Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Eric
ELEVEN MONTHS AGO
My blood dripped into a violet puddle on the floor, and my knees hurt from kneeling on the concrete for so long, though I wasn’t sure how many hours I’d been here.
My wrists were tied to my ankles so tightly that all my extremities felt like they were close to dying.
Frederik was tied to a chair beside me, naked and battered but alive.
Considering we’d been discovered fucking, it was lucky we weren’t dead.
“Freddie,” I choked out. His wild eyes met mine.
“Shut the fuck up,” he hissed, or maybe wheezed would be the better descriptor. They’d definitely broken a rib when they’d beaten him. “Fuck,” he groaned. “I knew this was a fucking bad idea.”
That hurt. I loved Freddie, but I knew that love wasn’t reciprocated. He was everything an orc should be—big, strong, and dominant. He liked big trucks and cheap whiskey and laughing a little too loudly.
He also liked to fuck me like I was the only thing between him and insanity. I could hear the stomp of boots on the concrete as someone moved down the halls, followed by the rusty screech of the door opening. I stared down at the floor until a pair of boots came into view.
I looked up at my father. He was tall, at least half a foot taller than me, and twice as wide. He looked down at me with a disgust that was so all consuming, he shuddered, then he lifted his boot and kicked me in the face.
I flew backwards, landing badly on my arm, and I felt my shoulder pop out of the socket. “A fucking disgrace. A blight on our fucking race.” He spat, and it landed on my cheek. He walked over to Freddie, grabbed a knife, and placed it under his chin. “You like fucking men, Frederik?”
Freddie swallowed hard. “I like fucking. Any hole works, and there aren’t a lot of women here.”
Yeah, because female orcs got the hell out of the clan if they knew what was good for them.
My father tilted his head. “I can’t argue with that logic. So you aren’t in a relationship with my son?”
Freddie sneered. “Fuck no. He’s such a weakling. He was the next best thing to a pussy. Just a way to get off when my fist wasn’t doing it.”
“Is that all?” my father asked.
Freddie shrugged. “And there was something thrilling about making the little orc prince beg for my cock.” He seemed remorseful, like he was offending my father and not me.
His words hurt worse than my dislocated shoulder or my throbbing face. He told me I was beautiful and that I was the best thing he’d ever felt. I thought he’d loved me once.
“Fuck you,” I growled, though perhaps my jaw was broken, because it came out muffled.
“Nah, Eric. I fucked you,” Freddie spat, and something inside me broke.
My father rocked back on his heels. “He has you there, boy. Small problem. I can’t have anyone knowing that my son is…
submissive.” He almost choked on the word.
“So unfortunately, Frederik, you’re about to be the victim of a terrible road accident.
I’ll send your mother a bottle of Jack in your memory.
” He lifted his fist and slammed it through Freddie’s face.
He hit him once, twice, ten times until all that was left of Freddie’s face was a mangled mess.
He kicked the chair, and then Freddie was on the ground opposite me, dead.
My father came over and kicked me onto my back.
“My agreement with your mother’s clan says I can’t kill you too, boy, and that’s the only reason you aren’t dead like that disgusting fuck.
You aren’t worth going to war for, but you are excommunicated from this clan and any clan in this country.
No one will help you, and then nature will do what I can’t. ”
He punched me in the face, and darkness wrapped around me.
* * *
I looked around the table in the Creature Crisis Center’s dining area.
“He had me dropped in a dumpster on the shitty side of town, and I was huddled against the wall when a waitress came out the back door of the diner. She took one look at me, covered in blood, though I’m not sure she knew what I was, and went back inside.
When she returned, she had a bottle of water and a piece of rhubarb pie in a to-go box.
She smelled like flowers and sunshine and maybe fries,” I said, laughing softly.
“She didn’t say anything, she just gave me the food and drink, squeezed my forearm, and went back inside, but to my severed clan bond, that was enough.
She felt so right. She provided for me when I was injured, and she smelled like home.
I think that it got a little confused and decided that maybe she was my mate. ”
I flushed red. “I didn’t make the connection at the time though.
I just ate my pie, drank my water, and went into the office.
I slept on the floor beneath the desk until I could find an apartment, then I found myself crossing the city to go to that diner.
I never sat in her section, but I watched the waitress.
I realized she often walked home late by herself, so I walked a safe distance behind her to make sure she arrived home safe, just returning the kindness, right? ”
Someone scoffed. Yeah, right.
“Then it got worse. I couldn’t head to work until I saw she was safe at the diner.
I panicked if I didn’t make it in time to walk her home, so I decided that I should get an apartment in the same low-budget building as her, then I’d know she was safe.
” I rubbed my hand down my face. “You can imagine how that went.”
Louis squeezed my shoulder. “Yeah, I can imagine.”
I grew the balls to look at Hailey, and she appeared… conflicted. “You were stalking me?”
I gritted my teeth. “Uh, unintentionally. Yes, I was. The bond…” I didn’t even know how to explain a mate bond to a human.
She licked her lips, and I couldn’t help but focus on the gesture. “You were stalking me because you think you’re my mate, despite being gay?”
Frowning, I immediately shook my head in denial.
“No, I’m not gay. I guess the human term would be bisexual.
” I rubbed my smooth jaw. “Freddie hadn’t been wrong about the lack of women in orc clans, but I wasn’t doing it out of desperation.
I genuinely like men.” I closed my eyes, like any of that mattered.
Recentering myself, I met her pretty blue eyes.
“You are my mate, but that’s my problem, not yours.
Unlike weres, orcs don’t mate for life. Breaking a bond is…
uncomfortable, but not impossible.” That was putting it mildly.
Without a clan, I would die if I tried to break the mate bond despite it being one-sided.
This week was proof of that, but I’d never trap Hailey like that, so I’d figure it out.
As if he read my mind, Otis lifted his chin. “We can have a surrogate clan come down from Canada, or if you can wait, we have one from a state over we usually call in for problems of this nature.”
Nodding, I swallowed hard. I didn’t want another clan.
Not all of them were like my old clan, but I wasn’t about to take that chance.
I looked at Hailey again. “I’m truly sorry you got dragged into this.
I swear, despite how wrong this all sounds, I would never, ever hurt you or let anyone else hurt you. ”
She nodded once, and then her eyes stared at the middling distance, and I knew she was deep in thought. Finally, she looked up at Otis. “What happens now?”
“Despite how… alert he seems, Eric will need to have close contact therapy for another few days. We’ll take turns being his clan. Syke will take you back to your apartment.”
I almost growled again. I hated her being there alone without me. That place was a shithole, and I worried that one day someone would take the locked door as a challenge more than a deterrent.
She chewed her lip. “Won’t his condition worsen again if I’m not here?”
Ilyas answered this time. “Yes, but eventually you’ll have to rip off the band aid, and perhaps it’s better to do it now than later.”
My heart cracked in my chest. I didn’t even know it had healed enough to break again, but the thought of giving up Hailey was enough to shatter it to pieces once more.