Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Sloane
The moment the men disappear upstairs, the house gets quiet.
I can hear Zoe’s excited voice above us, something about beads, and then Loki’s nails clicking on the hardwood as he races after her. Laurie’s warm laugh carries down the staircase.
And then it’s just me and Ellie at the kitchen table, surrounded by syrup bottles and coffee mugs and the general happy wreckage of a Saturday morning.
“Would you like more coffee?”
“God, yes. Please.”
She refills both our mugs and settles back into her chair, shifting back slightly as she wraps both hands around the ceramic. “So.” She looks over at me. “How are you actually doing?”
Not how are the feet or did you sleep okay. Not the polite version of the question.
I pause. My default is to deflect. Fine, great, getting there, all things considered. That’s what I’d say to my editor or my mother or anyone who didn’t actually want the real answer. “Honestly? I’m not sure yet.”
Ellie nods like that’s exactly what she expected to hear. “That makes complete sense.”
I like her immediately. I liked her last night too, the way she said you don’t have to know anything right now, you just have to rest and actually meant it. There was no performance in it.
I wrap my hands around my own mug and decide to ask what I’ve been wanting to ask since I woke up this morning. “Can I ask you something I’ve been super curious about since we arrived?”
“Sure, you can ask me anything.”
“Well…how did you end up living here with Garlen?” I gesture at the house, the kitchen, the general situation. “Because I know you originally lived next door. And now you’re married and—”
“And I’m pregnant,” she chuckles. “I figured you must know, so why not mention it.”
“Yeah, sorry, Jonus told me, but I wasn’t sure if you were telling anyone yet.”
“No worries. Garlen knew before I even took a test. He could scent it. I’m only about ten weeks. Nothing to see yet. But try telling that to five orcs who’ve been acting like I’m made of glass since approximately five minutes after we had sex.”
“He could just — smell it?”
“Immediately.” She looks equal parts delighted and exasperated. “It’s been a whole thing.”
“I bet.”
“Anyway.” She picks her mug back up. “You asked how I ended up here. How much time do you have?”
“Apparently I’m not walking anywhere for the foreseeable future, so…”
She laughs. “Mom, Zoe and I originally moved into the house next door last summer. I got a really good job teaching at the Academy and Zoe goes to school there too. Since my dad had passed away and my mom was let go from her corporate job, she decided to call herself officially retired and she moved up here with us. Two weeks before Christmas I got the surprise of my life. Garlen and his cousins moved in next door and on that first day I happened to meet Garlen in the front yard. He inhaled my scent and instantly knew I was his mate.”
I blink. “That fast?”
“Yeah, I guess it’s something that happens to all orcs.
But it happened more intensely for Garlen because first, it was winter and we were literally standing in snow.
Historically, orcs claim their brides in the dark of winter, so they are susceptible to acting primal about those urges at that time of year.
And there was another layer to all of this, the Irontrees are also known to be a lineage that goes extra-ordinarily feral for a mate in the dark of winter. ”
“Did Garlen go feral?”
“Oh, yes. It was a bit terrifying. He was snarling and growling, ready to kidnap me off the street and carry me to a snowy cave in the mountains to have his way with me. But Jonus and the others mobilized right away. They tackled him to the ground, chained him up, and dragged him back to this mansion. They kept him caged and chained in the basement for most of the winter just so he wouldn’t come back here and try to… well…” She grins.
“Wow,” I laugh. “And yet you don’t sound all that horrified.”
She bites her lip. “Is it bad that I wasn’t?
A part of me was like ‘unchain him, let him have his way with me.’” And then it got worse.
One day he was attacked with a scent bomb which caused him to go super feral.
He instantly grew three times his size, busted out of the cage and raced across town.
He found me just as school was letting out.
” She pauses. “Someone filmed it. The whole world saw that moment.”
“I remember that story.” I shake my head slowly. “I read about that for work. That was Garlen?”
“Yep. That was us.” She says it with a combination of mortification and pride.
“I managed to talk him down, held his hand and walked him back home. After that I made the decision to move into the mansion with him. He moved from the basement cage to his bedroom.” She meets my eyes. “And I moved in with him.”
“While he was still chained?”
“Yes. His mobility was limited. He chose to keep the chains on until spring. He wanted to wait until he was completely free and sane and could choose him without any of that hanging over us.”
I’m quiet for a moment. “That’s not what I expected orcs to be like.”
“Modern orcs don’t kidnap and they are very serious about consent.”
I look down at my coffee mug, thinking about a seven-foot-tall orc sleeping next to a woman he wanted desperately, choosing every single night to stay chained so her choice would be completely free. “What happened in spring?”
Ellie’s smile widens. “They removed the chains on March twenty-first. We got married the same day.” A beat. “And then—”
“And then you got pregnant.”
“Immediately.”
We look at each other.
“Orc biology,” I say.
“Orc biology,” she agrees. “Which actually brings me to something I should explain. You’ll get pregnant almost immediately.
Orc biology overrides human birth control completely.
