Chapter 3

Hannah

I was still holding out the hope that this was just a dream, not that I really wanted to imagine myself lying in a coma in a hospital, but that just seemed much more likely than this. Whatever this was, it was utterly crazy.

Blade was a stupid name for an orc. It was so… Obvious. It was stupid; it really was. But I had to give my crazy brain points for how sexy this orc it had conjured up looked. His muscles went on and on, and his smile was so perfectly impish and infectious that it kept making me feel warm inside, happy. Blade fit him; I had to give him that. He looked like a bad boy, like a biker, but green and with tusks.

If he’d slow down for like five seconds so I could take a breather, maybe my heart would stop galloping in my chest and I wouldn’t feel so… confused. The orc made me feel things I’d put in the fridge as soon as I’d gotten my diagnosis a few months ago. Truthfully, I hadn’t thought about dating and kids in so long that I felt pathetic when those thoughts suddenly raced to the front of my mind. Why hadn’t I tried harder to have that? Why had I let my career consume me?

I winced and clutched him tighter around his thick neck when something exploded to the left of us. If this was a hallucination or a figment of my coma-induced dream, couldn’t my mind come up with something more fun than a high-speed chase and exploding things ?

Another silvery gray object crashed violently into a tree that Blade only barely dodged on his flying motorcycle thingy. Part of me wanted to yell at him for being so reckless and driving this dangerously. Was it even driving? Flying maybe? But as the last of our pursuers died a fiery death as it crashed into a sudden huge boulder elation and excitement took over. I had never felt as alive as I did at that moment; that was huge.

Blade spun his bike sideways, and we came to a full stop hovering above the boulder that the last flying thing had crashed into. I could feel his heart thumping calmly and steadily in his brawny chest, and my nose filled with his scent, something like sage and motor oil combined, which was oddly appealing. Everything about him was appealing. Who was I kidding? Green was totally my color.

“You can let go. We’re safe. For now,” he said, laughter tinting his voice. I was twisted like a pretzel in his lap, my spine cranked painfully to turn around and hug him the way I was. I’d instinctively grabbed on when the crazy flying started, and it took me an embarrassingly long moment to release my tight grip around his neck.

He felt so real, and his ears really had these pointed tips with several silver rings piercing the edges. I was starting to think that maybe I wasn’t out cold after all, but to believe those stones had transported me somewhere else… It felt crazy to think that a supposed wishing stone had any real power at all, there had to be another explanation.

And then I remembered that he’d just blatantly told me no when I had asked him to take me home. No, just like that; and then he’d laughed about it. I went from confused and a little turned on by our proximity to spitting mad in a heartbeat. Enough was enough. I had bigger things on my plate than some cheeky orc who thought he was funny.

Leaning back, I jabbed my finger in his chest and pretended that didn’t hurt when I hit his rock-hard pectorals. “Why the hell won’t you take me home? It’s not funny, I just fell out of the sky. There’s got to be a way to get back to Earth.” Talking about home like I was on another planet or in another dimension felt insane, and it felt more real when I spoke such ideas out loud.

Blade grinned, his tusks framing his smile with their ivory, his cheeks dimpled adorably, and it was like his deep brown eyes glowed with a faint golden light. He was too bloody attractive for his own good, the green hue of his skin just made him exotic, but dang his cheekbones were killer. Those dimples made me melt, going all gooey and soft inside when I should remain firm.

“You can’t go home, lass,” he said, his grin dropping to make way for a far more sober expression. I had a feeling he didn’t wear a look like that often, which made my stomach swoop with nerves. “Those portals only ever work one way, and even then, only if they feel like it,” he explained solemnly. He talked like those things had minds of their own, but though I’d come to Ireland to connect with my roots, I wasn’t one to believe in such fanciful things. It had to be a technology that had yet to be understood, or a strange phenomenon like freak storms or something.

“Look,” Blade said at seeing my confused expression. His lips quirked again like he couldn’t help himself; the man was all smiles all the time, but he was making an attempt to suppress the impulse. “The overlords don’t take kindly to human visitors. They’ll lock you up if they get their paws on you. Unless,” he wiggled his eyebrows at me mischievously, “Unless you get mated. So want to be my mate?”

