I ignore him and keep shooting. The shutter clicks.
He leans in and lowers his voice.
"I know what you are. The whole town knows." His lips barely move. "You're just an orc whore. You spread your legs for a monster and call it progressive." The smile doesn't change. "You're not brave, sweetheart. You're a fucking punchline."
My stomach turns over. Not from shock. This is a man who has practiced being hateful in private his entire life.
I lower the camera. Look him dead in the face.
"That's a great quote. Want to say it again where someone can hear you?"
His smile holds but he doesn't repeat it. He knows how this game works: the ugly words stay in the margins, and the public face stays clean enough to print on a flyer with a community center logo.
He walks away. His sport coat catches the wind and flattens against his back.
My hands stay steady on the camera. My back teeth ache from clenching, and I stand on the sidewalk breathing through my nose until my heartbeat slows.
I text Rex.Dale Rickman just cornered me outside the community center. I'm fine. He's a coward.I don't type what Dale called me. Rex doesn't need the specifics to react, and I handled it. But the afternoon feels soured now, the light flat and uninteresting through the viewfinder. I pack the camera into my bag and head back toward the Anchor.
The next morning I take the long way home from the post office, cutting down the side street behind the bar. The air smells like rain and salt and the pavement is still dark from overnight drizzle.
I'm almost at the back stairs whena dark SUV idles past the alley mouth and stops.
I recognize it from Rex's descriptions. The engine runs smooth and quiet, too new for Nightfall Cove, where every truck on the road has a rattle or a knock that locals identify by sound.
The passenger door opens. An orc steps out.
Broad across the shoulders, taller than Rex by three or four inches. Scarred along the bridge of his nose and down one cheek, old marks layered over older ones. His clothes fit too well for a town where the dress code stops at clean flannel. Dark jacket, dark pants, boots with a shine. He moves the way big men move when they've never had to step aside for anyone.
He speaks to me in orcish first. A short phrase, rough-edged, with an upward lilt at the end I recognize as a question even without understanding the words.
"English," I say.
His head tilts. The accent is thick but the words are clear. "You are the one who belongs to the Road Captain."
"I don't belong to anyone."
His gaze drops to my neck. He looks at where a claiming mark should be and isn't, and his whole posture relaxes.
"Unmarked." He says it flat. Observational. "Unclaimed. Among my people, that means you are unprotected." His eyes come back to mine.
My skin crawls. Not because he's wrong.
"If the Road Captain valued you, you would carry his bite." He folds his arms. "You do not. That tells us that you're available."
"I'm not available to you or anyone else. Mind your own business." My voice comes out even. "Get back in the car and go back to the black mountains."
He grabs my arm and turns my head, tilting my neck into the light. Confirming what he already knows. His fingers are cold and his grip is impersonal.I bring my arm up and knock his wrist sideways, breaking his hand off me, and step back far enough to put air between us.
"Touch me again and you'll find out what the women in this town do to uninvited hands."
The scout's mouth twitches. He's amused. I'm a human woman half his size and we both know I can't match him if he decides to close the distance again. I'm standing in the alley behind my bar in my town and I'm not backing up another inch.
He closes the distance in one stride and grabs my face this time, harder, his thumb pressing into the hinge of my jaw.
The roar of a Harley fills the alley. Rex rounds the corner fast enough that the rear tire breaks loose on the asphalt. He kills the engine and is off the bike and moving before the exhaust stops popping.
He sees the scout's hand on me and the man I know disappears.
