Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
I have the worst boss. And no, this is not a sexy billionaire-boss, enemies-to-lovers story. This is a story about how my horrible boss made me so upset I ran through the door of what I thought was the ladies room…and found myself in the magical town of Hidden Hollow.
Hidden Hollow is a town surrounded by a magic bubble that only lets in monsters (or Creatures as they call themselves) and humans with magical talent. But I don’t have any talents that I know of—so how did I end up here? And even worse, how did I manage to run straight into an eight-foot-tall Orc, bang my head on his armor, and knock myself out?
When I wake up, the Orc is cradling me in his arms. There’s an instant connection between us, but I can’t stay in Hidden Hollow with him—I have to go back home to my awful boss and my soul-crushing job. But what happens when my cruel supervisor turns out to be even more evil than I ever imagined? Will my magic manifest in time to save me? And what about the Orc…is he really my Heartmate?
Maybe so. Because in the magical town of Hidden Hollow…Anything is possible.
Things you can expect from this Spicy, Cozy, Small Town, Magical A quirky magic town filled with witches and monsters like Orcs, Centaurs, Minotaurs, Krakens, Fairies, Pixies, and Demons.A curvy witch with undiscovered powers coming into her own.A sweet and spicy romance with extreme size difference (He’s 8 ft. tall!)No 3rd Act Misunderstanding and Breakup—just spicy sweetness with a protective vibe you’ll melt for.An Orc with (two!) endowments who’s extremely eager to protect and please his human woman.A Bonus Daddy section at the end if you’re into that kind of thing. (If you’re not, just ignore it.)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
HARMONY
“What’s wrong, baby? What happened to make you so upset?” Tark frowned down at me, his bushy black eyebrows pulled low with concern.
“What makes you think I’m upset?” I looked up at him briefly—it was a long way to look. Tark is a full-blooded Orc, which means he’s over eight feet tall. I’m human, and tall for a woman, but the top of my head still barely reaches his elbow.
“You’re here early, for one thing. And I can always tell by the way you hold your mouth—and how tight your voice sounds,” Tark rumbled.
He has this deep, gravely voice that can sound absolutely terrifying when he feels like someone is threatening my safety. But it can also be incredibly soothing when he’s being sweet—which he always is with me.
My boyfriend is one big, green flag, and I’m not just saying that because his skin is literally olive green, (even though it is.) He also has tusks curving up from the teeth in his lower jaw and golden eyes that glow in the dark. He looks absolutely terrifying to be honest—I was so scared I fainted the first time I saw him. But the way he’s so sweet and kind to me, especially when I’m feeling down, is what drew me to him and it’s what I consider to be his defining characteristic.
He was giving me that worried look again and part of me just wanted to melt into his arms. But there was another part—a hard part—that wanted to make it on my own. A part of me that was still afraid to take the comfort I knew he would offer me if I just let my guard down.
“I’m fine,” I said, brushing past him and walking into his living room. I always felt like a kid in a fairytale when I spent time in his house—which is located off of Main Street in the magical town of Hidden Hollow.
All the furniture is too big for me—the chairs are so high I have to clamber onto them and so deep that if I sit all the way back my legs dangle like a little girl’s. The coffee table comes up to my pelvis and I sink into the carpet up to my ankles—it’s extra deep. Also, the fireplace is big enough to roast an entire cow in—not that Tark uses it for that. He’s a vegetarian, if you can believe it.
“Babygirl, please—talk to me,” he rumbled, coming up behind me and putting one massive hand gently on my shoulder. “Come on, what happened?”
I turned to face him.
“Nothing—I told you.”
He frowned and his face was suddenly scary, reminding me that he only showed his sweet side to me.
“Was it that asshole of a human boss again?” he growled and this time his voice had taken on a menacing tone. “Was he bothering you?”
“No,” I said, which was a total lie. It absolutely was my boss, Mr. Irving Price, the Director of Operations at Bentley Pharmaceuticals and my direct supervisor. He’d belittled me in front of several other people in my department that day and called me “stupid, and fat” which was really hard to swallow.
Naturally, on paper, that kind of thing wasn’t allowed at Bentley—at least not according to the HR Department. But in reality, Mr. Price was the CEO’s brother and he could pretty much get away with doing or saying whatever he damn well pleased.
In fact, it was thanks to Mr. Price that I’d found my way to Hidden Hollow in the first place. As I stared up at my Orc boyfriend, I couldn’t help remembering the very first time I’d ever seen him…
It was just another Tuesday at Bentley Pharmaceuticals…which meant that it was just another day of abuse for me. I was supposed to be an administrative assistant but my position was closer to that of office slave. Though maybe it might be more accurate to say I was my boss’s whipping boy. Or girl—you get the idea.
“Miss Ward, come here!”
Just hearing my voice called in that nasty tone made my stomach drop and my heart start thudding unhappily in my chest. I knew I had done something wrong again—or if not, Mr. Price, my boss, would make up something that I had done wrong…some rule I’d never heard of that I had broken or some task he’d never actually assigned me had gone undone and now I was in trouble because of it.
“Yes, Mr. Price?” I asked, hurrying into his office.
My boss was sitting in his high-backed chair, rigid as a poker, as he stared down at a pile of papers on his desk. He was a thin man—my grandma would have called him “skinny as a string bean” and he was going bald up top. Because of this, he wore his hair in a classic comb-over with four skinny strands of dark brown hair scraped over the shiny dome of his skull. He had on reading glasses, which were perched on the very tip of his long, bony nose and his watery blue eyes were glaring angrily at me.