Chapter 9 Orla #2
He drags two fingers through the mud, then streaks it across his cheekbones in precise lines. War paint. He's applying actual war paint to a corporate paintball game.
"Thraka, that's completely unnecessary—"
He looks at me, and something shifts in his expression. The playful Orc who ate pancakes twenty minutes ago disappears, replaced by something ancient and dangerous that makes my stomach flip.
"Trust me, Little Manager." He marks another line down his jaw with deliberate precision, the mud dark against his green skin. "I know war."
The whistle blows, sharp and shrill across the paintball arena.
I lose track of Thraka within the first thirty seconds.
One moment he's beside me, the next he's melted into the forest like smoke, moving with a silence that shouldn't be possible for someone his size. I hear paintball guns firing in the distance, shouts of players being eliminated, but no sign of the Orc currently terrorizing the corporate landscape.
I creep behind an inflatable barrier, trying to remember the last time I did anything remotely athletic. My Fitbit is having a panic attack. Sweat pools at the small of my back.
A flash of blue armband catches my eye through the dense cluster of trees ahead. My heart rate spikes, target acquired. I raise my paintball gun with both hands, trying to remember the brief safety demonstration we received. Steady my breathing. Line up the shot. My finger squeezes the trigger.
The paintball goes wide, sailing harmlessly past the sales associate from Marketing who doesn't even notice how close he came to elimination.
"Dammit." I lower the gun, jaw clenched in frustration. My spreadsheet skills apparently don't translate to hand-eye coordination.
The sales bro spots me, grins, and I'm about to get eliminated in the most embarrassing way possible when he suddenly flies backward like he's been hit by a truck.
Thraka emerges from the undergrowth, paintball gun hanging forgotten at his side. He didn't shoot the guy. He just... appeared behind him and the sheer terror made the sales bro fall over and surrender.
"You're supposed to shoot them," I hiss, gesturing with my paintball gun at the prone sales associate who's now scrambling away through the underbrush, leaving a trail of crushed leaves and wounded dignity in his wake.
"That's literally the entire point of this exercise.
Projectile warfare. Paint-based ammunition. Remember the safety briefing?"
"More efficient this way," Thraka rumbles, his voice a low bass note that seems to vibrate through my sternum in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with.
.. no. Not going there. Not during a corporate team-building exercise.
He moves past me with surprising grace for someone his size, a ghost in cheap suit pants that are two inches too short and sporting what appears to be actual mud smeared across his cheekbones like war paint.
"Stay behind me, little general. I'll clear the path. "
"This isn't supposed to be actual combat," I try to reason with him, my voice catching somewhere between exasperation and something that feels dangerously close to admiration. "You don't need to treat this like a genuine military operation—"
A war cry erupts from somewhere deep in his chest, splitting the humid afternoon air with a sound so primal, so utterly fierce and completely non-regulation that three nearby squirrels abandon their posts and flee for safer territory.
The sound reverberates through the trees, making leaves tremble and my internal risk assessment protocols scream warnings I'm choosing to ignore.
Thraka charges forward like a force of nature in ill-fitting khakis.
What follows is less paintball war game and more systematic decimation.
Thraka doesn't just play the game. He dominates it with someone who's actually seen battle, who understands terrain and psychology and how to use fear as a weapon.
He herds the blue team like cattle, cutting off their escape routes, forcing them into kill zones where our less competent teammates can actually hit something.
I should stop this. I should pull him aside, cite the employee handbook section 7.
3 regarding appropriate workplace conduct during corporate team-building exercises, and file a formal complaint with HR about his flagrant disregard for the spirit of recreational activities.
I should remind him—firmly, professionally, with charts if necessary—that this is supposed to be fun, a low-stakes bonding experience designed to foster camaraderie and boost morale, not an actual military campaign requiring the complete psychological destruction of our opponents.
Instead, I watch him move through the forest, all coiled strength and tactical genius, and feel heat pool low in my belly that has nothing to do with physical exertion.
He's magnificent.
Chad makes the mistake of trying to flank our position. Thraka intercepts him with the efficiency of a missile defense system, backing him against a tree with nothing more than presence and those mud-streaked war markings that shouldn't be attractive but absolutely are.
"Surrender now," Thraka growls, his voice dropping to that dangerous register that makes my spine tingle even from fifteen feet away.
"This is just a game, you absolute psycho—" Chad's voice cracks mid-protest, his expensive paintball gun wavering in his grip.
Thraka fires three paintballs in rapid succession, each one hitting exactly where he aimed. Chad's chest blooms red. Red. Red.
"You are eliminated from combat," Thraka announces, his voice carrying absolute authority, like a judge delivering a verdict. "Report to the designated sideline area immediately."
Chad looks like he desperately wants to argue—his mouth opens, closes, opens again like a fish gasping for air—but something in Thraka's expression, something primal and utterly unyielding in those dark eyes, makes him think better of it.
