Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Kardok
I’d stood in my Teal Terrors jersey beside Joshua and watched the youth league scrimmage, lips twitching when I heard my teammates roaring their approval from the stands at each shot on goal. Let these wealthy humans see how an orc could appreciate the sport played well!
I could tell from the way Joshua was chewing on his thumbnail that he was as nervous about tonight as I wasn’t allowing myself to be.
My Kteer vibrated in my chest in irritation, and I knew it had less to do with making a fool of myself in front of all these people and more to do with the fact I hadn’t seen Lila yet.
Then there were the exhibitions from the kids who’d been practicing figure skating. This time Joshua had a lot more to add, and I knew his nervous explanation of each move was just his way of filling the time. I pretended to listen and understand what in the hells a death spiral was.
Six different young females skated, then two sets of pairs, which I watched more closely, in case I could learn anything from them.
Three months ago, I wouldn’t have considered it possible to learn anything from humans a third of my age. But then I fucked up in the playoffs, had to earn my team’s respect again, and tried ice dancing with a champion skater. I’d been humbled in more ways than one.
Finally, the spotlight moved back to Maddie Moskowitz, the team’s Public Relations expert, who spoke smoothly and eloquently about the youth sports hosted by the complex, and what good the donors would do for the kids in the community.
By this time, Joshua was looking frantically around, and I realized he was waiting for Lila. Why wasn’t I panicking as well? I wasn’t sure, except that something had opened in my chest, a sort of heavy emptiness, which was an oxymoron.
Sure enough, when Maddie moved into the introduction for Lila and my performance, and the crowd began to murmur in excitement, I felt my Kteer throbbing in time with my heart.
I hadn’t spoken with her in over a day. I had no idea what she was thinking, but I knew she was here. Maybe not here with me, but here in the ice complex. I could feel her, and I had to trust that she wouldn’t leave me to humiliate myself alone.
I had to trust her.
She was my Mate, no matter what these humans wanted to believe.
And if that took quitting the team for us to be together, then this would be my last time skating in these colors in front of an audience, and I’d make it fucking remarkable.
“Hey.” I reached out and clamped a hand on Joshua’s shoulder, to keep him from hyperventilating. “It’ll be okay.”
“It’s not okay,” he hissed, pale and shaking. “Lila’s not here! Where is she? These people are here to see you skate together!”
My grin was lopsided and probably sickly, but it was there. “Then they’ll get half their money’s worth.” I knew they were only here to see if the brutal orc could manage to do something as elegant as figure skate… “I’ll give them one hells of a show.”
As our pre-performance music cued up and the lights pulled up over the rink I took a deep breath and pushed out onto the ice.
As the crowd began to clap and cheer, and my teammates howled in what was either approval or mockery, I held up my gloveless hands, pretending I was holding a stick, and this was a warmup lap before a game.
Except it wasn’t.
I didn’t have my stick or my pads or any of the ways I protected myself—my heart—from the world. I wore my jersey and as much confidence as I could muster when I came to a stop on the far end of the ice. My starting position.
Hopefully, I glanced back toward Joshua, who shook his head emphatically. I wasn’t sure if that meant I shouldn’t go through with this, or if he was telling me Lila hadn’t arrived.
But…
But she was on her way. I’m not sure how I knew, other than the intense burst of joy I felt from her, somewhere above. If I could feel her from across the complex, it meant our Mate Bond was growing.
My princess was full of joy, and she was coming to me.
I could hold out.
Tipping my head back, I scanned the sea of humans—interspersed with huge orc hockey players in tuxedos—as the first bars of the song Joshua had picked out for us began. All these humans were here to see an orc attempt figure skating?
Well, okay. Let’s fucking do this.
I started the way Lila had started every single practice: a lap.
Just a lap, getting my edges under me, feeling the ice.
The crowd settled as I moved, and I heard a few murmurs—probably wondering if this was it, if Kardok the Wicked was just going to skate in circles until they demanded their money back.
I came out of the turn and shifted to my back edges, crossing over, the way we’d drilled a hundred times.
Simple. Clean. The kind of thing Lila had made me do until it was automatic.
