Tonight, that’s our mission. But after the festival, I will return to that house. I will track the female by scent if I have to. She left on a motorcycle which will make it difficult, but forgetting her is impossible, I know this already. Getting my head wrapped around the idea that my mating instinct has been swollen by a human, is not something I may wish to admit to any of my clan, but the hardness that throbs down low speaks the truth.
* * *
The grounds area former sporting field with rebuilt crude structures and stages where musicians and other human entertainers bellow and dance to the small, gathered crowds. There are orcs here, other clan members, but mostly progressives taking part in the human festivities.
We are here for revenge and to let anyone else know that may think raiding our camp is in their interest, it is not. To me, killing is not good or bad. It is neutral, necessary, and I’ve long ago lost track of the number of humans and orcs that took their last breaths at my hands.
None of that matters right now. The throngs of drunken humans and orcs are noise and distraction. Exacting our revenge has taken a back seat to my new secret primary purpose.
Finding her. Mating her. Breeding her.
A prickle over my skin tells me she’shere. My senses are heightened, the mating rage growing, much as I try to stuff it down and hide it from my brothers. I feel as though I could scent her from across the galaxy and the aching down my spine is another sign I cannot ignore.
Of all the places, for her to be here only deepens the sense that she is mine, that we are fated. Human as she is. The undeniable lust and fever that is overtaking me leaves no doubt this female is my mate and I will claim her, screaming if necessary, as my own.
Females have never been of interest to me beyond protecting those few left that are part of our clan. We are mated creatures and without the one that ignites our mating instinct, we do not have the drive for what humans know as sexual release.
Besides that, watching the females of our race die out during our time on Iriaza, watching their mates turn to stone as they perished, that was not going to be part of my life.
I exist to protect. To lead. To secure our freedom. To fight for our race against the human enemy.
To mate would mean I have a weakness. The need to protect a mate would be a distraction and a distracted leader is a dangerous leader. It is enough to fight for our land, our safety, all while finding myself under the scrutiny of the Judicial Enforcement which presses harder and harder for our kind to bend to their human laws.
But, there is something new flickering down low even the strongest of my denial cannot extinguish.
Tigor keeps step with me as humans part around us. Oran thumps his chest, chuckling as the festival goers jump back and cower. He is younger but taller, one of the largest of our kind; more jaded, with no memory of earth and the years when we were free.
“There.” I growl, staring forward, as the scent flares my nostrils and my blood flows like hot lava into my cock.
“Where?” Tigor asks, gripping the handle of the spear strapped to his back.
Oran scans as Tigor stops, looking my way.
“Do you see them?” Oran asks.
“There!” I roar, breaking into a run as her scent turns my flesh hot and her voice rises above the crowd. I zero in, there are five of them surrounding her, humans dressed in orc leather, carrying overpriced human-sized forged weapons. She’s a lush little creatures, raven black hair, pulled into a long braid, a sweet cherub face but with the fiercest sea blue eyes.
The humans around her are known as orc appropriators. They wear their leather kilts, carry our forged weapons, shave the sides of their head wearing their hair long I leather bands but orc they will never be.
Tigor and Oran are on my sides, asking no questions as I storm forward. The back of a yellow bus stands open, the small dark-haired female surrounded by the throng of human males. Heat razors down my back as one of them grabs her arm. She spins, shoving him back while the others laugh.
We are closing in as she reaches into the back of the bus, whipping around with a xylan, an orc type ax meant for cleaving meat or decapitating enemies.
“Notouching,” she says, holding the weapon above her head for a moment before the weight of the solid steel head exhausts her and it thumps into the ground.
A human male dressed in orc leather with white hair long on top and shaved on the sides of his head, reaches forward, but he does not get a chance to sully her flesh with his touch.
I reach down, grip his ankle and swing him above my head like a screaming cat before flinging him into the brush along the tree line a hundred feet away.
Ten sets of human eyes are on me, but I only see her. Tigor and Oran are to my left, grunting and growling, shoving the humans back, not bothering to question me about why we are here or why we care.
This is our brotherhood. We are family and our bond will never be broken.
“Hey!” she yells, her blue eyes flashing with fire as she steps back. “Are you buying? Otherwise, get lost.”
Confusion stalls my fist as I draw back to knock another of the males away. But, it’s more. It’s her scent.
For the love of all things sacred, I cannot think straight with her this close. Thoughts barrel through my head. The strongest one is: I will not let her get away again. I reach down and wrap my fingers around her tiny wrist, careful not to crush her delicate bones as Oran and Tigor chase off the rest of the throng.