Trick or Orc
Page 13
She didn’t even look the least bit remorseful when I accused her of knowing when I saw her waiting for us in the ballroom. I had been blown away by her presence and then immediately thrilled, followed by bewildered when I realized the secret she kept. She just laughed and hugged me, saying over and over how happy she is for me. It’s hard to stay mad at that, and truthfully I’m quite happy with the deception since it brought her here to be with us on our special day.
I can’t even be mad at Garval for keeping our bloodbond a secret in the first place. If I had paid attention at all to Lynn, I would have known it right away, and so I recognize that as my fault. The fact that he wanted to redo everything to be extra special for me just makes me love him more.
And I can see how much his clan loves him from the wedding feast that everyone has shown up for. There are so many people I’ve never met—and all of them have shown up to celebrate our love. I just can’t believe it. Nor can I believe the mountains of food that are on every table. Nora sits next my mother, stuffing her face, even though she can’t seem to stop stealing glances at us with an overjoyed little smile. Even Matty, seated on Elga’s lap, reaches eagerly for Garval every opportunity he gets. Chris, on the other side of Nora, shoots us a thumbs up as he leans over to whisper to Ferona, who giggles as she looks at us thoughtfully. I don’t even want to know what he’s telling her. I’m just too focused on all of my good fortune to even care.
“This is really all too much,” I whisper to my mate in awe.
My mate. I still can’t believe it!
“Nothing is too much for you. I will always give you the best of me and all I have, for the rest of our lives,” he whispers.
“Now the question is… are you willing to go through with the tattoo and piercing?” Lynn teases as she leans forward to peer at me around Bodi.
I stick my tongue out at my best friend. “Of course,” I say bravely. “A small one,” I amend when I see Elga’s beaming smile.
She nods in understanding and whispers to an older female beside her, who nods and pulls out a bag that was sitting at her feet.
I laugh in disbelief, despite the excitement I feel welling in my heart. “What? Here?”
Garval grins and moves over to his aunt’s side. “Don’t worry, my mate. I will go first. We will keep it small.”
He gives his aunt a meaningful look, and she huffs. “Yes, small. I know. Smaaaall.”
The clan cheers as his septum is pierced and the first scrolls of ink are laid into his skin. I can’t stop the tears from flowing at the commitment he is showing before his entire clan. I can’t wait until it’s my turn.
True to her word, the small cluster of fine golden scrolls extend out from the corner of his eye two inches up and down and back into his hairline like an elegant patch. He gets up from the seat, his eyes shining with love when I hurry over to him.
“You don’t have to, my love,” he whispers. “It’s enough for me that my clan sees your mark on me.”
“Not a chance,” I laugh. “Move aside. It’s my turn.”
I think the cheers are even louder for me, and the happiness that fills me dulls the pain of the piercing and tattooing needles. This is my happily ever after, after all, and it’s going to be perfect.
And it is, all because I finally found my sweet orc on a magical Halloween.
Epilogue
Garval
Autumn has come and gone again, and the first snows of winter have fallen. I can’t believe that another carnival has passed, marking a year with my mate, and now we are looking forward to our second winter solstice together. I settle into our couch, my hand caressing her swollen belly, delighting in the feel of my youngling kicking beneath my palm. My hands are large enough to cover nearly the entire width of her belly so I’m guaranteed to almost always feel something from my son.
“Your spawn is restless,” Kassie murmurs, delighting a chuckle from me.
“A perfect warrior just waiting to come roaring out into the world,” I agree.
“Could be a little girl,” my mate reminds me with a tired groan, but her smile is affectionate as she slowly eases herself up from my embrace.
I can feel a tension along our bloodbond that I don’t like, and my eyes track her movement worriedly.
“Is everything well?”
She waves aside my concern. “Yeah, I’m just a little uncomfortable. I think I’m just going to make a bit of cocoa. Anyone want some?”
“As long as you aren’t gonna throw it back up,” Nora says, her nose screwing up, and she deftly evades Matty who’s been persistently trying to grab the art project she’s been working on all day. “I think watching cocoa come up ruined it for me.”
Chris grins from the corner chair he occupies, a magic ball fizzling unstable in his hands. Thankfully, it’s a small one and a training spell rather than something that can actually blow up in his face—unlike the spells he lost his eyebrows to just a few days ago when he snuck a grimoire out from the Hearthstone and tried one of the advanced magics above his level. His instructor gave him a stern lecture after his mother assigned him a number of duties around the cottage to repair the mess he made. Ever the loving mother, she did take the time to assure him that his eyebrows would grow back—maybe. Magic can be unpredictable that way. Fortunately, his instructor confirmed it, and so now we all just have to be accustomed to seeing Chris looking peculiar in the meantime.
“I’ll take some!” he shouts.
I grunt and stand to assist my mate because there is no way I’m going to allow her to serve us when she is nearing her whelping time. The wind howls outside but our cottage is warm. No one truly needs the cocoa, but if my mate wants it then I will be sure to make sure she has it.
As I approach, I’m alarmed when she suddenly crouches, her hand cupping her belly as she cries out. I rush over, my hands grabbing ahold of her arm, helping to support her weight when I feel a splash of hot liquid hit my stocking foot.
Her smile is tremulous as she looks up at me. “I think it’s time,” she whispers.
The small hairs on my neck standing on end, I turn and shout back to the newly built rear guest rooms which currently house my mother and hers while we’ve been waiting on our youngling’s arrival. There is an immediate flurry of action as females swarm out, grabbing my mate between them as they nudge me out of the way until I bellow and lift my female into my arms, carrying her into our room. I refuse to be shut out of my own youngling’s birth.
