Chapter 10

Hannah

I woke up tired and sluggish, but with a deep, languid feeling that spread from my limbs through the rest of my body. My chest ached; it felt tight, and I was short of breath. That was balanced out by how good the rest of me felt.

When I lazily blinked open my eyes and saw Blade was still asleep with this sexy curl to his mouth, one dimple popping, I could not bring myself to regret a single moment. Sex with him had been mind-blowing, and I’d cherish every memory, every touch and caress.

I hadn’t had much sleep at all; a virile orc like Blade was inexhaustible. I couldn’t even remember how many orgasms I’d had. Five? No, maybe it was seven. It was safe to say he was the best lover I’d ever had.

His arm was draped over my waist, holding me close to him even in his sleep. The heat radiating from him kept me toasty warm beneath the thin sheets. We’d kicked the blankets off at some point and never bothered to find them. He was starting to stir, and it was the happy, adoring look in his eyes that jerked me back to reality. I was sick, and I was leaving; staying with him was selfish and wrong.

He was a good guy, orc, and he didn’t deserve to get hurt. His mate, that’s what he wanted me to be. The idea was preposterous. Nobody got married after a day, at least, no one sane. They certainly wouldn’t stay together long if they did; it would never work, even if I wasn’t dying.

“That’s far too much heavy thinking this early in the morning,” Blade drawled sleepily. His eyes sparkled with flecks of gold, his lips curling around his ivory tusks. He always seemed happy, even as he said that. Didn’t he know that I was going to take that smile of his when I had to go?

Or would he shrug one of his brawny shoulders and move on? I didn’t believe that. You didn’t make love like he did, and did not have it mean something. “You can tell me, Hannah,” he said, but when I helplessly shook my head, he gave me a solemn nod and rose on his elbow above me. I should have stopped him, but when he kissed me, I melted and clung to him.

Later, we had breakfast, and I knew it was time to leave, only I didn’t want to and I didn’t know how to tell him anything. His eyes were too sharp, too clever. It felt like he already knew too much about me, maybe not my favorite color (green certainly), but the things that mattered, the heart of me. How the hell was that even possible? Why did I find someone with whom I connected that much when I couldn’t have it? It didn’t feel fair.

“You know,” he said conversationally as he strapped his saddlebags onto his hoverbike. “I don’t think I told you what my clan is known for, what we do.” I tilted my head and gave him my best inquisitive look while I continued to nibble on the flaky pastry he’d handed me. Though squashed from being in his bags, it still tasted fantastic.

He smirked; his tusks gleaming in the morning light. His eyes were dark, with no gold flecks this time, but maybe that was just a trick of the bright sunshine. “Ironheart Pharmaceuticals, that’s us. We manufacture and design a very large amount of the medicines available on the market. Most of it from herbs and plants we grow ourselves in special greenhouses.”

He held out his hand to assist me onto the bike, and I gazed at those thick fingers with their rough callouses, gained from honest, hard work. “Does that mean you have a green thumb, Blade?” I asked with a smile, simply because I couldn’t imagine him working in a garden. He was too active, too restless, and it just didn’t jibe with the bad boy image he portrayed.

His green skin glowed with a warm hue as he stood next to me, catching the morning rays. I watched as he grinned and raised both his thumbs, which were literally green, and wiggled them in front of my face. “Nope,” he said, “I’m no gardener. I head up the security department.” Head up he said, which made it sound like he was the boss, but I couldn’t imagine him as the boss type either.

Security? That I could definitely see. He seemed to dislike wearing shirts; maybe his thicker skin meant he didn’t need one to stay warm. But it allowed me an unimpeded view of his beautiful, tattooed, and muscled chest. The black ink dipped lovingly over the curves of his pecs and down along his abs. With only a few leather straps tied around his biceps, and leather pants clinging to his swimmer-trim hips, he made one hell of a sight. My libido firmly reminded me it existed each time I looked at him.

“Alright, no gardening for you,” I said, mildly disappointed when I realized I could suddenly vividly picture him in a pair of dirt-stained coveralls and little else. He shook his head, his mohawk jauntily swaying, and swung his leg over the saddle behind me. Instantly, my body heated. It was his scent, all warm and masculine, and the way he surrounded me and made me feel safe.

We set off slowly, drifting up into the sky so I had all the time in the world to stare at the cozy little cabin with the moss roof, hidden between the branches of a giant tree. It boggled my mind to realize we’d been fifty feet up in the air that entire time, but now it was all too obvious. Then Blade sped up, and we left the little cabin in our wake.

Soon we’d reach those stones, stones that should take me back home. Though Blade had stressed more than once that the stones were fickle and that he’d only rarely heard that they worked. Humans that came here had tried, but if your tie with Earth was not strong enough, nothing would happen. That made me worry, because honestly, except for a distant cousin, I had nobody tying me back home. Would my desire to return be strong enough? After last night, I felt so conflicted…

I sank into silence as I contemplated my options and thought about what I really wanted. I didn’t know. That’s what this boiled down to. If I had all the choices in the world, if I wasn’t sick, I might actually want to stay. It seemed crazy to fall for a guy in just a few days, but if I’d been dealt a better hand, I would totally want to find out if Blade and I could make it work. He made me smile. A girl deserved a guy who made her smile, didn’t she?

A few hours later, Blade silently raised a hand and indicated the stunning view in the distance. “That is Central City, the capital of the planet. We’re about to get to the border of Ironheart land.” It was all the explanation he gave me; I was left to study the silver spires of strange, futuristic buildings on my own. If I squinted, I could see little blips coming and going through the sky, some of them vanishing all the way up into the clouds.

I lost track of the silver city altogether when Blade angled his hoverbike down into the trees. We’d arrived.