I smile despite myself and retrieve the garment in question.
The tuxedo is black, perfectly tailored to my frame in a way the previous suit was not. Colletta must have arranged this, must have noticed the screaming seams and found time between all the other chaos to fix it. The realization settles warmly.
I dress with care, fastening each button, adjusting the bow tie with the same precision I would use cleaning a blade. When I check my reflection in the mirror, I barely recognize myself.
I look, the small human part of my brain supplies with something almost like wonder, like I actually belong here, not lurking in the shadows as hired security, not standing watch at the perimeter like some untamed beast permitted entry only under strict supervision, but genuinely, legitimatelybelongingin this world of pressed linens and champagne toasts and people who know which fork to use when.
Like a mate worthy of the woman waiting for me somewhere in this sprawling venue, probably arguing with florists and holding her sister's hand through pre-wedding panic.
The ceremony area is a cleared section of lawn overlooking the vineyard, rows of white chairs arranged in a half-circle around an archway draped in flowers. I take my assigned seat near the back, scanning the crowd automatically. Elderly relatives. Friends in pastel dresses. A photographer darts like an anxious bird.
No Derek. Interesting.
The music begins, some string arrangement that makes the humans around me sigh and dab at their eyes. The groom appears at the altar, nervous but beaming. The bridesmaids begin their procession, a parade of matching pink dresses.
Then Colletta appears at the aisle, framed by the archway of flowers and the golden afternoon light filtering through the leaves overhead.
Every tactical assessment, every threat scan, every systematic analysis of the venue's security weaknesses, all of it evaporates in an instant.
My breath catches, actually catches, like I've taken a blow to the solar plexus during hand-to-hand training. The sensation is foreign, unsettling, powerful enough that my hand unconsciously moves to my chest as if to verify my lungs still function.
She is wearing a dress the color of sunrise, something between pink and gold that makes her skin glow. Her curls have been somewhat tamed, pinned back with small flowers, though several rebellious pieces have already escaped. She carries a bouquet of white roses, and when her eyes scan the crowd and find me, her entire face lights up.
I cannot tear my gaze away from her, cannot force my attention to remain on tactical considerations or perimeter security. Every instinct I've honed over years of combat operations, every discipline I've cultivated to maintain focus in hostile environments, fails completely in the face of Colletta standing beneath an archway of roses and late afternoon light.
She walks down the aisle with the other bridesmaids, and I track every step, cataloguing the way the dress clings to curves I mapped with my hands last night, the way she is trying very hard not to smile too wide because this is her sister's day, not hers.
But when she passes my row, moving in that careful, measured pace that bridesmaids are instructed to maintain, her eyes find mine in the sea of guests. The connection is immediate, electric, cutting through the formal atmosphere like a blade.
The corner of my mouth lifts, just slightly. Then, maintaining eye contact with an intensity that would make most peopleuncomfortable, I wink. Deliberate. Unmistakable. A breach of every wedding protocol I'm certain exists.
Her composure shatters. She ducks her head, fighting a grin, and I hear a small, inappropriate giggle escape her before she wrestles it back under control. The elderly woman next to me makes a tutting sound.
I watch Colletta take her place at the front, watch her sister walk down the aisle in a confection of white lace, watch the ceremony unfold with vows and tears and the exchange of rings.
But my attention keeps returning to the woman in the sunrise dress, who glances at me when she thinks no one is looking, whose smile is small and secret and meant only for me.
My mate.
The word settles with the finality of a war drum, resonating through every part of me until it becomes an undeniable truth. Not just a woman I'm escorting to a wedding. Not just the unpredictable, coffee-stained, giggling human who hired me in a margarita-fueled moment of panic. Mine. In every way that matters to an orc whose instincts run deeper than logic or reason.
And for the first time since I accepted this bizarre mission, this assignment that started as a straightforward contract and spiraled into something I had no operational framework to understand, I grasp what I am actually protecting. What I have been protecting all along, even when I didn't have the words to articulate it.
Not her dignity, though I would defend that fiercely against anyone who dared to wound it.
Not her pride, though watching her square her shoulders against her family's judgment made something savage and approving rise in my throat.
This. Us. The fragile, impossible thing we built in the wreckage of a fake engagement.
The ceremony concludes with applause and cheers. The newly married couple walks back down the aisle, beaming, and the wedding party follows. Colletta catches my eye again as she passes, and this time she mouths two words.
Thank you.
The words form on her lips without sound, but I read them clearly in the curve of her mouth, in the softening of her eyes, in that particular way her whole face transforms when she drops the armor she usually wears against the world. Not the brittle, caffeinated chaos she presents to strangers. Not the nervous giggle-and-deflect routine she deploys when emotions threaten to overwhelm her social parameters. Just Colletta. Raw. Real. Mine.
I nod once in response, slow and deliberate, a gesture that carries everything I cannot yet articulate in this public setting, in this ceremony space where civilians conduct their elaborate bonding rituals without understanding the fundamental truth of what claiming actually means. It's a promise and a claim wrapped into a single movement. An acknowledgment and a declaration. I see you. I have you. I'm keeping you.
Something fundamental shifts in my tactical assessment of this entire operation.