There’s no preventing it. When I married Garlen I knew I had to be okay with getting pregnant right away and never having a daughter.
Our children would always be male and look mostly like their father. ”
“Okay. I’m processing.”
“Yeah, it’s a big deal. I already have a daughter, so there was less decision about that for me. But if you’re someone who always wanted the possibility of having a biological daughter this would be something to consider.”
“Thank you, that’s important.”
She pauses for another sip of coffee then continues, “There’s one more thing. And I’m telling you this because you need to know.”
Uh oh.
“They can scent arousal,” she says. “Always. There’s no hiding it from them.”
I close my eyes for one second. “I know. Jonus told me that he could scent my arousal and I wanted the ground to swallow me whole.”
She laughs with delight. “Been there, done that.”
“Hey, I have another question.”
“Sure, keep them coming.”
“Can you tell me more about Jonus. What is his role in this family?”
Ellie considers this carefully. “Well, I’d say he’s the one who makes everything look effortless.
When Garlen was in that basement losing his mind, Jonus was the one keeping everyone calm and keeping the outside world from knowing what was actually happening.
When the reporters showed up outside this house, Jonus handled every single one of them without breaking a sweat.
” She tilts her head. “He’s always moving. Always managing something.”
“I noticed that. He organized my entire extraction. Not the State Department…it was Jonus who spearheaded that operation to get me out of there and back home.”
“Exactly. He can be the life of the party and do lots of charming talk, but underneath all that smooth—” She pauses. “He observes and remembers everything. He just never lets on.”
I think about all our late-night video calls. The way he’d say something offhand that proved he’d been listening to something I’d mentioned weeks earlier. I’d always chalked it up to him being good at his job.
“I’m going to tell you something,” Ellie says. “And I just need you to hear it.”
“Okay.”
“In all the time I’ve known Jonus — and I’ve known him since the day I moved in next door, which means I’ve spent a lot of time with this orc — I have never once seen him stay still.
He’s always circling the room, he’s always charming someone, he’s always doing six things at once.
” She meets my eyes. “Last night at dinner. This morning at breakfast. He just sat next to you. Wasn’t working anyone, wasn’t being on. He was just there. With you.”
I bite at my lip, not sure how to answer.
And then Ellie’s expression shifts. Still warm, but more careful now, like she’s decided something. “Can I ask you something personal?”
“Of course.”
“Is it true that you were engaged? Until recently?”
“Yes.” I say his name without drama. “Ryan. It was already over before Colombia. I just hadn’t said the words yet.”
“And now you’re here and not with him.”
“I put Jonus down as my emergency contact, not my fickle fiancé.”
“Ah.” She takes a slow breath. “I like you, Sloane and I want to say something and I need you to know it’s coming from a good place.”
“Okay.”
“I’m Jonus’s friend, his family now, so I just…I’m just a little worried that because you were so recently engaged to someone else that there might be the chance he’s your rebound guy.”
The word lands gently. But it lands.
“Sorry, I know that’s blunt,” she says. “But I needed to say it. To get it off my chest.”
“No, I—”
“It’s different for orcs.” She leans forward slightly.
“They can’t date. They can’t have a fling and shake hands afterward and wish each other well.
They don’t have the ability to detach cleanly the way we can.
” She holds my gaze. “There’s no divorce.
There’s no ‘we tried and it didn’t work out.
’ When Jonus commits to someone that is his entire life.
So if all you’re certain of right now is that you like him, that you’re attracted to him, that you’re grateful to him for what he did in Colombia — that is not enough. Not for this.”
I don’t say anything. I just listen.
“Don’t even kiss him until you’re certain,” she continues quietly.
“Don’t let things go further until you know — really know — that this is love and marriage and sons and forever.
Because if you get to the end of all of this and you realize that you two aren’t actually compatible, that it was the adrenaline and the rescue and the intensity of everything making it feel bigger than it was — he cannot detach and move forward the way you could. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The kitchen is very quiet.
I sit with it. Really sit with it. The way she’s looking at me isn’t unkind. It’s exactly the look you give someone you’re trying to protect before they do something they can’t undo.
“I understand,” I say finally. “And you’re right to say it.”
“You’re not offended?”
“No. You’re protecting him. I’d do the same thing for someone I loved.”
“Please know I’m trying to protect you too.”
“Thanks. I can’t tell you I’m certain. I’m not there yet and I know that. But I can tell you that what I feel doesn’t feel like gratitude.” I meet her eyes. “And it doesn’t feel like a rebound. It feels like something I’ve never felt before. And I’m taking that seriously.”
Ellie studies me for a long moment. “Good,” she says. “That’s all I needed to hear. And you don’t have to figure everything out right now. Not today. Not this week.”
“He said the same thing.”
“He means it. These orcs take consent more seriously than any human man I’ve ever encountered.
He will wait as long as you need.” She tilts her head.
“And if you get to the end of all of this and decide you can’t do it — the pregnancy, the sons, the forever — you tell him.
It will hurt him. But he would rather know the truth. ”
“I won’t lead him on, I promise.”
“Thank you, that’s all I ask.”