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Yorrel is at the end of the bar next to me, with a beer he hasn’t touched. I’ve been drinking mine. His ears go forward.

“I sing.”

“Well, get up there.”

He looks at me, and I shrug. When he gets up there, he looks at the microphone in Ed’s hand but doesn’t take it. He perches one thigh on the stool meant for a whole ass and starts singing.

It’s clearly an orc song. None of the humans know the words or what it’s saying because the translator doesn’t seem to work for music. Nobody cares. His voice is a deep baritone that I feel through the floor. The glasses on the shelves behind Ed start to hum, and Ed stares at them in fright.

Every woman in the room has stopped moving, and they’re riveted by the orc on the stage. Marla’s hand is on her breastbone, and behind me, a logger’s wife says, “Oh,” under her breath.

I’m not doing any better. His voice is doing crazy things to me, mostly between my legs. My clit aches, and my glasses are in my hand again. I don’t remember taking them off this time either. Maybe I should be concerned about this. Every woman in this bar is having a moment with my orc’s voice, and I mind. I want to stand up on the bar and announce to the world that he’s mine. Jealousy isn’t a good look on me.

He sings for about two minutes, and when he stops, it’s so quiet you can hear the beer cooler running.

Then Ed pounds the bar, and the loggers get loud. Jassor has a fist in the air. Birdie, at the corner table with the coffee she never drinks, says, “Well.” Zoe looks at her camera, then at the stage, and says, “Goddamn it,” like she means it.

“I’m putting him on the list every Thursday now,” Ed tells me, like I get a say.

Yorrel comes down off the stage, and people shake his hand. Marla takes both his hands at once and flutters her eyelashes at him. I want to snatch him from her, but I hold myself back. The loggers buy him a drink he won’t drink, and then a second one. For twenty minutes, everybody in the place wants to tell him how amazing his voice is.

Then they go home.

It’s a weeknight, and people have work. As they leave, the wives hold their husbands’ arms a little more tightly than when they came in. Ed starts stacking chairs. Jassor goes back to the dartboard. By ten, Yorrel is standing by the door with his jacket on, alone, with his ears down, and nobody is looking at him anymore.

I go and collect my orc. “Come on. I’m walking you home for a change.”

“It is a short walk. I know the way.”

I slide my arm through his. “Yes.”

His smile tells me it was the right answer.

Cedar Street is dark, and it’s cold enough to see my breath. He walks more slowly than he needs to so I can keep up. We’re past the church before I say anything.

“When you perform on Gorrath Venn, is there a ritual with it?”

“Yes. My people say Mora’kel.”

“What does it mean?”

“‘Keep this.’ It is what the hall says to the keeper before a telling. When the telling is done, the keeper says Kel’mora. ‘It is kept.’ Then they go home.”

“Mora-KELL,” I say.

His ears come forward. “No.”

“MORA-kel.”

“Closer. The stop is in the middle. Mora’kel.”

I try it twice more, and he laughs. It’s short, and so deep it rattles my ribs, and I’d say it wrong a dozen more times just to hear it again.

“I’ll practice.”

“Yes, practice.” He’s looking at me now, and his ears are down. “I would like to hear it from your lips.”

“You’ll hear it.”