Chapter 31 Willa
WILLA
Twenty orcs stood across from me. I looked at their muscled bodies and thought that this should have been the easiest job I’d ever done.
For years I’d been helping men and women work out at the Charm City gym, slowly growing my personal trainer side-gig, but this?
Opportunities like this came once in a lifetime, if at all.
Me. A trainer for a professional sports team—a sports team made up entirely of orcs.
There wasn’t much to train, honestly. These guys were jacked. The improvements they needed were in game strategy and skill, not in personal fitness. Either the Tusks had a darned good exercise routine already, or they were just genetically gifted.
Looking at them, I was guessing the latter.
But while I wouldn’t need to turn twenty flabby couch potatoes into athletes, I did have a detailed workout plan to maximize what these guys would need to succeed on the ice.
The new coach, some guy named Bill Rencovitch, would be responsible for turning these guys into an actual hockey team.
I’d complained for weeks about how the Tusks needed a training routine that focused on flexibility, speed, and fast-twitch muscle development.
I’d run them through what I’d put together and tweak based on how they did.
Then I’d evaluate each of them and develop personalized training plans for all twenty orcs.
I had a meeting scheduled with Coach Rencovitch for when he started on Wednesday. I wanted to be able to give him my preliminary impressions and to hear what he’d like each of his players to focus on based on his own assessments.
I’d love every minute of it. Well, every minute aside from the orc who instead of propping up the back wall like I’d expected was front-and-center of the group.
I hadn’t seen Eng since Friday at McHenry’s post game when I’d told him I never wanted to see him again.
I steadied my breathing, refusing to let that jerk derail me and ruin this job.
Ignoring Eng, I instead focused on the other orcs.
Ozar was all attentive respect. The equally jacked guy next to him, Ugwyll, seemed prepared to do everything in his power to best his teammates.
The others were a mix of bored, confused, and worried based on their expressions.
They were the ones I’d focus on, the ones who needed all the help they could get.
“My name is Willa, and as Mr. Johnson said, I’m the new team trainer. We’re going to do some cardio to warm up, so let’s hit those treadmills.”
One enthusiastic orc ran for the nearest machine and promptly put his fist through the control panel.
I winced. “No! Don’t hit them. We’re going to run on them.”
“Sorry,” the guy said with a grunt, dipping his head. He stood on the tread of the broken machine and poked at the dangling section with the green quick-start button. Inexplicably, the thing actually started.
The other orcs made their way to the other machines.
Someone must have showed them how to use the treadmills at some point because they all seemed to know how to operate this particular piece of exercise equipment.
I instructed them to increase speed to five miles per hour at an incline of one, then watched.
My first thought was that the team owner hadn’t cheaped out on the equipment. The pounding of the orcs’ feet would have quickly broken most treadmills. These were clearly some sort of industrial strength design beyond what we even had at Charm City.
My second thought was that these guys could run to Silver Spring and back without breaking a sweat, which was a good thing. I had expected that with such massive muscles, these guys wouldn’t be able to deal with extended cardio.
Okay. Keep up the endurance level, but adjust the training plan to include short bursts of speed, to make sure their natural endurance could withstand intension periods of anaerobic sprinting.
“Up the speed to seven miles per hour, but keep the incline where it is,” I shouted over the sound of stomping orcs.
They grumbled, but did as I said after Ozar’s jacked friend, Ugwyll shouted that they should all stop being infantile orclets and run. Ten minutes later I told them to stop. No one was winded, or even mildly sweaty, but I felt that they’d at least achieved the goal of warming their muscles.
Note to self: cardio going forward would be outside with repeated sharp turns at maximum speed.
Treadmills only as a backup because even if I made them run at the insane top speed of fifteen miles per hour with the maximum incline.
These guys needed to be fast and turn on a dime though, so something besides treadmill runs would need to be incorporated into their routine to achieve that particular type of fitness.
Leaving the treadmills behind, we went through a weight circuit on the machines and with free weights, then did some progressively fast passes using the heaviest medicine balls I could find while running in pairs up and down the hallways.
The whole time I took notes, repeatedly asking the guys to tell me their names once more, since meeting twenty new people of whom I only really knew four wasn’t a good thing for my name memory.
“Okay guys,” I shouted once the orcs had done so many running passes that I’d lost count. “Grab water, take a breath, and then we’re going to do some battle ropes—orc-style.”
That had every last one of them interested. After our quick break they followed me like a herd of lemmings into the warehouse area where I’d asked the owner to set up some special workout equipment. “Everyone take one of those chains and stretch it out full length on the floor.”
I’d pulled in a couple of family-favors and managed to have the Port of Baltimore donate fifty foot lengths of the heavy chain that had once been used to secure the smaller ships to the piers.
They were so heavy I couldn’t do more than drag them a few inches.
I had no idea what sort of equipment had been needed to bolt these suckers to the heavy walls of the warehouse space, or if the wall would hold up after the next half hour.
Once the huge chains were straight along the floor I told each orc to pick up the end in both hands, squat with his weight in his heels, and to move their arms up and down to create a “wave” in the chain.
“Like this.” I demonstrated with a much lighter rope I’d had installed at the end of the line. “Keep a steady rhythm, and make sure you’re using your legs to drive the motion as well as your arms.”
As soon as the orcs began, I immediately regretted the activity.
The noise was deafening, with the rattle of chains echoing around the room and drowning out the grunts and shouts of the orcs.
Cement dust rose from the floor where the metal was pulverizing through the industrial epoxy.
I feared the bolts might tear free from the concrete walls.
There was no way I’d ask them to do the slam activity even if the room survived the thirty minutes of waves.
