Chapter 17
Hanna
The awareness started as a faint tug in my chest, like someone had hooked a thread to my ribcage and given the gentlest pull. By the time I reached the gathering room for the clan meeting, it had become a constant hum—quiet, maddening and impossible to ignore. And all of it led straight to him.
Savla Everlock.
Big, brooding, carved-from-stormclouds Savla. He stood near the back wall, arms crossed and his expression unreadable as always. He looked like someone had sculpted him out of ‘do not touch’ warnings. And I was apparently the idiot whose soul had decided to reach for him anyway.
True mate.
The words pulsed through me like a heartbeat I didn’t want to claim. Couldn’t claim. Not when he still kept himself locked up tighter than a spellbox with seventeen wards. Not when every time our eyes met, he looked away like it cost him something.
So yes. Terrifying.
My grand plan? Humor. Humor fixed everything, right? Or at least it would distract most people long enough for me to hide behind a convenient potted plant.
Dear Goddess Mother, now I’m hiding behind potted plants like him.
The gathering room buzzed with chatter. All the orcs, humans and witches around Dristan and Penelope at the front. Pen cradled their newborn youngling—a pudgy little thing with green-gray skin and tiny tusk nubs. She was adorable.
They named her Lira. When Penelope had announced it at the naming ceremony, the entire clan collectively melted. Even Savla’s eyes softened for half a second. I’d caught it, catalogued it and then promptly pretended I didn’t.
Dristan raised a hand, and the room quieted. “We’ve officially purchased the land at Kragor Lake,” he announced.
Cheers shook the walls. Apparently, orcs were very enthusiastic homeowners.
Once everything had quieted down a little, Dristan continued. “Construction on the new homes begins once everything is planned. We need designs to be drafted for each home and then we’ll get everything to our estimator.”
Penelope added with a proud grin, “We’ll need volunteers to start clearing ground, laying foundations, and setting up temporary shelters.”
I leaned toward Enka and whispered, “Should I volunteer? I can make potions for splinters. Or morale. Possibly both.”
Enka snorted loudly enough to turn three heads. Savla turned, too—just briefly—like he couldn’t help checking where I was. My traitorous chest warmed and I immediately dropped my gaze to the floorboards like they were suddenly fascinating.
Dristan continued, “We’ll move in stages. It’s a lot of work. Months of it. And the first group will need someone who knows the land.”
There was a quiet shift in the room. A presence straightening, heavy weight tilting. I felt it before I saw it—a ripple of attention that pulled toward the shadowed side of the hall.
Darak.
Silent, steady, mountain-sized Darak, who rarely spoke unless absolutely necessary, stepped forward.
“I’ll lead it,” he rumbled. “I know the terrain and I want to go back... home.”
His voice had a roughness I’d never heard before—something like longing buried under granite. Even Dristan looked surprised for a second. And then he looked pleased.
“Then it’s yours,” the chief said. “We trust you.”
The room filled with approving murmurs, pats for Darak on the back, which he accepted with silent nods and not-so-subtle scowls when the pats got too enthusiastic.
Kragor Lake was going to be our new home. A fresh start for all of us. Somewhere where we could be safe.
And yet my awareness drifted—again—to Savla. Always to him.
He stood stiff, jaw tight, eyes fixed forward, as if the news was important but everything inside him was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere troubled and afraid of a bond neither of us had spoken about.
The pull in my chest tightened, an ache blooming under my breastbone. I forced a grin, nudging Enka.
“Well, if Darak’s going, we’re definitely getting a house built. Possibly an entire city block,” I told him.
A few orcs laughed, the tension in the room loosening with it. Everyone turned their attention back to Dristan’s instructions. Everyone except Savla.
He was watching me. Not openly—never openly—but from the corner of his dark eyes, he tracked me. As if making sure I was safely contained in the room. As if part of him already knew what I was trying so desperately to ignore.
The bond and its pull. The inevitability of it.
My stomach flipped with tension, struggling to tell myself that I could wait—that I just needed to be patient. But that was so difficult to do and it was getting harder and harder each day.
I plastered on the biggest smile I owned—the bright, sparkly, everything-is-fine-one—and joked loudly enough for half the room to hear, “Someone please tell me Kragor Lake has fewer things trying to eat me than this place. Every time I’ve been to the city park, something tries to nibble on me.”
Laughter erupted around me. Even Dristan snorted and Penelope tried to hide a grin behind Lira’s fuzzy blanket.
I watched with something close to awa as Savla’s lips twitched. Just the smallest, traitorous twitch.
It ruined me. Absolutely ruined me.
Because even as I laughed along with everyone else, the fear wound itself tightly around my ribs. If he didn’t want this bond—if he rejected it—if he rejected me—
I swallowed hard and hid it behind another joke, another smile, another layer of brightness.
