Page 10 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
Her hand lifts, slow and careful, and presses flat against my shoulder. Her skin is warm, soft. My breath catches like a snapped bowstring.
“You’re beautiful when you’re mad,” she says, and it’s not a joke. Not teasing. Just quiet, awestruck truth.
I go still.
She’s seen me.
Not just the careful silence, not just the gruff lines I keep drawn around my life. She’s seen the full thing—the wild glyphs and the tusks and the broken fire inside my bones. And she hasn’t stepped back.
“Ivy—” I try, but my voice fails.
She keeps her hand on me. “Don’t run.”
“I didn’t want you to see this,” I rasp. “Not like this.”
“Why?” Her thumb brushes the edge of a scar near my collar. “Because I’d finally see the real you?”
“Because I didn’t want to ruin the memory.”
“What memory?”
“Of you looking at me without flinching.”
“I’m not flinching,” she says.
And she’s not. Not even a little.
The trees quiet again, like they’re listening.
I glance toward the breath-stones, still pulsing faintly, like they’re trying to decide whether to strike again. “Those stones haven’t flared like that since your mother died. They’re supposed to be dormant.”
“Well, maybe someone forgot to put up a sign.”
I huff out a breath that might’ve been a laugh in another life. “You shouldn’t have gone near them.”
“You shouldn’t have kept them a secret.”
She’s right. Of course she’s right. I should’ve told her days ago—should’ve walked her through every bloodline knot her father left behind. But every time I try, my throat closes, and I remember her sixteen-year-old face, full of trust I didn’t think I deserved.
“I was going to tell you,” I say.
“Just like you were going to tell me you glow when you’re pissed off?”
“I don’t glow. I ignite.”
“Semantics.”
Her fingers trail down the edge of a glyph that curves along my forearm. “What are these?”
“Old language. From before the orchard settled. They mark guardianship.”
“Of the land?”
“And now, maybe... of you.”
That freezes her. She steps back half a pace, brows drawing together. “That’s not a small thing to say.”
“I know.”
