Prime Cut of Orc

Chapter 14

LANEK

Istand in the freezer long after Quinn leaves, the cold seeping into my bones in a way it never has before. My breath clouds the air in front of me, each exhale a visible reminder that I'm still breathing even though it feels like my chest has caved in.

The cleaver sits on the counter where I set it down, polished and sharp and utterly useless.

I thought I was protecting her. I thought I was doing what a good mate does—eliminating threats, ensuring her safety, proving my worth as a provider and defender. In Orc culture, allowing your mate to face danger alone is unthinkable. It's a fundamental failure of the bond.

But Quinn isn't Orc.

And I just treated her like she was too fragile, too small, too human to handle her own problems.

I sink onto the metal stool by the butchering block, dropping my head into my hands. The freezer's industrial hum fills the silence, a monotonous drone that matches the hollow ache spreading through my chest.

I love you, Lanek. But I can't be with someone who doesn't respect me enough to let me fight my own battles.

Her words loop through my mind, each repetition cutting deeper than the last.

I do respect her. I respect her fire, her determination, the way she refuses to back down even when she's facing something twice her size. I respect the hell out of her.

But the second I saw that developer threatening her livelihood, threatening the bakery she built with her own hands, every rational thought evaporated. All I could see was a threat to my mate. All I could feel was the primal, bone-deep need to destroy anything that dared hurt her.

I didn't think about what she wanted. I didn't ask what she needed. I just acted.

And I lost her.

The realization sits like a stone in my gut, heavy and immovable.

I push myself off the stool and walk out of the freezer, locking it behind me. The shop feels cavernous and empty. I move through the familiar space on autopilot, cleaning the counters, wrapping the remaining cuts, prepping the display cases for tomorrow.

Except there won't be a tomorrow. Not the way there was before.

I won't hear her yelling at me through the thin wall.

I won't find her stomping into my shop with flour in her hair and murder in her eyes.

I won't get to watch her cheeks flush pink when I say something that flusters her, or feel her small hands gripping my shoulders when I lift her onto the counter.

I finish closing up the shop and climb the narrow stairs to my apartment above the butchery. The space is sparse—a bed, a kitchen I barely use, a single worn armchair by the window that overlooks the alley.

I sink into the chair and stare down at the narrow strip of pavement between our buildings. Her kitchen window is dark. She's probably upstairs in her own apartment, trying to forget I exist.

I deserve that.

The first day without her stretches endlessly.

I open the shop at dawn out of habit, going through the motions of breaking down a side of beef with mechanical precision. The bone saw's familiar shriek echoes through the empty space, and I wait for the inevitable bang of Quinn storming through my back door to yell at me.

It doesn't come.

The silence is worse than any amount of her yelling ever was.

I serve customers with half my attention, answering questions about cuts and cooking times while my mind circles the same agonizing loop. She was right. I steamrolled her. I treated her like territory to defend instead of a partner to support.

In Orc culture, there's no distinction between the two. Protecting your mate is supporting them. Eliminating threats is showing love.

But Quinn's human. And humans need something different. Something I clearly don't understand.

By midday, I abandon the shop entirely, flipping the sign to "Closed" and retreating upstairs. I drop into the armchair by the window and stare at the alley below, my chest aching with a hollowness I've never experienced before.

This is worse than any physical wound. This is worse than the broken ribs I got in the fighting pits back home, worse than the deep knife gash across my shoulder from a bar fight in my twenties. Those healed. Those left scars I could wear with pride.

This just hurts.

I stay in the chair as the sun arcs across the sky, watching the shadows shift across the alley. Quinn's back door stays firmly shut. No pink apron. No furious stomping. No her.

When darkness finally falls, I eat cold meat straight from the fridge, tasteless and impossible to swallow. I choke it down anyway and return to the window.

Her apartment light is on now. I can see the faint glow through the curtains.

She's so close. Just across the alley. A thirty-second walk.

She might as well be on another planet.

The second day is worse.

I don't bother opening the shop. I sit in the chair by the window and stare at her building like a pathetic, lovesick fool. Every time her back door opens, my heart lurches, but it's never her. Just deliveries. Just the trash pickup.

I keep replaying the freezer scene in my mind, analyzing every word, every choice, trying to pinpoint the exact moment I destroyed everything.

It wasn't just dragging the developer into the freezer. That was the final straw, but I'd been building toward it from the beginning. Every time I loomed over someone who annoyed her. Every time I brought her meat she didn't ask for. Every time I made a decision for her instead of with her.

I thought I was courting her the right way. I thought providing and protecting would prove I was worthy.

But she never needed me to prove my worth. She needed me to see hers.

Shame burns through me, hot and acidic.

I'm an idiot. A traditional, pig-headed, arrogant idiot who assumed his way was the right way just because it's how things have always been done.