My arms came up without thinking—Joshua had told me a hundred times, arms up, Kardok, you look like you’re about to hit someone—and I felt the slight shift in my balance that told me I was doing it right.
A sound from the crowd. Not polite. Surprised.
Good.
I glanced at Joshua, who was making the kind of frantic circular motion with his hand that meant keep going, for the love of everything holy, keep going. So I kept going.
The spread eagle was something I’d stumbled into by accident three weeks ago, both feet turned out, gliding in a wide arc with my arms extended, and Lila had gone so still watching it that I’d done it again just to see her face.
Hockey skates weren’t made for it, but apparently my hips were more flexible than either of us had expected, and she’d looked at me like I’d done something extraordinary, which meant I’d been practicing it during scrimmage warmups ever since.
I did it now. The arc carried me around the far end of the rink, arms wide, and I heard the crowd go all quiet, as if they were paying careful attention.
I came out of it into a two-foot spin—both blades on the ice, rotating on the spot, the one she’d taught me first because it didn’t require a toe pick and because, as she’d put it, even hockey skates can do this, there’s no excuse.
I wasn’t fast. I wasn’t elegant, not in the way my princess was.
But I was controlled.
I was controlled, and I came out of it facing the crowd without wobbling, and apparently that was enough, because someone started clapping and then I heard the whooping of my teammates.
Joshua had buried his face in his hands. I couldn’t tell if this was approval or despair. Probably both.
I could feel Lila drawing closer. Soon we’d be together, and the joy she was projecting made my chest feel light.
Or maybe it was hope.
I did a slow back edge down the length of the rink, one arm out, chin up, the posture she’d drilled into me until it stopped feeling ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong; an orc gliding around backwards with his arm flung out? I absolutely looked ridiculous, but at least I didn’t feel it, not anymore.
Because I was doing it for my Mate.
My Kteer pulsed, warm and certain, somewhere beneath my sternum.
She was close now. I could feel it.
I glanced at Joshua, who had lowered his hands and was staring at something beyond my shoulder with an expression I recognized: relief, so profound it looked like prayer.
I didn’t turn around.
I didn’t need to.
Lila was here.
My Kteer thrummed with satisfaction, and I didn’t bother hiding my grin. I know we were supposed to be pretending we weren’t bonded—at least for tonight—but I couldn’t help myself, not when I felt the sheer joy radiating from my Mate.
She came onto the ice the way she did everything: elegant and graceful and beautiful, smiling at me as if I were the only male in the world.
Maybe, if the gods were generous, I was.
I’d pulled back instinctively, slowing to a wide back edge along the boards, giving her the center.
The crowd had already shifted, I could feel it, four hundred people turning toward the new presence on the ice, and I kept moving because stopping felt wrong, because this was our ice, and we were both on it and that was enough for right now.
Lila was wearing her gala dress.
Black and teal, the skirt hitting her knees, and she’d changed into her skates, and I had approximately one second to register how wildly impractical this was before she dropped her center of gravity and drove into a hockey stop that kicked ice across the boards.
The crowd gasped.
An approving laugh burst from my lips.
She came out of it clean, weight distributed exactly right, chin up, and her smirk said yes, I know exactly what I just did. Then she went into crossovers, low and aggressive, nothing like her figure skating crossovers, and I understood she’d been watching me the way I’d been watching her.
Not just the games. Not just the broadcasts. She’d been learning from me, learning me.
I picked up my pace along the boards, letting her have center ice, because if I stopped moving, I was going to do something embarrassing in front of four hundred people, like get a hard-on from how fucking proud I was of my Mate.
She pulled up and held her arms out—not figure skating, not quite hockey—just Lila, standing in the middle of the rink in a cocktail dress, looking at me across the ice with an expression I was going to be thinking about for the rest of my life.
Maybe, if the gods were very kind, I could tell our grandkitlings about this moment.
I started toward her.
She started toward me.
We met somewhere in the middle, no choreography, no Joshua, just the two of us finding the same point on the ice and arriving there at the same time. I did a back crossover, slow and deliberate, circling her without reaching for her as I so desperately wanted.
She matched it, grinning up at me, then added the arm extension, that elegant reach she’d been drilling into me for weeks. I copied it without thinking.
It was her turn to laugh.