Page 31 of Vexing the Grumpy Orc

“Yes.” No hesitation now. No doubt. Just certainty burning in his dark eyes. “I think I’ve been fighting itsince you pulled a knife on me. Since I caught your scent and touched you and lost my damn mind.”

“Truth, not desire,” I whispered, echoing my own words from that night.

But that wasn’t right. It had been both. Truth and desire tangled together until I couldn’t separate them anymore. The heat in his eyes when he looked at me. The way my body responded to his touch. The comfort I found in his arms.

“I always thought fated mates were something that happened to other people,” I admitted, my fingers still tracing the sharp line of his jaw. “Stories from the old covens, rare magic that would never touch my life. But I can’t deny what I feel when I’m with you.”

“And what do you feel?” His voice roughened, hands tightening on my hips.

The question hung between us, demanding honesty I wasn’t sure I was ready to give. I’d come to Silvermist Falls broken, focused solely on saving Digby. I hadn’t planned on staying. Hadn’t planned on him.

“Like I’ve found something I didn’t know I was looking for.” The truth slipped out before I could stop it. “Like maybe I don’t have to face everything alone anymore.”

Galan surged to his feet, towering over me. His hands cupped my face with surprising gentleness, thumbs brushing my cheekbones. “You don’t.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” I confessed. “I’m not good at needing people.”

“Neither am I.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “But I’m tired of denying what I want. What I need.”

He leaned down, his breath warm against my lips. “And I need you, Hannah.”

The raw honesty in his voice broke something loose inside me. I’d spent so long being strong, standing alone. First as a nurse fighting for respect in a system that undervalued me. Then as a witch desperately trying to save her familiar. Always pushing forward, never letting myself lean on anyone else.

But here was this mountain of an orc, offering to shoulder my burdens alongside his own. He’d chosen me as his safe harbor. His sanctuary. And I realized I wanted to be that for him—wanted him to be that for me, too. A place where we could count on the other to step shoulder-to-shoulder in telling the rest of the world to go to hell.

“I need you too,” I whispered against his mouth.

His kiss was gentle at first, almost reverent. Then hunger took over, and I found myself pressed against the porch railing, his massive body caging mine. I tangled my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, needing to feel the solid weight of him against me. I tasted desperation on his tongue, need and relief and something deeper—something that felt dangerously like love.

“Hannah,” he groaned against my neck. “Let me in. Let me?—”

“Well, isn’t this touching.”

The harsh voice shattered our moment. Galan whirled, pushing me behind him with one fluid movement. Digby growled, fur bristling as he positioned himself at my side.

An older orc stood at the edge of my property. Blood matted his gray hair, and his clothes were torn. But it was the hatred in his eyes that made my skin crawl—pure, undiluted loathing directed straight at me.

“Father.” Galan’s voice turned to ice. “You should be in a cell.”

Coth. The name clicked into place. The exiled elder who’d conspired against his chief. The traditionalist who hated humans and witches. The father Galan had just publicly disowned.

Even in the dim porch light, I could see the family resemblance. The same strong jaw, the same broad shoulders. But where Galan’s face held warmth, this orc’s was a weathered map of bitterness.

“Did you think those cells could hold me?” Coth sneered. “I built those tunnels before you were born, boy.”

He took a step forward, and Galan tensed. “How touching that the witch called her thrall home. Does she pull your strings with a spell, or just with her cunt?”

“Leave,” Galan growled, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Now.”

“Not without finishing what I started.” Coth’s handmoved to his belt, drawing a wicked blade that gleamed in the moonlight. “First her, then Osen’s witch. I’ll purge this infection from our clan, even if I have to cut it out myself.”

“You’ll have to go through me first.” Galan’s stance widened, hands curling into fists.

Coth’s laugh was ugly. “I brought you into this world, boy. I can take you out just as easily.”

I reached for my magic, drawing it up from the earth beneath my feet. But before I could shape it into a protective ward, Coth lunged.

Everything happened too fast. The flash of steel. Galan’s movement to intercept. The sickening sound of blade meeting flesh. Galan’s grunt of pain as he drove his fist into his father’s face, sending the older orc staggering backward.

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