Page 4 of Protective Pucking Orc

I needed to remember that. Dakvaar was my best customer—and only my best customer. Didn’t matter if I was intrigued by his stoicism and quiet gratitude. I needed to keep this professional.

Still, I watched him.

He ate in silence, nodding only in thanks when I brought him his check. But he spent the time watching Rosa thoughtfully. When Debbie refilled her juice and my daughter thanked her sweetly, I thought I even saw a ghost of a smile on his lips.

And after Dakvaar had left, and I went to clear his table, I found he’d paid for his forty-dollar meal with a hundred-dollar bill. I stared down at it, torn between gratitude and shame that he pitied me.

I told myself part of me had known what I was doing when I’d told him about the high cost of living in this area. Had I unconsciously been trying to guilt him into tipping me more? He could afford it, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t given him great service.

Still, the thought of his pity curdled something in my stomach, and as I tucked the bill into my server book, I vowed to make it worth his while.

He came in every morning, and I would make certain Dakvaar had the best damn breakfasts of his life.

Chapter Two

Dakvaar

I spent all of Tuesday preoccupied. So much so that Bardon got the puck past me twice in a scrimmage, and gave me shit about it in the locker room. I accepted said shit as my due, merely nodding in agreement.

It wasn’t a complete surprise that Torrk defended me. “He’s been distracted lately, lay off.” The younger male was everything I wasn’t: enthusiastic, talkative, and friendly…and for some reason, had decided to declare himself my friend his very first season with the team. “Besides, it’s not like I couldn’t stop your weak-ass attempts at a goal,” he pestered Bardon. “My grandmother could’ve stopped those!”

Since Bardon had been team captain for three seasons, and knew his worth as a striker, he didn’t rise to the challenge. Shaking his head, he tossed me a towel. “Well, get un-distracted, Dakvaar. We have a game on Friday.”

As if I could forget.

But later, in the shower, I frowned, realizing I had been forgetting things lately. Or if not forgetting, at least…being distracted, as Torrk had said. For some reason, Friday’s game against the Emerald Enforcers didn’t matter as much as it should. As much as it normally would.

My Kteer—that primitive instinct that had evolved with orcs to keep us alive or to urge us to act on our most primal impulses—growled in my chest as the water sluiced over my shoulders.

The damned thing had been bugging me for weeks, causing me to make stupid mistakes like the missed pucks in today’s scrimmage. And I had a feeling I knew why.

I wasn’t a complete idiot; I’d realized my Kteer was loudest and most annoying in the mornings, and it had something to do with the Sunrise Café. I’d made a habit of returning every morning for breakfast before coming into the ice complex. It had nothing to do with the eggs or the breakfast skillet, and everything to do with the smile from one delicious waitress.

I’d watched her.

Sofia was friendly with everyone; her smiles weren’t just for me. But that smile did something to my chest, something I wasn’t comfortable with. When I was in the café, she was a beacon I could follow based purely on my body’s response to her scent. I made sure I wasn’t creepy about it; I was respectful and calm and tried not to give her any indication I was different from her other regulars.

But I was.

Because I was the one whose Kteer was howling the truth in my chest: Sofia was mine. She was my Mate, the female the gods themselves chose for me.

Awkward.

In my world, females were rare, so discovering a Mate Bond meant that the male was truly blessed. But in my world, a male didn’t find his Mate by ordering an omelette from her each morning. He knew more about her.

It wasn’t ideal; I knew nothing about Sofia, not even her last name. She had a daughter—that meant she had a male, or had at some point. Humans who were married wore jewelry on their fingers, I’d learned that much, and Sofia wore no rings.

Of course, it wasn’t unheard of that an orc might find his Mate, only to discover that she belonged to another male. But here in the human world, a challenge of ritual combat and stealing the female was out of the question, were I even the type of male to do that sort of thing.

No, you are the type of male to stand between that combat and those who need guarding.

I would never bring violence into Sofia’s sphere, unless I was defending her.

Still…

I dragged the washcloth across my chest and down my stomach, staring at the tiled wall in front of me as I considered the act of fighting for Sofia. Her breasts pressed against my bare chest, her dark gaze reverent and adoring as she stared up at me, those plump lips parted for the human tradition of a kiss…

My hands would drag down her back to cup her round backside, tugging her closer…