The females don’t take offense, chuckling as they hurry ahead of me, laying down the thick layers of coverings that will be used to absorb the birthing fluids. Once I get her settled, I don’t know what to do aside from hold her hand and let her attempt to wring every bit of blood and bone from it as her contractions overtake her. Aside from being her torture toy while she goes through this difficult process, my eyes are glued to the area between her legs where I’ve found so much pleasure as I wait for the miracle of my son—or daughter—to appear.
My Kassie grunts, cries, and curses—some of those being quite inventive and directed to a certain part of my anatomy—as she bears down. She lets out a low, pained groan that I can feel shaking through me when at last I see a dark thatch of hair appear seconds before my son pushes his way into the world. His tiny lips curl down into a fierce pout and his legs kick out seconds before a fierce howl erupts from him that makes my mother beam with pride.
“That there is a Clan Obrul war cry in the making,” she declares as she carefully sets him on his mother’s chest so that Kassie can hold him while his lifeline to her is severed and the placenta is birthed. The joy on my mate’s face takes my breath away, and my eyes are strangely misty when I peer down at my son. I brush my hand over his fist, and his fingers instinctively uncurl. When he’s finally taken away to be cleaned, my mate settles back with a sigh, her expression growing pained again.
“What’s going on?” she groans, her hands clutching at her belly.
Alarmed, I cast a worried look to my mothe
r, but her smile has widened as she drops once more between my mate’s legs.
“Nothing to worry about,” she says, giving Kassie a soothing pat on the calf. “Looks like we have another one coming along.”
My mate’s eyes widen, and she gives me a panicked look before her expression pinches with another hard contraction. I can hear my son squalling, but I push it out because I can hear him being tended to. My entire focus is on being here for my mate. When the second orcling arrives, my heart squeezes at the sight of the tiny gray-blue female that my mother hoists up. Like our son, she is shrieking angrily, perhaps with more volume and insistence, until she is lowered into her mother’s waiting embrace. As I look down at them in wonder, my son is handed to me, and I push in closer with him to my mate so that we can both enjoy our orclings together.
“Jania and Gorn,” I whisper reverently the two names we’ve chosen, my heart filled so full that I swear it may burst. I brush a kiss against my mate’s sweaty forehead, hoping to convey all the love and pride I feel at this moment along our bloodbond. “Thank you, my love.”
The patter of feet fills the room, and we are surrounded by our family, loving hands reaching toward the orclings, affectionate words whispered from those who will always love and guide them. I smile at Nora and Chris and open my free arm to hug them close when they ease in to get a good look.
This is my family, a most magical and precious gift that came into my life right when I didn’t even know that I needed it the most. I can’t wait to see the magic that many more Halloweens bring.
Author’s Note
I hope you enjoyed this little holiday romance! I’ve been wanting to do a holiday romance in the Monsterly Yours universe for a while, as well as make a return to the Orc village Obrul-tarin, so this presented the perfect opportunity to do both with How to Claim a Human and Trick or Orc. From the beginning they were imagined as joint pair of books for the autumn season before I even got to working, so I hope you’ve enjoyed Garval and Kassie’s story.
Next year I will be returning to the Troll Kingdom for this series. I hope that you’ll be looking forward to it as much as I will be!
SJ Sanders
Other Works by S.J. Sanders
The Mate Index
First Contact
The VaDorok
Hearts of Indesh (Valentine Novella)
The Edoka’s Destiny
The Vori’s Mate
Eliza’s Miracle (Novella)
A Kiss on Kaidava
The Vori’s Secret
A Mate for Oigr (Halloween Novella)
Heart of the Agraak
A Gift for Medif
The Arobi’s Queen
Teril’s Fire
A Winged Embrace
Monsterly Yours
The Orc Wife
The Troll Bride
The Accidental Werewolf’s Mate
The Pixie’s Queen
The Unicorn’s Mare
How to Claim a Human (coming soon)
Trick or Orc
The Troll King (coming soon)
Sci-Fi Fairytales
Red: A Dystopian World Alien Romance
Sirein
Ragoru Beginnings Romance
White: Emala’s Story
Huntress
Origins (coming soon)
Ragoru Romance
A Mother’s Night Gift
Warrioress (coming soon)
Dark Spirits
Havoc of Souls
Forest of Spirits
Desert of the Vanished (coming soon)
Dark Spirits Fairytales
The Mirror
Matchsticks
Glass Slippers (coming soon)
Shadowed Dreams Erotica
The Lantern
The Mintars
Librarian and the Beast
The Atlavans
The Darvel Exploratory Systems
Classified Planet: Turongal
Serpents of the Abyss
An Aturian Midwinter (coming Dec 2021)
Serpents of the Night (coming soon)
Mist World: Asylum of Graelf (coming soon)
Eternal (coming soon)
Argurma Salvager
Broken Earth
Pirate’s Gold
Sands of Argurumal
The Argurma Chronicles
Argurma Warrior (coming soon)
About the Author
S.J. Sanders is a writer of Science Fiction and Fantasy Romance. With a love of all things alien and monster she is fascinated with concepts of far off worlds, as well as the lore and legends of various cultures. When not writing, she loves reading, sculpting, painting and travel (especially to exotic destinations). Although born and raised in Alaska, she currently is a resident of Florida with her family.
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