The Orc Who Carved Her Name

I’m not looking for true love on another planet. I’m just trying to get my sister through the scariest week of her life.

I’m the woman who shows up. I pack the lunches, drive to the airport at dawn, and hold the hand that’s shaking. I keep my own life light because the people you love leave, and it hurts less if nothing ever had roots.

So I fly out to stand next to my sister while she meets the alien she’s been matched with. I’m the plus-one with the guest badge, there to carry the spare bag and keep her steady.

Then an orc steps into the elevator and goes dead still, looking at me like I'd reached over and switched him off. He's a seven-foot blacksmith who'd stopped believing the program would ever work for him — and I'm not even in it.

But his biology takes one breath of me and decides. He can’t get a word past the tusks, so he leaves me carvings instead.

I came here for my sister. I didn’t expect a giant to carve my face from memory before I’d even told him my name.

For readers who love: short and spicy fated mates, orc romance, scent bonds that bypass all higher brain function, the support sister who gets claimed instead of the applicant, a silent mountain of a man who courts with his hands, monster size difference (everywhere), he-falls-first-and-harder, claiming bites, and a guarded heroine.