I lifted my chin. “I need your help.”
There. That was a simple, non-combative opening, aye?
I hadn’t expected the intensity of his response. Vartok turned back to his work, scooped up the blade he’d been pounding away at, and thrust it into the water barrel. The steam almost obscured his movements as he hung his hammer and turned back to me, wiping his hands.
Receiving Vartok’s full attention was almost as hard as receiving his disdain.
I didn’t like the way he looked at me, so…strongly. Was there another word for it? I shifted uncomfortably, dropping my gaze to his chest, then realized my mistake when his muscles flexed ever so slightly, causing my pulse to jump in appreciation.
I forced my eyes to return to his face so he wouldn’t think me afraid, and resisted the urge to pull my blue cloak tighter around me. It was made from a beautiful soft wool, not armor. It wouldn’t protect me from Vartok’s stares, or the way they made me feel so different from anyone else at whom he looked.
If I hadn’t been looking at him, I would have missed theway Vartok’s brow—the one with the silver ring through it—twitched. Was he mocking me already?
And could he see the way my skin flushed in response—anger, or perhaps shame?
Well, I didn’t care if he resented my presence in his smithy. Aye, I realized with his new—hopefully temporary—role as the chief, he rarely had time to work with his metals. But I was here for his help with those metals, and I was a clansmember too, by damnation!
I might not be Mated to an orc male like every other human female in the village, but Nan had welcomed me with open arms, and I had aplacehere. The Bloodfire clan needed me, and that knowledge set my chin rising again as I thrust out my hand.
The one with the knife in it.
Vartok’s brow did more than twitch this time as he glanced down at it, then back to me, one side of his lips twisting cruelly.
“Ye need my help stabbing me?”
I scoffed. “If I wanted to stab you, Vartok, I would have done it when your back was turned, before you knew I was here.”
The hard lines of his jaw softened, as did his eyes—just slightly—and his smirk turned mocking.
“Och, I kenned ye were here, wee human. I was waiting for ye to get up the courage to stab me.”
He thought I lacked courage? When I’d stayed with my cruel uncle until his death, then packed up my belongings—and my sister’s—and left behind everything I knew to come through the veil to live with her in the orcs’ world?
‘Twas my turn to mock him as I waggled the broken knife.
“’Tis not courage I lack, smith, but a forge.” I wasn’t going to admit that I also lacked his talent with metal, or his tools. I wasn’t going to admitaughtto him.
Especially not the way the sight of his lips curling knowingly like that makes your insides warm.
Aye, especially not that.
His gaze had dropped to the knife again.
“Ye need a forge?” he asked as he reached for my blade. “Ye want—fook,” he muttered as the wooden handle gave up its fight and fell away from the metal. “Human-made trash.”
Before I could tell him that the knife was decades old, he’d curled his fingers around it, hiding my heirloom from me.
“I’ll find ye a new one. This is for yer herb chopping and whatnot?”
I couldn’t hear any dismissal in his tone as he spoke of my profession, but itmustbe there. So I sniffed.
“I do not want a new knife, I wantthisone. Can you fix it for me, or no?”
“I can fix aught.” The statement didn’t ring with arrogance as I’d expected, but had been mere statement. Without looking down at my mother’s knife, he said, “I’ll give it a new handle and reinforce the blade.”
That was what I wanted, aye? So why was my heart still pounding as if we were in a confrontation? Why did I want to snap back something mean?
He is doing what you asked, you idiot.
