The Blacksmith's Tribute

Rowan Ashford never imagined her father’s debts would cost her everything. Selected as tribute to the Orc clans beyond the wall, she expects brutality. Slavery. Death.

What she gets is Theron.

The Ironpeak Clan’s master blacksmith is massive, scarred, and silent as the grave. He communicates through the precise strike of hammer on metal, through tools crafted for her comfort, through watchful protection from rougher clan members. Where other Orcs are loud and aggressive, Theron is quiet intensity — a man whose body radiates furnace heat and whose desire burns just as fierce beneath iron control.

When he finally claims her in his forge, it’s an experience that blurs pain and pleasure, heat and need, as he uses his own burning touch to prepare her for a joining that should be impossible. What begins as resigned acceptance transforms into desperate craving as Rowan discovers the terrifying truth: she doesn’t just tolerate the silent blacksmith who shapes iron with his bare hands.

She wants him. All of him. The heat, the size, the overwhelming possession.

But wanting the Orc who owns you isn’t the same as choosing him. And Theron won’t settle for anything less than her willing surrender.

Can a woman traded as payment become a partner forged in fire? Or will shame and fear shatter what the blacksmith’s hands are trying to build?