Did this orc just propose to me? What the flying fuck? Completely baffled by this turn of events, I was silent for a long moment, staring into his dark eyes with their odd golden twinkles as I tried to parse the information. “Absolutely not!” I barked when I realized he was serious and waiting for a reply. Who gets married to someone after one shared high-speed chase? We only barely knew each other’s names and, on top of that, I was dying. That was a splash of cold water in the face I could do without, and it dampened my fighting mood.

“Why not?” Blade asked, and when I opened my mouth to formulate a reply, he swooped in. I meant to say something sensible about how we had only just met, something about strangers and different species, and how this was probably a hallucination. His kiss made any rational thinking impossible.

His mouth against mine was strange for only a short moment. I could feel those sharp tusks press against my cheeks without harm while his lips were shockingly soft and warm. His taste swept across my senses like a tidal wave, a hint of nutmeg, a taste all his, and something that made me think that maybe magic was real after all. My nipples grew into diamond-hard peaks from that mouth-to-mouth touch, and when he swept his tongue into my mouth, I ached for him.

Heart racing, breathing fast and choppy, my chest ached dully, but my belly felt on fire as pleasure tingled through my limbs. This was a kiss? I could not recall ever feeling this way from just a kiss, like I could combust on the spot, like I would shatter from a single touch. All he did was press his mouth to mine, but it felt like so much more. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d cupped one big hand against the small of my back and I felt the heat of his palm blaze through my thick coat and sear into my skin.

“Why not?” he asked again when he finally pulled back. His voice was husky and low and I could hear the racing of his own heart; it told me he was as affected as I was. It felt good to know that he had enjoyed that kiss just as much. Then he grinned, and I was not at all surprised to see it. I was all too happy to enjoy those sexy dimples. “I’ve got the stuff. I’d make an excellent mate.”

There his brows went again, waggling playfully, and my chest grew warm, a smile stretching at my cheeks that did catch me by surprise. “Still a no, buddy. I have a life to get back to, things to do.” And even if I was starting to like this guy, orc, I couldn’t stick around just so he could watch me die.

“Really?” he drawled, his hand sliding up my back along my spine until it settled between my shoulder blades. That touch felt awfully possessive, it felt like he was ready to press me forward for another kiss. “Our human visitors don’t usually have much to go back to. They’re always more than happy to settle on Mirock if they find a mate. Orcs are very good mates for humans.” His eyes pierced mine with a look that felt like it went right through me, like he knew I was hiding something.

I shrugged, my lips dry and my words struggling to escape a throat suddenly tight from tears. “I have important things to take care of. Please, can we find one of those portals and try? There’s no harm in trying, is there?”

I didn’t know what I’d do if I discovered I was truly stuck here. We were sitting on a flying motorcycle, so maybe I could get medical help here, but he looked so barbaric in other ways… He was horrifyingly right, though. I didn’t have anything to return to on Earth if you looked at it. A job I now hated, and no family except for a distant cousin that I’d only emailed twice in the past year; she did not even know that I was dying.

“Sure, we’ll give it a shot,” Blade said easily. “I know of a place not far from here.” He pressed with his hands until I was facing forward, then carefully curled one thick forearm around my middle to pin me in place. I was acutely aware of his groin pressed to my rear suddenly, and of the thick bulge I could feel pressed against me. How had I not felt that before? He was huge, and he was hard, and completely unashamed about it. Maybe making me feel that thing was another ploy to convince me to be his mate.

“You could just put me on the ground and point me in the right direction,” I said. “No need to take up more of your time. I’m sure you have better things to do…” I trailed off because I was fishing, and I was also trying to push him away. It didn’t feel nice to be so wanted by a guy I barely knew and know I couldn’t have him.

“There is nothing better to do than to help a sexy little human, trust me.” He laughed warmly, and I imagined he was sporting those dimples again, but I didn’t dare to look over my shoulder to verify. His hand moved on the handlebar of his hover bike thing and off we went, zooming through the woods at a much slower pace this time.

“I’m older than you,” I warned him, but I had a feeling I knew exactly what he’d say about that. Honestly, I had no clue if I was older or not. He was an orc. Who knew what age they were or how old they even got? I was just going off the fact that he was so cheerful and bad boyish, playful with a little edge of danger. “Don’t get any ideas,” I warned him more forcefully when he laughed. “Even if you kiss like a fiend, I’m not mating you.”

“We’ll see,” was all the response I got.