Quinn doesn't need an Orc warlord. She needs a partner. An equal. Someone who respects her strength instead of trying to shield her from every possible threat.

I can be that. I know I can.

But first, I have to figure out how.

The third day, I finally move.

Not toward her, I promised I'd stay on my side of the alley, and I meant it. But I can't just sit here drowning in my own misery. I need to do something.

I need to fix this. Not with violence or intimidation or primal Orc instinct.

I need to fix it her way.

I dig through the drawer in my kitchen until I find the battered laptop I bought years ago and barely used. It takes ten minutes to boot up, the ancient machine whirring and clicking like it's on its last legs.

I gaze at the glowing screen, my massive fingers hovering over the keyboard.

I've gutted a thousand carcasses. I've broken down entire livestock deliveries single-handedly. I've survived pit fights and bar brawls and every brutal test my culture could throw at me.

But sitting here, trying to navigate a search engine to research municipal zoning laws, feels harder than all of it combined.

I start typing, one slow letter at a time.

Tenant rights. Lease disputes. Rent increase limits.

The search results flood the screen, page after page of dense legal jargon that makes my head pound. I click through them anyway, forcing myself to read, to absorb, to understand.

Quinn said she didn't need me to fight her battles. She needed me to trust her to fight them herself.

But that doesn't mean I can't give her the tools to win.

I spend hours hunched over the laptop, my back aching from the terrible posture, my eyes burning from the screen's harsh light. I learn about rent control ordinances. I learn about mandatory notice periods for lease changes. I learn about tenant protection laws that might apply to her situation.

The developer was aggressive, but he wasn't necessarily operating within legal bounds. There are regulations. Protections. Loopholes Quinn can exploit if she knows where to look.

I start taking notes, scribbling information onto a pad of paper in my rough, blocky handwriting. My penmanship is terrible, I'm used to holding cleavers, not pens, but I write legibly. To organize the information in a way that makes sense.

I'm not doing this for her. I'm gathering information she can use if she wants it. No pressure. No expectations. Just resources she can choose to access or ignore entirely.

It's the smallest possible gesture. The least invasive way I can think of to help without overstepping.

But it's something.

By the time I finally close the laptop, the sun is setting again. Three days without her. Three days of this gnawing, relentless ache in my heart.

I miss her so much it's hard to breathe.

I miss her yelling. I miss her fury. I miss the way she smells like vanilla and sugar even when she's covered in sticky paste. I miss the weight of her in my arms, the feel of her small hands gripping my shoulders, the breathless little sounds she makes when I kiss her.

I miss everything.

But I'm not giving up. I can't.

Quinn is mine. Not because I claimed her or defended her or provided for her, but because somewhere along the way, she claimed me right back. She carved herself into my chest and made a home there, and no amount of distance is going to change that.

I just have to prove I can be the partner she needs.

I stand and move to the window, staring across the alley at her darkened bakery. The building looks quiet. Peaceful.

Then I hear it.

A crash. Metal on metal, followed by a muffled curse.

My entire body goes rigid, instinct flaring hot and immediate. That came from the shared dumpster area behind our buildings.

I'm moving before I can think, taking the stairs three at a time, shoving through my back door and into the alley. The streetlight overhead flickers weakly, casting long shadows across the pavement.

Another crash. Definitely coming from the dumpsters.

I round the corner and freeze.

Quinn is there, struggling with a massive industrial trash bag that's clearly too heavy for her. She's trying to hoist it into the dumpster, her face flushed with effort, her hair escaping its usual neat ribbon.

She hasn't seen me yet.

Every instinct I have screams at me to cross the space between us, to take the bag from her hands, to lift it into the dumpster for her so she doesn't have to strain.

But I don't move.

She said she didn't need me to solve her problems. She said she needed me to respect her agency.

So I stay exactly where I am, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, she wrestles the bag toward the dumpster's edge.

She gets it halfway up before her grip slips. The bag tumbles back down, landing on her foot with a solid thump.

"Son of a—" She cuts herself off, hopping backward and shaking out her foot.

I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood, forcing myself to stay still.

She glares at the bag like it personally offended her, then bends to try again.

This time, she gets it higher. Her arms are shaking with the effort, her entire body straining, but she manages to hook the bag over the dumpster's lip and shove it inside with a final, determined push.

The bag disappears into the dumpster with a satisfying crash.

Quinn straightens, breathing hard, and wipes her hands on her apron.

And then she sees me.

We stare at each other across the narrow alley, frozen in place like two fighters waiting for the other to make the first move.

Her expression is unreadable. Surprise. Wariness. Something that might be longing, or might just be the flickering streetlight playing tricks on my desperate, hopeful brain.

I should say something. I should apologize again, should explain what I've been doing, should beg her to give me another chance.

But all I can manage is her name.

"Quinn."