Nellie
Voss

I'm not looking for true love on another planet. I'm just looking for a way out before there's nothing left of me to give.

I'm the woman who handles everything—my mother's dementia, my brother's money issues, my sister's emotional breakdowns—and I'm bone-dry empty.

So I walk into an alien matchmaking facility expecting to get on a list for "someday." I'm not expecting a seven-foot, scarred, forest-green orc rounding the corner and dropping to his knees like he just took a blow he wasn't braced for.

Ruhn isn't even in the match pool, but his biology doesn't care. One scent of me and he's shaking. I haven't been touched in years and my body just volunteered as tribute. Neither of us planned this.

I came here to take something for myself for once. I didn't expect him to kneel before I even got his name.

For readers who love: short and spicy fated mates, orc romance, scent bonds that bypass all higher brain function, "who takes care of the caretaker?", snarky first-person heroines, monster size difference (everywhere), he-falls-first-and-harder, claiming bites, a warrior who will ruin you and then make you midnight porridge, and the kind of heat that soaks through the pages.

I'm not looking for love. I'm looking for a statistically optimal outcome.

I'm the woman who rates everything—like the abstract art that's either a sunset or a medical diagram—because if I can assign a number, I can keep it at arm's length.

So I walk into an alien matchmaking facility with a fourteen-question interview and a color-coded evaluation matrix. I'm not expecting a seven-foot, wild-haired, bright-green hurricane of an orc to wedge through the doorframe mid-sentence and then go completely still the moment he catches my scent.

Brokk talks like a man who swallowed a motivational calendar and chased it with an action movie. He can't answer a single question without a tangent or a boar story, and he plates food like a natural disaster. He's the loudest thing in every room he enters.

He also saw what I came here for before I figured it out myself.

I came here because the math made sense. I stayed because the math stopped mattering—and the man underneath the chaos looked at me like he could see the woman behind the spreadsheet.

For readers who love: short and spicy fated mates, orc romance, scent bonds that fog your glasses, "she rates everything except him," snarky forensic accountants who think they can evaluate their way through a mating bond, golden retriever energy hiding a real one underneath, chaos meets control, he-falls-first-and-harder, claiming bites, and the kind of heat that breaks the rating scale.

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.