The thought sent a spike of panic through me. Unmatched humans weren’t allowed outside the Sanctuary walls. We were too vulnerable, too valuable, too much of a liability.
Basically, we were expensive houseplants that could talk.
“Not exactly.” The officiant’s eyes darted to the door as if she were calculating her escape route. “It’s a rather unique situation. Apparently, there was a challenge.”
“A challenge?” My hands gripped the armrests of my chair hard enough to leave marks. “What kind of challenge? Like a bake-off? Please tell me it was a bake-off.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, and pressed her lips together as if she were trying to decide between two equally terrible options. “Under orcish tradition, recognized under Section 47.3 of the Monster Accord, when a male of sufficient rank invokes a combat trial—” she stopped. Smoothed the front of her jacket. “I think it would be best if you heard the specifics from your new—that is, from?—”
She crossed to her desk and pressed two fingers to her comm panel. “He may enter now.”
The door to Orientation Room C slid open with a whoosh, and the fluorescent lights seemed to dim in deference to the figure that filled the doorway.
Oh, fuck.
He had to duck to enter, which should have been my first clue that my life was about to get exponentially more complicated. Seven feet of rippling green muscle, shoulders broad enough to carry a small vehicle.
Or me, probably while doing other things. Oh God, why was that my first thought?
Arms thick as tree trunks and covered in scars that told stories of battles I couldn’t begin to imagine and definitely didn’t want to.
His skin was a deeper emerald than I’d seen in any of the orc profiles I’d studied, almost black in the shadowed hollows of his muscles.
But it was his face that made my breath catch. His jawline could cut glass, and from it protruded tusks that curved upward like deadly ivory scimitars. They were decorated with intricate silver bands that caught the light.
His hair was dark and pulled back in a warrior’s knot, and his eyes—burning like molten gold—locked onto mine with an intensity that pinned me to my seat more effectively than any restraint.
This was not Urran.
This was so not boring.
“Bride Aliana,” the officiant said, her voice steadier now with the arrival of this orc. “May I present Rakthar of the Iron Fist Clan? Your updated match.”
She stressed the word “updated” as if to say “upgraded.”
She’d dropped her info-bomb and was already backing toward the exit. “I will give you two privacy. I will be waiting just outside with my team when you need me.”
She folded her datapad under one arm, gave a single crisp nod to the room in general, and walked out with the purposeful stride of a woman who had absolutely no intention of being caught in the crossfire.
The door clicked shut behind her.
Just us.
Rakthar’s mouth curved into what I guessed was a smile, though with those tusks, it looked more like a predatory snarl. The expression a wolf might give a rabbit right before dinner.
“Little human,” he rumbled, his voice so deep I felt it in my chest, in my bones, in places I was absolutely not going to think about right now. “The stories of your beauty were not exaggerated.”
I gaped at him, then at the closed door where my last hope of institutional protection had just made her escape, then back at him.
My brain filled with white noise. “There’s been a mistake,” I finally managed, proud that my voice only shook a little. “My match is Urran. Medium-build orc, agricultural specialist, docile temperament, probably has a nice collection of decorative gourds.”
Rakthar laughed, a sound like distant thunder that I felt in my back teeth. “Urran was weak. Unworthy of such a prize.”
“Prize?” I echoed. Heat rose to my cheeks. Definitely from anger and absolutely not from the way his gaze traveled down my body like he was memorizing every curve. Or from the way he looked at my dark skin as if he found it fascinating. “I’m not a—a trophy to be won in some barbaric contest!”
He moved with surprising grace for someone his size, stepping further into the room. The floor registered his weight but didn’t shake. I’d expected thunder, and what I got instead was a predator who already knew he didn’t need to announce himself. He circled me slowly, not touching, not threatening, just assessing.
I refused to turn with him, standing rigid as he came to a stop directly in front of me.
