Page 37 of Built Orc Tough
Not far. Just a few inches. Just enough.
His eyes are wide. Not angry. Not cold. Just... overwhelmed. Like I’ve handed him something fragile and he doesn’t know where to put it.
“Ivy,” he breathes, voice rough.
I step back, blinking hard. “Sorry. That was... I shouldn’t?—”
“No,” he says quickly. Too quickly. “It’s not that. I just?—”
He looks down, then up again, as if trying to anchor himself.
“I wasn’t ready. I didn’t expect?—”
“It’s fine,” I cut in, too bright, too fast. “Forget it. Momentary lapse in judgment. Probably blood loss. I’m gonna go reorganize the moss shelf.”
I turn, heart slamming, already retreating into sarcasm and self-preservation.
“Ivy—”
But I’m already halfway to the back room.
I don’t slam the door. Barely.
And on the other side, I press my fingers to my lips, still tingling, and whisper, “Damn it.”
CHAPTER 16
GORRAN
Idon’t sleep much that night. Not for lack of trying, and certainly not because of the physical labor—I’ve thrown myself into the most grueling tasks I can find since sundown, stacking dried root bundles and organizing salves until my shoulders ache—but when my head hits the pillow, my mind refuses to quiet. The room is too still, too dim, the scent of lavender from the sachet Ivy tucked near my cot now feeling more like an accusation than a comfort.
Every time I close my eyes, I feel her lips again. That soft, uncertain kiss—barely more than a question she didn’t dare ask aloud—lingers like a phantom touch. It burns, not like fire, but like warmth I didn’t know I was allowed to feel. And the way I pulled back—gods, that plays on a loop, sharper than any blade I’ve trained with, more unforgiving than the arenas I bled in.
I tell myself it was necessary. That it was the honorable thing to do. We’ve built something here, a fragile kind of peace between us, the kind that relies on unspoken rules and shared silences. A kiss like that? It shifts everything. It demands answers I’m not ready to give, promises I don’t trust myself to keep.
And still, I find myself reaching for that moment.
I wake before dawn, haunted and restless, and step into the shop while the village still slumbers. The early light trickles through the stained glass window Ivy insisted we install—a spray of golden-green that bathes the shelves in soft radiance. The plants seem to breathe with it, their leaves unfurling in slow reverence to the coming sun.
I work in silence. Grind the nettle. Clean the mortar. Rearrange the tincture bottles by viscosity just to have something to do with my hands. I even fix the bouquet shelf she kicked on her way to the moss room, right down to the angle of the display sign. But I don’t meet her eyes when she comes in later, sleep-mussed and quiet. I don’t joke when she mutters about the loose floorboard by the tea shelf. I don’t stay long when she asks if I need help.
I retreat, not in body, but in spirit.
And she notices. Of course she notices.
She’s all edges now, where once she danced around me with barbed wit and soft glances. Her sarcasm is back with a vengeance, sharper than necessary, but behind it I see the hesitation, the searching. She’s waiting for me to say something. To do something.
And I don’t.
On the third day, Terra finds me.
She doesn’t announce herself—never does. Just breezes into the back room like a summer storm, trailing cedarwood and command. Her boots echo off the stone tiles, her braid coiled tight like a whip.
“You’re being an idiot,” she says, and sets down a crate of mint with a thunk that makes the jars rattle.
“I’m reorganizing the feverfew,” I reply, without looking up, pretending that aligning dried stems by height is a noble and worthy task.
“You’re emotionally constipated and it’s ruining the vibe.”
