He pivots, looming over me with that predator’s grace. “You want words? Fine.” His knuckles graze my cheek. “You’re reckless. Hopeful. Infuriating.”
I arch into the touch. “Flatterer.”
His thumb presses my lower lip. “Mine.”
The word hangs between us—bone-bare and terrifying. My pulse trips. “That a promise or a threat?”
He exhales through his nose, jaw working. Leans in until his forehead rests against mine. “Problem?”
My laugh comes out breathy. “Depends. You gonna start growling at tourists who flirt with me?”
“Already do.”
“True.” My fingers twist in his hair, tugging. “What changed?”
His hesitation lingers like winter’s first frost. Then, barely audible— “You didn’t run.”
Outside, a branch taps the window. Three beats. Four.
I press a kiss to the hinge of his jaw. “Still here.”
His arms lock around me, crushing me against his chest. The mattress groans. “Stupid.”
“Thick-skulled.”
“Bullheaded.”
I nip his collarbone. “Pot, meet kettle.”
A rumbling chuckle shakes through him. His palm slides up my spine, possessive and gentle. No resolution. No promises. Just warmth and the sharp spice of his sweat.
We drink in the silence, legs together under shared heat. The orchard waits, storm-wrecked and patient.
CHAPTER 16
THORNAK
The forest is quiet in that soft, brooding way it gets just before dusk. Long shadows slide over the moss, the underbrush sighs under the weight of the day, and somewhere a distant owl starts calling—too early, eager for nightfall. I sit on a broad old stump near my cabin, wood shavings scattered all around me, knife working slow and sure over a piece of cherrywood that still smells faintly of sun-warmed fruit.
In my hand, a tiny wolf is taking shape—head tilted back in a silent howl, paws braced on an imaginary ridge. It’s delicate work, finer than any battle-axe swing or timber cut. The sort of thing I never let other orcs see me do when I was younger, for fear they’d mistake care for weakness.
But lately, it feels like something I have to do. Like if I can’t carve these small, gentle things for the kids left behind by skirmishes out east—little ones who barely remember the fathers lost on border patrols or mothers taken by fevers—then the weight of it all might crush me clean through.
I keep them in a battered old sack—tiny bears, foxes, stout little owls. Once a week I haul them into town under cover of dusk, leave them stacked in a basket outside the healer’s hallwhere the orphan steward makes her rounds. No one ever sees me. That’s how I prefer it.
At least, Ithoughtno one did.
So it startles the absolute breath out of me when Maddie corners me behind the bakery the next evening, flour on her nose, eyes so wide and soft they damn near knock the wind from my chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she blurts, voice catching on something raw.
I stiffen, frown digging deep. “Tell you what?”
She holds up one of my carvings—tiny enough to balance on her palm. It’s a squat badger, all hunched and fierce, tail curled tight around its feet. “These. Thornak, the steward told me they’ve been finding these every week. The children sleep with them clutched in their hands. One boy named his owl after his mother. You… you did that for them.”
I grit my teeth, jaw working. “Wasn’t meant for anyone to know.”
“But why hide it?” she whispers, stepping in so close I can see a faint smudge of sugar dusting her temple. “Why pretend you’re nothing but growls and scowls when you’re?—”
