Chapter 2

Blade

I pursed my lips in annoyance. The nerve of my damn brother to suggest I needed to grow up and get a mate. What was wrong with having a little fun? The ladies in town didn’t mind, I didn’t mind, and we weren’t so uptight that it mattered to the family name, anyway. He was the one who needed to get a mate so he could get heirs, not me.

My annoyance vanished like snow before the sun. I couldn’t stay mad long, that just wasn’t me. He wanted me to find a mate? What did he think I’d been up to all this time? I liked searching for the right female very much. Nobody said it was illegal to have fun while looking, nobody but a stick-up-his-ass Rover. That’s who.

I flipped him a rude gesture, though he couldn’t see it, but I enjoyed picturing him with a vague sense of unease as he sat behind his fancy desk like the little lordling he fancied himself to be. Nah, that wasn’t fair. Rover was a good brother and an even better head of our company: Ironheart Pharmaceuticals. He and I were just very different orcs, that’s all.

I knew going for a ride to clear my head was exactly what I needed. Nothing helped more than flying on my bike over the Ironheart lands and beyond, the great big unclaimed woodlands of our planet. I could picture myself alone, left to my own devices like my ancestors. Hunting to feed myself, one with nature and my bike.

A laugh rumbled from my chest at the fanciful image; now I was kidding myself. I would miss the comforts of my big soft mattress far too much to rough it out in the wilds for long. I’d be begging Rover to record all the Orcball games I was missing out on. It was fun to imagine, so I allowed myself to imagine some more things.

Like the mate I was supposed to be finding. Somehow, my mind just would not settle on any shade of green, but I doubted my heart was going to be set on any of the minotaur lasses in the next town over either. I curled my lip as I imagined mating one of the overlords and just couldn’t, nope, not my thing. They were perfectly lovely, but not for settling down. What did I want?

Pale skin sprung to mind when I held my breath and scrunched my eyes closed. Pale skin like milk and cookies, and flaming hair like the rising of the sun. A human. Hmmm, now how did that happen? I’d seen some of them around, but they were rare, very rare, and the overlords did not like the visitors that dropped in on our world unannounced very much. Mating a human would be difficult and dangerous.

Ah. My mouth split in a wide grin as I pictured that. It would be marvelous, the chase, the wooing, a chance to prove my worth and my wit. As I imagined the pleasures I’d find between my mate’s soft thighs, my cock grew stiff in my pants. A sound teased across my senses that first inflamed my desire and then roughly flipped the switch to battle readiness, two feelings that were always closely entwined.

It was a scream, high-pitched, frightened. My eyes focused on the skies above me, where a thick layer of puffy white clouds had swept in with sudden, unpredictable rapidness. Well, what do you know? Wish and you shall receive. I revved the engine on my hoverbike and set out on an intercept course.

I had to match my speed to that tumbling shape of brown and green, of flailing limbs and whipping hair. There was a trick to this kind of thing, and one that my brother had been game enough to practice with me at one point in time. The wee lass was in luck; her tumble would come to a gentle end in my arms, I’d make sure of it. No promises about any tumbling we’d be doing together after, though.

My arm snapped out as I eased up at her side and angled my bike nose down to match her free fall. I clutched her to me and then leveled off and eased up on the speed until we came to a gentle hover above the emerald trees. She was a small, curvy package in my lap and smelled like the portal that had brought her here. She also smelled like cinnamon, my favorite, with an underlying hint of metal that made me uneasy; a scent note that should not be there.

Then she tilted her face up to mine and spoke, and I was lost. Lost in those hazel eyes, lost in the freckles that dotted her nose and cheeks, lost in the dark brown curls that haloed her head. She was beautiful, and a little sad; that I could not permit. My instinct was to make a joke, but it fell flat. Idiot, of course it did. She’d just come from wherever humans came from and taken a fall straight out of the sky. She was probably terrified out of her mind.

“I’m Blade,” I said to her, drawing her attention back from my bike and the endless great woods beneath us. I could see the wheels whirring in her head, a rapid mass of spiraling thoughts that culminated in her reaching out to pinch her arm and yelping when that hurt.

I slapped her fingers away and rubbed her limb through the cover of her thick leather coat. “Don’t do that,” I warned her sternly. She did not get to harm herself; that was out of the question, even if she was just trying to see if she was dreaming or not. “Hannah you said?” That’s what she’d muttered before she’d gone and pinched herself. I did not think she’d caught my name.

“Yeah, Hannah,” she concurred, frowning at where I clasped her arm. My fist wrapped all the way around, my fingers overlapping even with the buffer of her warm coat. She was positively tiny, and that sent a very illicit thrum of arousal through me. I covered it with a cough and tapped my chest so I could introduce myself more formally.

“Blade Ironheart, at your service, lass,” I smirked when that made her eyebrows climb in her round face. Her features were so very delicate and lovely, and I adored the pink softness of her mouth, so differently shaped without any tusks. I wanted to say more, but a noise from my bike’s controls drew my attention: a proximity alert.

I tssked and shook my head; that was no good. “Ah, now you’ve done it. Sweet Hannah,” I said to her and gestured at the blinking lights. She twisted in my arms to get a look, her eyes as big as saucers. The proximity alert meant we were about to have company; that was fast. Their new systems must be working very well.

“Done what?” she asked with a nervous nibble on her pink bottom lip. I helped her to straddle my bike facing forward, muffling a groan when that settled her soft rear against my groin. Ah, the friction was divine. No, focus. I needed to pay attention now that things were about to get rough, prove myself. This was exactly what I wanted.

“They’re looking for you, and they’re not happy.” I revved my bike as I spoke to her, pressing my mouth against the shell of her round ear so she could hear me with the winds whipping past us. A flick of a switch had the safety net engaging around us, a gentle forcefield that would keep us tethered safely to the bike and protect us from harm during a crash. Not that I’d crash, I was an expert flyer.

“Just take me home, please,” Hannah said, her fingers reaching back and digging into my thighs as she clung on for dear life. I relished that firm grip, the little bite of pain, and the hint of her underlying strength. She was perfect. She might not have red hair like I’d imagined, but I was very partial to her brown locks now, anyway.

“Nope,” I said to her, laughing when that made her twist her head to level me with a fierce glare. I would have loved every heated word that clung to her lips, ready to spill over. The rushing wind made it impossible to speak, our pace still increasing, though I knew I could not outrun the approaching drones.

Angling the nose of the bike down, I shot us into the woods where cover and obstacles would come to my aid. Anything to protect the wee lass balanced snugly in my lap, teasing me with her cinnamon scent. “Ah, fuck, are they following us?” she gasped. Her body twisted against me, and her arms flung around my neck to clutch me tight. A lock of her hair blew into my eyes, obscuring my sight, but I righted the bike by instinct. Experience taking over as we zigzagged around giant tree trunks.

“They are,” I agreed. “Don’t worry, lass. I’ll take care of it.” Then I got down to business, steering one-handed so I could hold the tiny female safely against me and avoid any more hair in my face. Just a tight turn here, a sharp climb around that limb, duck under that fallen tree. Easy peasy. I laughed loudly when the first drone crashed. This was fun.