Excerpt - Swipe for Orcs

DURA

" Y ou have to get mated. You're getting old, Dura."

I winced at the words bellowed at me as I walked in from the kitchen carrying my latest creation, a cheesy stuffed Italian bread recipe. My entire family sat at the rectangular dinner table, staring at me with varying degrees of sadness, disapproval, and, in my younger brother's case, glee that I was on the hot seat and not him for once. I swallowed hard, but regained my composure. Years of hearing versions of the same lecture from my father had given me strategies for dealing with it. It all started with a good meal. My mother always said, the way to an orc's heart is through his stomach. Or through his weaponry, but since a female was never allowed near his weapons, she'd have to settle for a good meal.

I laid the platter with savory bread in front of my father, then quietly stepped to the side and to my seat on the left, across from my younger brother, who smirked.

My father eyed the platter. "What is this?"

"It's something new, Father. An Italian bread stuffed with garlic, cheese, and meat. You pull it apart. "

One bushy eyebrow slowly rose as he considered the dish. Orcs had come to the Earthly realm a few generations ago when war had broken out in our home realm. Orcs lived for war. It was our main reason for living. Our entire culture was built around war. Making weapons, training for war, going to war. Despite the capabilities, we had been driven out by political machinations and landed here on Earth. Once we got here, we tried to carry on as we always had—making weapons, training, and looking for how to serve in the wars. Only, humans fought very differently and orcs thought that distance fighting was dishonorable. So, we clung to our old ways, making weapons, training, conducting Orc Games every four years to determine clan status, and slowly were becoming obsolete.

We were forced to live a more civilized life, but there was nothing an orc loved more than a feast with ale, and food we could tear into with our hands. No forks and knives required. Giving my father bread he could tear apart was a small part of home. Maybe it would soften him and make him forget about his absurd statement.

He tore off a piece of the cheesy bread and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Then he nodded and slammed a fist on the table. Everyone jumped. "This is good. This is why you'll make an orc a fine mate, though a well-born wife rarely cooks for her husband. She instructs the staff and raises little orclings."

"But I love to bake, Father. I'm good at it," I protested.

My younger brother, Zarod, frantically shook his head and moved his hand across his throat to get me to stop talking. I ignored him. I'd done everything my father had asked. I did the books at the forge. I baked breads and pastry for his business meetings. I hid my work at the local bakery, so no one knew a noble orc's daughter worked for a living .

"By the time your sister Sora was your age, she was married with two orclings and another on the way." Sora beamed at me from across the table, nursing orcling number four. Our father smiled. "A true orc wife. It's time you did your duty."

I could almost feel my freedom slipping away from me. Orc fathers arranged their daughters' marriages. That's how Sora's marriage happened. I had avoided that thus far, playing on my father's affection for me, and my usefulness at the business and my bread. But clearly that favoritism was running out.

"You promised I could pick my own mate."

My father tore off another piece of bread and chewed. "Yes, I gave you until your twenty-fifth birthday, which is in two months. Do I see a potential orc husband on the horizon? No. Have you brought anyone home to meet your family? No. I have to ask myself. Maybe Dura needs help. So your mother and I, we start to ask around the families, gather a list of orcs."

I wanted to sink through the floor. The horror of being talked about at all the orc tables like a commodity, like a piece of meat to be sold at auction, for I had no doubt that he was soliciting offers for my hand in marriage, judging who was giving the most, who was deserving of my hand, depending on their worth to him. I hoped he would take my happiness into consideration, but he mostly considered wealth and status as criteria, whereas I had other standards by which I judged males.

Sora leaned forward. "Father, I'm sure you'll pick a wonderful male, as you did for me."

She gave her husband an adoring look, and I barely suppressed my eye roll. Sora was happy, but she had always wanted to be a wife, unlike me. She was happy popping out orclings. She loved being lady of the manor, running her house like our mother. I thought I might die a slow death if that was my fate.

I had to think fast to counter his plans. "You promised me that I had until my twenty-fifth birthday. You always said an orc was nothing without his word."

My father scowled at me, clearly not liking that I threw his own words back at him. "It's a good thing you're not on the Council or I would have a solid opponent. Fine, you can have until your birthday, in two months, to present to me an orc of good standing as potential husband material. During the Forging Contest at the Orc Games. If you do not, we'll use the contest to find you a mate. Are we clear?"

I sighed. It was the best compromise I was going to get. "Yes, Father. Thank you."

A few days later, I found myself sitting in a conference room in the Love Bites Dating Agency, across from a woman in a charcoal gray pinstripe power suit who introduced herself as Beatrix. She was a little weird. Her waist-length gray hair and grayish skin would indicate an older woman, but her skin was flawless and her tone was smooth and sweet, though her white eyes held a sharpness to them that warned me to be on my toes. Another individual joined us, a skinny man, wearing khakis and a t-shirt that said, Beware the Smiling Mage. He wasn't smiling though, not that I could see. His face was buried in his tablet, his long, stringy, dark hair falling around him, and he tapped the screen rapidly.

Beatrix scowled at him, the frown quickly morphing into a smile when she saw me watching .

"Atticus. We have a client," she said, and I could almost hear her teeth grinding.

