Chapter 4
NAROD
The man approaches our table, and I feel something inside my chest pull tight and cold.
He does not look at me. Not once. His eyes are locked on Livia, as her entire body goes rigid, the way her shoulders pull up and her spine straightens like she is bracing for impact, and I know, instantly and with absolute certainty, that this man has hurt her before.
The probability of this interaction ending peacefully drops to approximately seven percent.
"Chad," Livia says, and her voice is flat and brittle, and I hear forced politeness that she uses when she is trying very hard not to show weakness. "Hi."
"Hi yourself," Chad says, and he leans against our table, his hand braced on the polished wood in a way that feels deliberate and invasive, like he is marking territory.
He is still looking at Livia. He has not acknowledged my presence beyond that initial, dismissive glance.
"I didn't know you were still going to this place.
I thought you said it was too expensive for your budget. "
I feel my jaw tighten.
Livia pulls her hand back from mine, and I feel the loss of contact like a physical ache. She folds her hands in her lap, as her fingers twist together, the small, anxious gesture that she does when she is calculating risk.
"It's fine," she says. "I can afford it."
"Sure," Chad says, and his tone is dripping with condescension. "I mean, I guess you finally got that promotion you were always talking about, huh? Or are you still doing the same boring spreadsheet stuff?"
My hand tightens around my glass. I hear the faint creak of the crystal under my palm, and I force myself to ease my grip before I shatter it again.
"I like my job," Livia says.
"Yeah, I'm sure you do," Chad says, and he finally, finally looks at me, and his eyes drag up and down my frame with the kind of lazy, dismissive assessment that humans use when they are trying to establish dominance.
"Is this, like, a friend of yours? Security?
I didn't know they let bouncers sit at the tables. "
I do not respond. I am running calculations.
Chad's height: approximately six feet. Weight: one hundred and seventy-five pounds, based on visible muscle mass and body composition.
Bone density: average human male, likely weakened slightly by poor posture and lack of adequate calcium intake, judging by the way his wrist is angled against the table.
Time required to physically remove him from this establishment: four seconds.
Probability of causing permanent structural damage if I lose control of my strength: ninety-three percent.
Probability of Livia being impressed by a violent outburst on a first date: zero percent.
I take a slow, measured breath. I adjust my glasses. I do not stand up yet.
"I am not a bouncer," I say, and I keep my voice calm and level and polite, the same tone I use when I am explaining actuarial tables to clients who do not understand compound interest. "I am Livia's date."
Chad blinks. He looks at me again, and this time his gaze lingers, and I see the exact moment when his brain processes the information and decides that I am, in fact, not human.
"Oh," he says, and his mouth curves into a smirk that makes my tusks ache with the effort of keeping my jaw relaxed. "Oh, wow. Okay. So you're really doing the whole... fantasy thing. That's, uh, that's bold, Liv. I mean, I always knew you were a little weird, but this is next-level."
Livia's face goes white.
The probability of peaceful resolution drops to zero.
"Chad," Livia says, and her voice is shaking now, and I can hear the humiliation underneath it, the way she is trying so hard to stay calm and controlled and not let him see how much he is hurting her. "You should go."
"I'm just saying," Chad continues, and he is leaning closer now, his hand still braced on the table, his body angled toward Livia in a way that makes every instinct in my body scream at me to move, to act, to remove this threat.
"You always said you wanted someone normal.
Someone who could, like, take you to nice places and introduce you to their friends without it being weird.
And now you're sitting here with—" He gestures vaguely at me, and his lip curls.
"—this? I mean, come on. You're better than this. "
"No," I say.
My voice is quiet. Very calm. Chad's eyes flick toward me, surprised, like he did not expect me to speak.
"Excuse me?" he says.
I stand up.
I do not rush. I do not lunge. I simply unfold myself from the booth, slowly and deliberately, rising to my full height and letting my shoulders roll back and my spine straighten, and Chad's smirk falters as I keep rising, as the shadow of my frame falls over him and blocks out the ambient light from the bar.
I am six feet and nine inches tall. I weigh three hundred and forty-seven pounds.
My bone density is approximately thirty percent higher than the average human male, a standard evolutionary adaptation for Orcish physiology, and my skeletal structure is reinforced with additional calcium deposits that make my frame exceptionally resistant to fractures.
Chad weighs one hundred and seventy-five pounds.
I tower over him. I let the silence stretch, let him feel my presence, and his throat bobs as he swallows.
"She is not better than this," I say, and my voice is still calm, still measured, but I let it drop lower, let the natural resonance of my vocal cords carry the full weight of my frame. "She is better than you."
Chad takes a small step back. His hand slips off the table.