He shuffles away with his hands raised in surrender, his designer athletic wear now decorated with paint splatters that probably cost more to dry clean than my monthly coffee budget.
The blue flag sits completely unguarded fifty yards away, fluttering innocently in the breeze like a beacon of corporate victory.
"We should send someone to retrieve it," I manage to say between gasps, finally catching up to Thraka's position, my lungs burning from the sprint through the forest. My carefully planned bun has come half-undone, strands of hair sticking to my sweat-dampened neck.
"It would be the strategically sound approach—distribute our forces, minimize risk exposure—"
Thraka is already moving, a blur of green skin and corporate casual, paintball gun tracking targets I can't even see. He vaults over a barrier, slides under another, moves through the forest like it's extension of his body.
He reaches the flag. Plants it in the ground. Throws his head back and releases another war cry that probably violates several noise ordinances.
Victory.
The instructor declares our team the winner with all the enthusiasm of someone reading a phone book. The other teams look shell-shocked. Chad refuses to make eye contact with anyone.
Thraka finds me near the equipment shed, still riding the high of conquest, eyes bright and wild.
"Did you see?" He's practically vibrating with excitement. "Complete tactical superiority. Textbook flanking maneuvers. Chad never stood a chance."
"You terrified an entire department," I say, trying to sound stern despite the adrenaline still pumping through my veins. "Systematically eliminated them with what I can only describe as excessive enthusiasm."
"I inspired our team to glory," he corrects, chest still heaving with exertion. "Led them to victory through superior tactics and unshakeable morale."
"You went feral over a corporate team building exercise." I cross my arms, paintball gun still dangling from one hand. "Over paintball. With accounting."
"I went feral over winning." He steps closer, crowding into my space, smelling like mud and victory and something purely him. "Did you like it?"
My mouth goes dry.
Because yes. Yes, I did. Watching him dominate that field triggered something primitive in my brain, some evolutionary switch that says this one, this strong capable fierce one.
"It was... tactically sound," I manage, my voice coming out more breathless than I'd like. "Your strategic approach demonstrated clear leadership qualities and decisive action under pressure."
His smile turns absolutely predatory, tusks catching the fading light as he leans in.
"Liar." The word rumbles through his chest like a purr.
"Your heartbeat gives you away, Little Manager.
It's racing. Pounding. I can see your pulse right here.
" He taps one massive finger against the hollow of my throat, and I barely suppress a shiver.
Thunder rumbles overhead, still distant but definitely growing closer, the air pressure shifting in that distinctive way that promises a serious storm is rolling in.
The instructor glances at the darkening sky. "Alright, everyone back to the main lodge. Storm's rolling in faster than expected."
We start the trek back through the forest, our team celebrating their unlikely victory while Chad's group sulks behind. The first drops of rain hit as we reach the halfway point, fat and heavy, turning the path to mud within minutes.
Then the wind picks up with a ferocity that transforms the forest around us into something wild and dangerous, bending the tall pines at angles that seem to defy physics, their trunks groaning in protest against forces they were never meant to withstand.
Branches whip overhead, sending down a shower of needles and small debris.
The rain intensifies from heavy drops to sheets, visibility dropping to maybe twenty feet ahead.
My expensive power suit is completely ruined, designer fabric clinging to my skin, my carefully styled bob plastered to my head in ways that would make my stylist weep.
"Move faster!" the instructor shouts over the rising howl of the storm, his voice barely carrying even at full volume. "This is getting seriously bad! Stay together and keep moving!"
I'm acutely aware of Thraka behind me, his massive presence somehow reassuring even as the storm rages.
He's not panicking, not rushing—just moving with that same confident stride, occasionally steadying team members when they slip in the rapidly forming mud.
Chad and his group are somewhere behind us, probably complaining about their ruined business casual attire.
Then it happens.
A crack like a gunshot splits the air, so loud and sharp that several people scream, the sound cutting through even the howl of wind and the drumming of rain on leaves.
I look up just in time to see the massive pine tree begin its fall, gravity and wind and rotten roots conspiring to drop it directly across the narrow forest road, the only path back to the main lodge and safety.
It hits with earth-shaking force, branches exploding outward, completely blocking the route.
Silence falls, broken only by rain and thunder and someone from accounting starting to cry.
"Well," Thraka says calmly, surveying the disaster with the same tactical assessment he used for paintball warfare. "This is a problem."
The instructor's radio crackles to life. "This is base. Road's completely blocked. Tree's too big to move without heavy equipment. Storm's supposed to last through the night. You're going to have to shelter in place. Do you have supplies?"
We look at each other, a bedraggled group of corporate employees in paintball gear, stranded in the woods with a storm bearing down and exactly zero survival skills between us.
Except one.
Except for one person who might actually know what to do in a situation like this.
As if choreographed, every single paint-splattered, rain-soaked member of the team slowly turns to look at Thraka.
He grins, war paint streaking in the rain, looking more alive than I've ever seen him. "Finally. A real challenge."