Page 9 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
Instead, I do the only thing that feels remotely sane in that moment—I slap water at him.
His head jerks back, stunned.
And then he lunges.
We’re splashing, flailing, laughing—god, when was the last time I laughed?—and it all turns so quickly, from heat to chaos to breathless quiet. His hand catches my wrist mid-throw, and I freeze, water dripping from our hair, our chests heaving.
Our faces are too close.
I feel it, low and tight in my chest—the spark. The shift.
He lets go first.
We climb out of the creek in silence, soaked and shivering. The orchard hums behind us, whispering like it saw everything.
And maybe it did.
CHAPTER 6
GARRUK
The orchard breathes wrong today.
Not the slow, steady pulse I’ve learned to live by—the one that hums low beneath the bark, steady as heartbeats and just as ancient. No, this is something else. The rhythm’s erratic, spiking. Uneasy. The trees shift their branches without wind, leaves rustling like restless fingers, and the moss at the base of the old hollies has turned a shade too bright, the green bleeding toward gold before the season’s called for it.
The land is stirring in ways it shouldn’t.
And every time she steps near it—every time Ivy walks these rows like she’s still deciding whether to hate or mourn them—the orchard strains toward her like a dog desperate for a voice it remembers. I feel it, a pull in the pit of my gut that burns with every footprint she presses into the soil.
I’m repairing the northern fence when I feel the snap.
It’s not a sound—more like a jolt, a tug at the center of the glyphs carved into my spine, yanking me like a fish on a line. I drop the hammer and take off running, past the ridge trail, over the dried creek bed. The air turns sharp, tinged with magic. Static bites at the edges of my teeth.
I find her standing at the base of the breath-stones.
Three of them, clustered like crooked teeth from the earth, grown from magic and grief, older than the orchard and twice as stubborn. We don’t go near them when the land’s active—not without precautions. But Ivy’s just standing there, head tilted, eyes wide like she’s listening to something far away.
Then it hits.
A flare.
A surge of wild, root-fed energy coils from the breath-stones and lashes out. It’s pure orchard fire—uncontrolled, unfocused, raw. The color of molten gold and blood, twisting through the air like a whip. If it touches her?—
I don’t think. I don’t breathe. I run.
I tackle her with enough force to knock both of us backward, the flare grazing past my back and lashing into the nearby elder tree. Bark explodes outward in splinters and sap boils at the wound. I land hard, pain blooming up my spine, and I feel the glamour break.
No more illusion. No softening.
I rise in full form—my orc self carved into sharp angles and jagged lines, skin the color of iron moss, glyphs searing across my shoulders like fire caught in skin. The flare’s heat has woken something in me, something I’ve spent too long pressing down under ash and duty.
I turn—and she’s looking straight at me.
Her lips are parted, her chest heaving, curls half-wild and eyes locked onto mine like she’s trying to figure out what she’s seeing. No fear. Not like I expect. Not like I deserve.
I start to step back. I can’t—shouldn’t—let her see me like this.
She moves first.
