed By the Mountain Man Orc (The Men of Orc Mountain #2)

Chapter 1

Mazie

There's a certain kind of silence you only experience in the deep of winter.

The kind that feels like the whole forest is holding its breath, waiting for something to disturb the perfect crystalline stillness. Every branch droops heavy with snow. Every pine needle is encased in ice that catches the weak afternoon light and throws it back in fractured rainbows.

I pause on the trail, breath puffing white in the cold air, and adjust the camera strap around my neck.

The leather has gone stiff in the cold, biting into my skin even through the thermal layer beneath my parka.

My fingers are already stiff inside my gloves, the supposedly "arctic-rated" ones that promised to keep me warm in any condition.

Liars. But I press record anyway, watching the little red light wink back at me like a knowing eye.

"Okay, listeners," I say, pitching my voice low and steady the way I've practiced a thousand times.

"This is Mazie Cole with The Cryptid Chronicles, coming to you live from the base of Orc Mountain—home to more legends, tall tales, and blurry photos than any other spot in southern Appalachia.

Today, I'm here to find out if there's more to those stories than moonshine and imagination. "

My words echo faintly in the stillness, swallowed by the snow-laden trees. No wind rustles the branches. No birds call out warnings or territory claims. Just me and the crunch of snow under my boots, each step breaking through the frozen crust with a sound like shattering glass.

I grew up not far from here, in a little town that pretends monsters don't exist.

But I saw one.

Once.

It was winter then too. I was ten, stomping through the woods behind my grandparents' cabin with a stick I pretended was a sword, when I spotted it—huge, broad-shouldered, moving through the trees with a grace that no human that size should have.

Green skin that seemed to absorb the winter light.

Shoulders wide enough to block out the sky.

I ran home screaming, my sword forgotten in the snow, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would burst. My parents called it a dream, their voices tight with the kind of patience reserved for children's wild imaginings.

The kids at school called me Monster Girl for years, the nickname following me through elementary school like a curse.

Now? I call it motivation.

I've built a whole career around finding the truth, peeling back the curtain between folklore and fact.

My podcast has forty thousand subscribers now, people who tune in every week to hear me chase shadows and rumors through forgotten places.

Most of the time, it's raccoons in garbage cans and hunters with too much imagination and too much whiskey.

But a few times—just enough times to keep me searching—I've found things that didn't fit neatly into the world I was raised to believe in.

A set of tracks in Oregon that belonged to no known animal.

A pattern of livestock deaths in Montana that followed moon cycles.

Strange lights over the Nevada desert that my expensive equipment couldn't explain away.

And if anything's real, it's the creature I saw that day.

The snow deepens as I climb, each step requiring more effort.

The trail—if you can call it that—winds between ancient hemlocks whose branches form a cathedral ceiling overhead.

My breath comes harder, each inhale burning, and each exhale adding to the frost gathering on my scarf.

The temperature's dropping fast as the sun slides toward the western ridges, and even through my insulated boots, I can feel the cold seeping in, stealing sensation from my toes.

Then I see them.

Footprints.

I freeze mid-step, one boot hovering above the snow.

Not animal tracks—too long, too heavy, the edges too clean.

The shape is vaguely human, but the stride length is.

.. impossible. No human takes steps that long, not even someone over seven feet tall.

And the depth suggests weight that shouldn't exist outside of bear or elk.

My heart kicks up, shifting from the steady rhythm of exertion to one of frenzied excitement.

I crouch, pulling off one glove despite the cold, brushing snow away with numb fingers to get a better look.

Five toes, wide splay, deep indent—whoever made these weighs a lot more than I do.

The snow within the print is compressed into ice, meaning these tracks are recent but not fresh. Maybe an hour old. Maybe less.

"Gotcha," I whisper, and my voice sounds strange in the silence—too loud, too human.

I follow the trail uphill, my pulse racing.

Every few steps, I glance up, scanning the trees for movement, for any shift in shadow or light that might betray a presence.

The prints veer toward the river, half-covered by drifting snow that blows across the trail in serpentine patterns.

I can hear the water now, a low rushing sound.

Something catches my eye. Movement. A shadow gliding between the pines, there and gone so quickly I almost convince myself I imagined it. Almost.

I lift the camera with trembling hands, zooming in, the lens catching a glimpse of something greenish against the gray-white world. Broad shoulders that taper to a narrow waist. A flash of something pale—tusk or bone or tooth.

It turns.

Eyes meet mine across the distance—gold and bright and far too intelligent for any animal I've ever studied.

Before I can think, before rational thought can override instinct, I'm moving. Running. Chasing.

My boots slip on hidden ice, my camera bumps against my chest with each stride, but I don't slow down. I can't slow down.

Branches whip against my coat with sounds like small explosions. The prints are fresh now, clearer, leading straight toward the water. I can see where he—it—whatever—moved through the underbrush, breaking branches that still weep sap, leaving disturbed snow that hasn't yet settled.

"Wait!" I shout, like an idiot, because I'm talking to a legend, calling out to a myth as if it might respond in English.

My boot hits ice concealed beneath a dusting of fresh snow. My foot slides, ankle twisting. My arms windmill, grasping for balance that's already lost, and suddenly I'm not running, I'm falling.

Cold explodes around me as I plunge into the river.

The shock steals my breath, my lungs seizing as water floods over my head.

The current grabs me immediately, stronger than I expected, dragging me downstream like I weigh nothing.

Ice chunks slam into my shoulders, my back, spinning me until I don't know which way is up.

I fight to surface, arms flailing in movements made clumsy by cold and panic, and break through gasping.

My camera drags at my neck. My boots fill with water, turning into anchors. The cold is beyond anything I've ever felt. Not just cold… but a force that wraps around my chest and squeezes until black spots dance at the edges of my vision.

Then something breaks through the water beside me—massive, powerful, moving through the current like it's nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

Hands—huge, warm even in the freezing cold—wrap around my waist.

I'm lifted like I weigh nothing, hauled up against a solid chest, pressed against wet fabric and heat that feels impossible. Water streams off both of us as he stands, the river only waist-deep on him, and carries me toward the bank.

My vision blurs, but I see him through the haze.

Not a myth. Not a hallucination.

He’s real…

An orc.

Broad chest rising and falling with steady breaths.

Tusks glinting faintly in the dying light, curving up from a strong jaw.

Eyes the color of amber fire, fixed on my face with an intensity that should frighten me but doesn't. His skin is green—true green, the color of pine needles in shadow—and water runs in rivulets down the planes of his face, dripping from dark hair that hangs past his shoulders.

I open my mouth to speak, to thank him or question him or maybe just scream, but all that comes out is a shuddering gasp as my body tries to remember how to breathe.

He looks down at me, breath steaming in the cold air, and his expression is fierce, protective and angry and something else I can't name. His voice is low, gravelly, threaded with something that sounds almost like anger but not quite.

"You shouldn't be here."

The words rumble through his chest into mine. I try to respond, try to form words, but the cold has stolen my voice. My teeth chatter so hard I'm afraid I'll bite my tongue.

Then everything goes dark.