"I have calculated," I continue, and I tilt my head slightly, adjusting my glasses with one massive finger, "the statistical probability of you surviving a physical altercation with me.
The result is zero percent. This is not hyperbole.
This is a mathematical certainty. My grip strength is sufficient to fracture your clavicle with minimal applied pressure.
My bone density would allow me to break your ribs without sustaining injury to my own skeletal structure.
The structural integrity of your spine would be compromised within three seconds of sustained contact. "
Chad's face has gone very pale.
"I am not going to touch you," I say, and I keep my voice perfectly level, perfectly polite, the same tone I use when I am delivering quarterly risk assessments to corporate executives.
"I am simply providing you with the relevant data so that you can make an informed decision regarding your immediate departure. "
"Jesus Christ," Chad mutters, and he takes another step back, his eyes wide. "You're fucking insane."
"I am an actuary," I correct. "I specialize in risk assessment. And you, statistically speaking, are a significant liability."
He looks at me for one more second, and then he turns on his heel and walks away, his stride quick and jerky, he pushes through the crowd and disappear out the front door of the bar.
The ambient noise of the room slowly filters back in. I hear the low murmur of conversation, the clink of glassware, the soft background music that I had stopped registering entirely.
I sit back down.
My hands are shaking.
I press them flat against the table, trying to steady the tremor, trying to force my breathing back into a calm, controlled rhythm, but my heart is pounding against my ribs and there is a sharp, electric heat coursing through my veins that I do not know how to process.
I look at Livia.
She is staring at me, her dark eyes wide behind her glasses, her lips parted slightly, and I cannot read her expression. I do not know if she is frightened or disgusted or simply shocked, and the uncertainty makes my chest tighten with a sharp, aching panic.
"I apologize," I say, and my voice comes out frayed and unsteady. "That was inappropriate. I should not have escalated the situation. I should have remained calm and allowed you to handle it, and I—"
"Narod," she says.
I stop. I look at her.
Her hand is resting on the table, palm up, fingers slightly curled.
"Thank you," she says.
The words do not make sense. I blink at her, my brain struggling to process the data, to reconcile the expected outcome with the observed reality.
"You are... not upset?"
"Upset?" She laughs, and the sound is breathless and a little bit wild, and she shakes her head. "Narod, I am the opposite of upset. I am—" She stops. She presses her free hand to her mouth, her shoulders shake slightly, and I realise with a sharp jolt of alarm that she is crying.
No. Not crying. Laughing.
She is laughing, her eyes bright and wet, and she reaches across the table and grabs my hand with both of hers, her small fingers wrapping around my thick wrist, and she squeezes.
"That was the hottest thing I have ever seen in my entire life," she says.
I stare at her.
My brain has stopped functioning. I should respond, that I should say something coherent and appropriate, but every single synapse in my head is currently occupied with processing the fact that Livia just used the word "hottest" in reference to me, and I do not know what to do with that information.
"I..." I start. Stop. Try again. "You are not frightened?"
"Frightened?" She laughs again, and she is still holding my wrist, her thumbs pressing against the inside of my forearm where my pulse is pounding hard and fast. "Narod, you just calculated the exact risk factors of breaking my ex-boyfriend's bones in the cocktail bar and delivered it like a quarterly earnings report.
You were terrifying. You were perfect. I wanted to applaud. "
The heat flares hotter, sharper, and I feel something inside me shift and crack, the tight, rigid control that I spent years building suddenly splintering under her words.
She is not frightened.
She is not disgusted.
She is looking at me like I am something valuable and rare and worth keeping, and I feel the last fragile thread of my restraint snap.
The growl starts low as a deep, primal rumble that I spent my entire adult life suppressing, the instinctive Orcish response to threat and claim and possession, and I feel it roll up through my ribs and vibrate in my throat, and I cannot stop it.
It spills out of me, rough and raw and entirely uncontrolled, as Livia's eyes go wide, the way her breath catches, the way her grip on my wrist tightens.
The growl vibrates through the table. I feel it in my bones, in the floor beneath my feet, and the way Livia's lips part and her pupils dilate, and I know, with absolute certainty, that she feels it too.
"Oh," she whispers.
I force myself to breathe. To pull back. To wrestle the instinct down before I do something catastrophically inappropriate in this very public, very human establishment.
"I apologize," I say again, and my voice is hoarse and unsteady. "That was—"
"Don't apologize," she says, and her voice is breathless and a little bit unsteady too, and she is still holding my wrist, her fingers pressing against my pulse. "Don't you dare apologize for that."
I stare at her.
She stares back.
The air between us feels charged and heavy and impossibly fragile, and I realise, with a sharp and terrible clarity, that I am in significant danger of falling completely and irrevocably in love with this woman.
The probability of my heart surviving this encounter, zero percent.