“This afternoon, a candidate reported a recognition event.” She laces her fingers. “It’s calledkel’ahn. A scent-match. It’s involuntary and once in a lifetime.” My brain freezes, refusing to accept the obvious while she continues. “The orc’s bodyidentifies his mate. It’s like puzzle pieces clicking together. It’s never wrong.”
“Okay,” I say, like an idiot. “Whose mate is he?”
Diane looks at me with tired kindness and doesn’t say anything at all. Message received.
“No, you’re wrong. I’m staff,” I rush out. “I’m the court reporter. I’m not even in the program. I’m just here for two weeks.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s been paired with other applicants in the last fourteen months. None of them were right. He walks into a room with you, and he files paperwork the same hour.”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
“He wants to meet you tomorrow after the hearings. Thirty minutes, supervised. You can decline, and nothing bad will happen. He made very sure we told you that. Four words, actually.” Her mouth twitches. “Only if she wants.”
I look down at the pamphlet I don’t need to read because I know what the damn scent recognition feels like.
Somewhere in this building is an orc who said twenty-one words in a hearing — more words today than he’s said in a long time — and then he spent more on me.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll meet him.”
Chapter 2
I’vebeenaloneinthe bonding room for four minutes, and my body is already gearing up for a repeat of yesterday afternoon. The room is furnished with a couch built for three humans or one orc, two chairs, a coffee table, a bowl of mints as untouched as the ones in the hearing room. There’s a plant in the corner doing worse than the two in the lobby.
The handler put two glasses of water on the coffee table, and I almost joked about being thirsty but felt it wouldn’t be taken the right way. Now the handler is in the hallway with the door cracked, holding a clipboard like he’s going to write down every infraction if we touch. Wait, am I allowed to touch? I imagine my hands sliding up his shirt and over those hard, warm muscles…
I shake my head. Okay, this is crazy. I came straight from the hearing and got here first on purpose. If you claim your seat before the loud people arrive, you get to pick your ground. Ichose the chair, not the couch, and my steno case is next to me. I feel oddly better with it here, like I’m still me even if my body is going haywire.
The doorway goes dark, and every thought drains from my head.
He comes through the frame sideways and still barely makes it, and then Valdrek of Clan Stormbreak is standing in front of me. He’s holding a covered dish and looking at me like I’m what he came to this island for.
His scent washes over me again: the rain on stone, juniper, and banked embers. My body, which I lectured extensively in the shower this morning, practically rolls over and presents its belly. I press my knees together, very composed, fooling nobody.
“You came,” I say, brilliantly. I’m not going to win awards for staying cool under pressure.
Up close, there’s gold hidden under the brown of his eyes. He inclines his head in greeting as he sets the covered dish on the coffee table next to the mints. When he sits down on the couch, it groans in protest, and he folds his hands and looks at me.
Silence.
I’ve appreciated people who don’t say much my whole life, but the silence coming off him is different. My whole body finds it restful and charged at once, which shouldn’t be possible, especially considering all I want to do is climb into his lap and see if his skin is as warm as I imagine it is.
My fingers curl into my palm, and I speak quickly to stop myself from doing something stupid.
“So, I’ve never done this. But I’ve spent years listening to people answer questions for a living, so we’ll start with the easy ones. You can pass on anything you don’t like. Polite passes get a mint.”
What am I even saying? Am I going to force him to eat a mint?
The scarred eyebrow rises a millimeter. That’s amusement. I’d bet the redhead’s whole pool on it.
“Name?” I ask, like I didn’t hear him say it earlier.
“Valdrek.” His voice comes out with that same resonance from the hearing room, and the water in the glass on the coffee table ripples. So does the hair on my body. “From Clan Stormbreak.”
Somehow, I keep my face neutral.
“Occupation?”
“Warrior. Stoneworker.”