Thankfully the wall and the bolts held, although I made quick note to ask building maintenance staff to reinforce everything. We took another break, did a slower treadmill stint for recovery, then moved on to box jumps.
I’d arranged the boxes into a bit of an obstacle course so that the orcs wouldn’t just be working on fast vertical jumps.
They would move from box to box, alternating sizes and requiring the guys to twist and turn for the next jump.
To inspire some competitive fun, I told them I’d be timing each one, and the orc who completed the course in the least time with clean jumps would be the winner.
“Of a cannoli?” the orc named Pug asked eagerly.
“Ummm, okay?” If it took buying the winner a pastry to motivate them, then I’d do it.
It quickly became clear that the orcs were either extremely competitive, or they seriously loved cannoli. It was a tight competition, but at the end there was one clear winner by five seconds. It was Eng.
Eng.
It wasn’t just the box jumps either. The guy hauled ass on the treadmill, did everything I asked on the weight machines, and actually participated in the medicine ball passes.
He was the first to grab a chain and get to work, the first to return from breaks, and the first in line for the box jumps.
The guy set a score that nineteen other orcs tried and failed to beat.
And not once did he flirt with me, mention his left-unresponded to texts, or say anything at all during the workouts.
While grateful that there was none of the dreaded friction to ruin my first day on the job, I was confused and strangely hurt that he wasn’t mooning over me the way Ozar would have over Jordan in the same situation.
When I announced the winner of the box jump, every one of the orcs groaned.
“You are fuck-joking,” Pug moaned.
“Promised cannoli won’t get you to play hockey during the game, but it will make you jump on and off boxes with the speed of a ptamori.” Ozar threw his hands in the air and shook his head in frustration.
Ugwyll slapped Eng on the back, earning a glare and a growl from the other orc. “I knew you had speed and strength. Good job. Next time I will beat you at the box-contest, though.”
“I’ll bring your cannoli to tomorrow morning’s practice,” I said to Eng before turning quickly away. “And I’ll think of other prizes for a different contest.”
The orcs cheered at that announcement. I gathered them together for some stretching exercises and a slow cool-down walk on the treadmill, then I told them we were done and that I’d see them at six o’clock tomorrow morning.
I’d survived the first day of my new job.
I had learned who was who and had an entire legal pad full of notes.
I was on fire with excitement and looking forward to developing a customized program for each of these orcs.
And I was thrilled with how they’d all gotten on board with my position and the prospect of improving their physical abilities.
Ugwyll was a star pupil, eager and ready for anything I asked him to do.
Ozar was supportive. I could see how the team looked to him for leadership, and he showed them all that I was someone who should be respected and listened to.
The younger and shyer orcs had thanked me after I sent them off to the showers with a promise to see them again in the morning.
One orc named Morag lingered behind to shamelessly flirt, offering to kill and field-dress a dozen squirrels as a gift for me.
I thanked him, letting him know that I liked to kill and field-dress my own meat.
Oddly that only seemed to encourage him.
Unwilling to admit that I was joking, I needed to answer a bunch of questions about whether I had to climb trees to catch the squirrels or if I used a trap, and what sort of knife I preferred.
Eventually I managed to shoo him off to the showers with his teammates.
I’ll admit part of the reason I’d engaged in conversation with Morag was because Eng remained behind as the others headed to the locker room, lingering by the treadmills and scowling.
When Morag left, it meant Eng and I were alone. I glanced over to see the orc still scowling at me.
“If you bring him a squirrel, I will kill him,” Eng suddenly announced, pushing away from the treadmill and striding toward me.
I froze, facing him. I’m sure it wasn’t a good look given that my mouth was open and my eyes wide in confusion.
“What are you talking about? I’m not going to kill a squirrel and give the carcass to anyone, but even if I did, that hardly warrants murder.”
“Morag wants you in his furs. You are not his. You are not his gwintel, and you will never be.” Eng was stalking toward me, slow and focused. Predatory. And I couldn’t deny the heat that pooled between my thighs, or the way my breath caught in my chest.
“If I want to be someone’s gwintel, then that’s my business and not yours, Eng.” The words came out far more breathless than I’d intended and I had no idea what a gwintel was, although I was assuming it meant something like girlfriend or sexual partner.
He stopped right in front of me, so close that I felt the heat from his skin, smelled the odd forest-like scent of his sweat. “I forbid it.”
Forbid it? Forbid it?
“You don’t own me,” I snapped. “I’ll roll in the furs with whomever I please. And I’ll gift dead squirrels to whoever I want.”
“You will not.”
The last two words were said with a growl. I looked up and our eyes met. Yes, there was anger in his expression, but there was also…fear. And something that looked like desperation.
I inhaled, swaying towards him. Reaching out, he snatched me to his chest and kissed me.
Stupid, stupid me. I melted against him, opening my mouth, sliding my one hand up his thigh while my other hand reached up to claw at the flesh exposed by the neckline of his T-shirt.
He moaned as my nails sank into his skin, gripping my ass with punishing hands and lifting me up to press my crotch against his iron-firm erection.
I wrapped my legs around his hips, dove one hand into his hair, and kissed him like the world was about to end.
A metal door slammed behind me and I jumped off of Eng, nearly falling in my haste to put a respectable distance between us. I was breathing hard. Eng stared at me with dark eyes, his workout pants obviously tented outward. Ugwyll strolled across the floor, picked up a towel, turned…and stopped.
He looked at me, then turned to Eng, his gaze roaming down the other orc and stopping briefly on his crotch.
Damn it. This was so unprofessional. I was going to lose my job because of this asshole. So I did what any prudent woman would do. I turned and ran from the room, not slowing until I’d reached my car.