“Two doors down from Dane and Laurie. I contacted the real estate agent.”
A slow smile spreads across my cousin’s face. “You contacted the real estate agent?”
“It’s a nice house with four bedrooms a big yard and mountain views.”
“Four bedrooms.” His smile widens. “Planning ahead?”
“It might be hard to tell from this conversation so far, but I’m an optimist.”
Garlen laughs. “Tell her about the house. But also tell her that if DC is where she needs to be, you’ll buy a house in Georgetown instead. The point isn’t the location but that wherever she goes, you go. That’s what she needs to hear. That’s what no one has ever offered her. My opinion is that if modern orcs give females the option of not only living with us in communes, but basically anywhere that feels right, the less likely we’ll find ourselves living as single fathers.”
I nod slowly. He’s right.
I lean back in my chair and rub my hands over my face. There’s something else I need to talk about and it’s harder than the rest. “There’s something else,” I begin. “Garlen, I’m twice her size. What if I hurt her? What if?—”
“You won’t hurt her. When the time comes, your instincts will guide you. Your body will know exactly what to do. It’s built into us — the need to pleasure our mate, to make sure she’s satisfied, to be gentle when gentle is required and...” He pauses. “Less gentle when she asks for that.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Extensively.” A rare grin from my usually serious cousin. “Trust me. The first time with your mate is nothing like what you fear. It’s everything you’ve imagined and then some. Your body was made for hers. Literally.”
“I’m also concerned about the feral instinct,” I say. “It’s building. Obviously, I don’t want to end up chained in the basement.”
Garlen’s expression sobers immediately. He knows this territory better than anyone alive.
“Every time I think about those surveillance photos,” I continue. “About someone watching her through our window, being close enough to photograph her — I see red. My vision tunnels.” I hold up my bruised knuckles. “I punched a wall two days ago and barely managed to pull the hit.”
“How bad is it?”
“Five. Maybe six. It’s manageable, but it’s climbing. The fact that this is late May helps. If this were winter...”
“You’d need the cage.”
“Yes.”
Garlen is quiet for a moment. Then he asks the question I’ve been dreading. “Have you felt the urge to kidnap her?”
I don’t answer right away. The silence itself is an answer. “Once,” I finally say. “Last night. After I touched her and she fell asleep. The need to claim her, to mate her, to fill her with my seed was so overwhelming I had to physically leave the bed. I stood at the window for twenty minutes, just breathing, trying to get myself under control.”
“That’s why I stayed chained after we moved upstairs together,” he responds. “Not because I was afraid of hurting Ellie physically, but because I was terrified I’d take her and fill her with my seed before she’d had the chance to choose me with a clear mind.” He meets my eyes. “I couldn’t live with that. Even if she ended up loving me — even if she was happy — I’d always wonder whether she truly wanted me or whether I’d stolen the choice from her. And that’s why you keep yourself in check. That’s why you told her you’d wait until the danger passed and she could think clearly.”
“Yes.” My voice is rough. “That’s exactly why.”
“Good. Fear keeps you honest and in control.”
I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. “What happens if someone attacks while I’m already on the edge? Those photos were a warning shot. What if they deploy a scent bomb, the way they did with you and with Keric?”
“I’ve been thinking about this too. We still haven’t gotten to the bottom of who is manufacturing those and how they are getting out to humans. The scent bomb is lethal because it causes us to explode into instant, primal, winter frenzy, like an orc from ancient times. But you need to know, when I broke out of the cage after the scent bomb hit me,” he says slowly. “When I ran through town to the school, everyone assumes I was completely gone. That the feral took over entirely and there was nothing left of me in there. But there was a part of me — small, buried deep — that was still thinking. Still choosing.” He holds my gaze. “I ran to Ellie. Not randomly or in a blind rage,I knew exactly where she was and I went straight to her because I was kidnapping her to not only make her mine but to keep her safe. The feral didn’t make me dangerous to my mate. It made me dangerous to everyone else. And Keric, even feral, even after a direct scent bomb to the face caused him to kidnap his female and take her to a mountain cave, he managed to stop and ask Anna for consent before he mated her. The others said that was impossible, but he did it.”
“There’s hope.”
“Yes.” His expression is grave. “But it was close for both of us. I barely stopped myself from throwing Ellie over my shoulder in that parking lot. Keric carried Anna into the mountains without her permission and she was screaming at him to stop. The feral is real, Jonus. It is a genuine threat to your female’s ability to consent. Don’t take what I’m telling you as permission to relax.”
“I won’t.”
“Stay in control. And if you feel yourself slipping — if it gets past a six — you come to me. Or to Dane. We’ll do whatever it takes. We have the cage materials in storage and we can rebuild it in hours. And we still have all the chains.”
We both stand up.