He waved his hand. "Yes, Dura Ironspike, I'm just tweaking the code. We don't get orcs in the system every day, you know. We have to make adjustments for them."

Beatrix sighed. "Orcs are only just starting to use Love Bites. You generally arrange your marriages but, as you've stayed in this realm and settled around Whynot, we're seeing more and more orcs come to us for matches. It's very exciting."

Atticus grunted. "Exciting isn't quite the word. Challenging is more accurate. You orcs have very specific criteria and it's difficult to find acceptable matches."

I raised my eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

He finally lifted his head and pinned me with hazel eyes, looking a little irritated at my interruption. "Orcs don't consider things like personality and compatibility when finding mates. Instead, they look at clan status, lineage, and connections for bonding. That is not how Love Bites works."

This was precisely why I had tried Love Bites. If I wanted to be sold like a typical orc wife, which was one step up from a broodmare, I would have let my father choose my husband. I knew he would have selected someone kind and considerate, as far as he knew. The orc would have good standing, able to support me financially, and a decent reputation. That didn't always mean he would treat me well behind closed doors, though, with my father as a high councilor, my husband wouldn't dare harm me. But there were many ways to cause harm. Neglect, incompatibility, were just two ways to be unhappy. I wanted a love match, someone to care about me as more than a connection. Someone I could be happy with and love .

I pinned Atticus with a look. "I'm not your typical orc."

He narrowed his gaze. "No, you're not. You're from a prominent family, yet you came here instead of going the traditional route. The question we have is this. Will you accept the match Love Bites provides, knowing it may not fit your family's method of selecting a mate, or will you reject it?"

That was a good question, actually the core question. I would accept an orc that I loved, no matter his status, but would my father? Would my happiness trump his desire for a good match? I wasn't sure I was prepared to see which element my father held as more important—my happiness or my husband's status.

Atticus seemed to sense my hesitation, and he sneered. "This is why we don't like to match orcs."

Beatrix snapped a hand on his arm. "That's enough. If Dura wants to go through the process, we cannot control how she reacts to her match. We have orcs of all statuses in our database."

Atticus opened his mouth as if to protest and Beatrix glared at him until he shut it. I had a bad feeling about the entire process but overruled it. I had no other choice. Dating on my own had been a disaster. I never knew if someone was interested because of my father or me, and if I could trust how they acted. And I was honestly too shy to approach orcs, and most rarely approached me. I really didn't want to be arranged, because I'd seen some of the orcs my father was already considering and they were not my type. He'd been slowly inviting some of them to dinner, and I was unimpressed.

So, Love Bites was my best option.

I straightened in my chair. "I want to move forward. I've completed the questionnaire. What's next? "

Atticus gave a small sigh and scanned the screen. "Everything appears to be in order. All the questions are answered except two. Your favorite breakfast food and a picture?"

I flushed. I was a baker, so what did they think I liked? Pastries and baked goods, of course, as if my picture wouldn't show my slightly rounded figure already. Which brought me to the second area of discomfort. I really didn't want to upload a picture and had hoped to avoid it with the agency.

"I thought Love Bites focused on compatibility. Why do we need a picture?"

Beatrix leaned forward, that polite smile fixed on her face. "There is an element of attraction inherent in all dating profiles. We can easily touch it up a bit, if you prefer."

Atticus snorted. "Everyone does it."

A bright light flashed, and I blinked, momentarily blinded, colored spots dancing in front of me. "What the hell?"

"Simple." He tapped the screen a few times and turned it to show me.

I gasped. My face was smooth, thinner than I expected, and my green skin was a gorgeous shade of emerald that only my sister had ever accomplished with the aid of expensive Nestee Mauder products. I looked almost pretty.

The tablet was whisked out of my hands. "Breakfast food?"

I flushed again and muttered, "Cinnamon rolls."

He nodded, cleaned the screen with a wet wipe, then handed me the tablet. "Lick."

I frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Lick the screen right in the center. Last step. "

I wrinkled my nose but did it. An orange taste exploded on my tongue. "Orange?"

He took it back with a disgusted sound. "It's not a test. We know it's orange. We don't know why, okay?"

He shoved back from the conference room table and stalked from the room. Beatrix pasted her polite smile on her face. "Here are instructions to download our app to your phone. You'll be able to log in and review your matches there, though, for the first time, we ask that you come and review them with us so we can ensure there are no tweaks to your profile to be made. Then you can arrange your dates via the app. Don't make any contact outside the app until you've had your date."

She stood. "And please keep us posted. We'll be in touch in the next couple of days when the profile is complete and your first set of matches are ready."

I stood, taking the pamphlet with log in instructions. "Everything is private, right?"

"Of course. No one can interfere with our algorithms."

I followed her outside. "Do you have a lot of orcs on the app?"

Beatrix continued to give that smile that was really irritating me. "Of course, dear. We pride ourselves on our success rate."

That wasn't quite an answer, but time was ticking and I needed an acceptable mate soon. I hoped Love Bites would come through.

W ant to read more? Click here for Swipe for Orcs , a small town Romeo and Juliet, matchmaker story that vaguely resembles My Big Fat Greek Wedding - With Orcs!