Pretend, pretend, pretend.
Until I figured out what to do with a destiny I didn’t ask for. Until I figured out what to do with him. Or what to do if he didn’t choose me back.
The meeting ran into the late afternoon, everyone buzzing with excitement about the Kragor Lake project. I lingered near the exit of the gathering hall, clutching a cup of blackberry fizz Penelope had practically shoved into my hand.
Savla was a few feet away, speaking with Darak and Dristan, all three of them built like things meant to lift houses, not merely build them. He stood as stiff as a spear planted in the ground—brooding and unreadable—a stormcloud in warrior form.
The pull toward him hummed under my skin again, warm and maddening. Before I could pretend not to be staring, Rudgar walked up beside me, grinning like he’d swallowed a secret.
“So,” he said, “when are you and Savla planning your shared home?”
I choked on my fizz. “Wh—what? No, no. We’re not—that’s not—”
“Oh, good,” Dristan boomed behind me. “We were just discussing that.”
I spun around and promptly realized I should not have spun around. Because suddenly I was surrounded by a half-circle of orcs and witches, all of them wearing identical ‘we know things’ expressions.
Penelope bounced baby Lira on her hip. “Honestly, I think it’s adorable. Planning your house together is such a sweet way to start a life—”
“Pen,” I squeaked, “please don’t finish that sentence.”
But it was too late. She finished it silently, wiggling her eyebrows.
Savla made a low noise—a sort of rumbling throat-clearing—and looked anywhere but at me. A dark green flush crept up the side of his neck, disappearing into his dark hair.
Dear Goddess Mother, the blush got me. It just got me.
Darak crossed his arms, looking deeply entertained. “She’ll need space for potion brewing. He’ll need a rooftop workshop. They should put them together. It’s more efficient.”
“Very efficient,” Rudgar added, with a mischievous smirk. “Combine the fumes and the varnish smell. Maybe they’ll cancel each other out.”
“Or explode,” someone else called. The group erupted into laughter.
I pressed my hands to my flaming cheeks. “Can we not discuss my hypothetical house? Or my hypothetical—”
Mate.
The word burned in my throat. I swallowed it back with a nervous laugh. “—future paint fumes?”
The teasing only intensified. Dristan clapped Savla on the back with a smack that would’ve killed a human.
“We’ll put you two near the lake. There’s a great view for art and good herbs for Hanna. It’s the perfect setup.”
Savla stiffened even more, which I previously thought was physically impossible. His jaw flexed and his ears flushed darker. His eyes flicked toward me—quick, pained and longing—before he jerked them away like the air between us was a live wire.
My heart squeezed. Oh. There it was again. His fear of the bond.
He wasn’t embarrassed by the teasing—he was scared of what it meant. Scared of wanting it and of wanting me.
I forced a grin, trying to keep things light. “Well, if Savla gets a rooftop workshop, I demand a storage room just for herbs. Maybe two.”
“Three,” Zara called. “She’ll need three. Minimum.”
“Four,” Krusk called, pointing at Ribbon as he croaked from somewhere behind us. He’d apparently followed the crowd, enormous, squishy and uninvited.
Everyone roared with laughter. Even Savla huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh if you squinted at it sideways. I saw it anyway—the brief warmth of it, the hint of softness underneath all that armor.
His gaze slid back to me, slow and reluctant and my breath hitched in my chest. Because for one heartbeat, the bond flared—bright and sure—and he felt it too. I saw it in the way his chest rose sharply, like it hurt him. Like wanting me hurt.
The group kept laughing, joking, already suggesting paint colors and herb beds and where Ribbon’s inevitable mud pit should go. But Savla’s voice cut through the noise, low and tight,
“It’s only talk.”
My smile faltered just a fraction and I prayed that no one noticed.
He’s not rejecting you, I told myself, struggling to stop the hurt that was flaring inside of me.
He’s bracing. Protecting himself from something he thinks will destroy him.
He confided in you that it scares him. You’re not going to pry.
You’re going to wait for him to realize that you’ll never hurt him.
That you’ll never leave. Once he realizes that, everything will work out.
I forced a bright, bright grin. “Right. Only talk,” I laughed, swallowing the ache. “And I suppose someone needs to keep Ribbon from eating our front door anyway.”
Ribbon croaked proudly. Savla’s lips twitched again—a ghost of a smile that unraveled me completely.
Everyone else kept teasing, planning and laughing around us, but all I could feel was the electric space between us—warm and trembling with something neither of us was ready to name.
All of it was only talk. Only teasing. Only a future I wasn’t supposed to want.
And yet… the pull thrummed steadily in my chest.