KHURZOG
The club always smelled wrong. Smoke and gin, piss-slick sweat, too much perfume trying to cover rot. The band in the corner crooned slow jazz, but it couldn’t bury the stink bleeding up through the floorboards. Old beer, old blood. You never forgot the pit was right under your boots.
Light broke in shards through colored glass chandeliers, bouncing off mirrors and gold-painted columns until everything looked brighter, softer than it was. Didn’t fool me. Shadows clung to the corners where the real work happened. Deals whispered, knives hidden under coats, girls leaning too close for tips.
I kept my seat near the boss’s booth, same as always, scanning the room. Exits, weapons, faces. Who had a twitch in their hands, who had a shake in their jaw. A man stayed alive by counting what others didn’t. That was the work. That should’ve been all I paid mind to.
But my gaze caught on her. Again.
She moved through the smoke with a tray balanced in soft hands, glasses glowing faint with enchantments, little liquid lanterns. Too delicate for this den, I thought. She wore the same dress as the rest of them, short hem, cheap beads, but it didn’t fit her like it fit the others. Men didn’t whistle her down. Humans leered like it was a joke. Elves sneered — filthy little smiles like she was beneath even insult. My kind barely looked at her at all, like she was just another shadow moving drinks.
And still she smiled. Not the kind that meant anything, not the kind the other girls pasted on. A mask, that was all, but one she wore well. Like she’d learned long ago that smiling was the only way you kept men from asking questions.
She didn’t flirt. Not with my boss, not with the high rollers, not even with me. But sometimes, when she dropped a drink on the edge of our table, she gave me a quick smile. Not hungry like the others.
That unsettled me more than Clara ever did.
Clara made it obvious. She swayed her hips too hard when she walked past, laughed too loud at nothing, leaned her tray so close to my arm I could smell the sweat under her perfume. She called me “sir” like it was a private joke. A willing woman was a willing woman, and on another night, with another ache in my chest, maybe I’d have let her in.
But Clara’s angles grated at me. Sharp elbows, thin wrists, skin pulled too tight over bones. Pretty in the way elves liked their women — starved into statues. All style, no warmth.
The other one — I still didn’t know her name, even if she had worked here for a couple of months now — was different. Round where Clara was all edge. Soft where others were hard. A body that looked like it would give under your hands instead of cutting them. I found myself watching the curve of her hip under that cheap satin, the way her mouth pressed tight then relaxed when she thought no one was looking.
And there was this ache I felt the first time she smiled at me weeks ago.
It came like a storm rolling in: tusks heavy, skin prickling, tail twitching under the chair. My whole body was aware of her in a way it shouldn’t have been. Zhak’orr. The Pull. It was the same thrum I’d only ever felt near some orc women, the bond-thread that said a hearth was waiting if you were bold enough to claim it.
But she wasn’t an orc. She was human. Human women didn’t pull orcs. Never had.
Unless — witchblood. I’d heard whispers. Never met one of their kind. Never knew if their magic could fake the bond, trick orc’s instincts into stirring. Maybe that was it. Had to be.
I told myself it was just magic. Just her being a witch. Nothing more.
Didn’t matter. My eyes still stayed on her longer than they should. Her shoulders’ soft line was visible as she bent to set down drinks. Her breath hitched a little when a man brushed too close to her tray. She saved for me the quiet smile, the one that wasn’t an invitation. Just… human decency, tossed my way like a coin.
Taboo always made it sweeter. I’d known that for years. But this wasn’t just taboo. This was dangerous.
Back in the Old World, we didn’t mix. No reason to. Orcs, elves, dwarves — we were all stubborn about bloodlines. Couldn’t make children between us even if we tried, so why waste time pretending. If an orc bedded an elf or a dwarf, it was war business, a way to show dominance, not build a life.
Here in the New World, it wasn’t so clean. I’d heard about the old human ways, how they used to split themselves by color of skin. White, black, yellow, brown — they stacked each other like stones, always one on top, one below. Same stink, different words. And when the Bridge fell and dumped us all here together, the habit carried over. Now it was species. Orcs in one corner, elves in another, dwarves under their mountains, humans everywhere else.
And yet, I knew plenty of fine, polite girls who came down to the pits with gold tied around their throats, looking to taste what their fathers told them was filth. They wanted the danger, the otherness, the story to tell in whispers after. Taboo was just another word for invitation.
I pretended to sweep the room with my eyes, like I always did. Instead, I listened.
Clara leaned close to her, too close, voice sugar-slick. “So? You finally got enough for the ribbon?”
The supposed-witch looked nervous. Her voice barely carried over the jazz. “I… yes. But I don’t know if I’m ready.”
Clara gave her a sharp little elbow, smirking. “It’s your only chance, girl. Maybe down there one of the fighters’ll want to kiss you. Better than nothing.”
The words hit me harder than they should. Golden ribbons. Women volunteering to be trophies, prizes in the pit. I never understood it. Why would a girl sell her dignity just for some sweaty fighter’s kiss?
When I realized the soft girl wanted one, something twisted in me. Not anger. Something that burned low in my gut and spread.
Clara wasn’t finished. She smiled that fake-kind smile, eyes sharp as glass. “You’ll never catch a man otherwise, not with… well, you know.” Her gaze dipped to Layla’s body, lingered there.
My tusks clenched. My tail lashed under the chair. I wanted to grab Clara’s tray and smash it against the floor just to hear it shatter.
Instead, I looked away — too late.
The boss was already pushing back from the booth, shaking hands with the handler. “See you tonight in the pit,” he muttered, all business.
I cursed myself under my breath and straightened fast, shadowing him as he left. My job was to watch his back, not stare holes into some soft human waitress who didn’t even know my name.
And yet, as we moved to the door, my eyes found her one last time. She stood in the cloakroom’s doorway, hands trembling as she crumpled a golden ribbon in her hands.
The sight pinned me in place. Gold in her palms. Fire in her eyes. Fear too, but defiance under it. Like she wasn’t just walking into the pit for fun. Like she had a reason, sharp as a blade.
And I couldn’t decide if I wanted to drag her out of there myself… or follow her down and see who dared lay a claim.