Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Riona
My phone rings as I’m pulling into Vraag’s parking lot. Kendra.
I silence it, then feel immediately guilty and send a text, I’m fine. Better than fine. I’ll call you this weekend and tell you everything.
She sends a text approximately four seconds later. I KNEW IT. You’re with him now, amiright?
I’m still smiling as I grab the takeout bags from the passenger seat.
Three days ago, I drove home from that coffee shop the long way, not because I wanted to but because I wasn’t ready to be inside yet, where it was quiet and ordinary and the footage would have to settle into something real.
Someone had watched my classroom. Stood at my window in the dark and tested the lock.
Not random. Not a mistake. Somebody thought about it first—thought about my room, my window, my routines—and then drove there.
And came back. And was still planning to come again.
I’d meant what I said in the coffee shop about not panicking.
And I hadn’t. But there’s a difference between not panicking and not being affected.
Driving home, I’d felt the difference clearly—in the extra check of my mirrors, in the way I’d scanned the parking lot before I got out of my car, in the fact that I’d turned the deadbolt and stood there for a moment just listening to my apartment be quiet.
Not fear exactly. Just a new awareness of all the ordinary darkness I’d never thought twice about before.
What I kept coming back to wasn’t the footage.
It was that Vraag had seen it, understood what it meant, and told me the truth about it anyway.
He hadn’t minimized it to spare me. Hadn’t made a decision for me about what I could handle.
Just sat across a coffee shop table and handed me something difficult because I deserved to have it.
My father used to make decisions for my mother the same way he breathed—automatically, without consultation, because it simply didn’t occur to him that she might want to be asked.
He called it taking care of her. She called it the same thing, right up until she didn’t have anything left that was hers to take care of.
I was seventeen the year I understood that those two things—being cared for and being consulted—were not the same thing.
That you could have one without the other.
That having only the first one was its own kind of slow erasure.
Vraag asked; he consulted. That mattered more than I expected it to.
Tonight feels like the other side of that.
Like the exhale after a held breath. Six weeks since we met, and somewhere between the security footage and the coffee shop and everything that happened after, the pretense of this being anything casual has quietly dissolved.
Tonight, there’s no work excuse and no reason to leave early.
The door swings open, and my heart does that ridiculous leap again. Vraag fills the doorframe completely, dressed in simple dark pants and an emerald Henley that stretches across his broad chest. I like this casual side of him.
“You came,” he says, as if he’d doubted I would.
“I brought Thai,” I respond, holding up the bags. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got… well, basically everything on the menu.”
A hint of a smile touches his lips. “Appropriate calculation for orc metabolism.”
He eases the bags out of my grip and steps back, gesturing me inside.
The apartment is surprisingly spacious, with high ceilings that accommodate his height, and minimalist furnishings that somehow still convey warmth.
What draws my eye immediately are the walls—covered with intricate sketches and paintings of rugged landscapes unlike any I’ve seen on Earth.
Steep cliffs and twisting valleys, forests with impossible trees, skies streaked with multiple moons.
“Did you draw and paint all of these?” I ask as he sets the food on the kitchen counter. I examine a particularly detailed mountain range he’s painted about the small kitchen table.
“Yes.” He sounds almost embarrassed. “Started as therapy, but… took on a life of its own.”
He shrugs it off, but this male has talent. I approach one showing a massive structure built into a mountainside, the same scene I remember from his sketchbook, but transformed. At pocket size, in pencil, it had been precise and moving. At this scale, with color, it’s something else entirely.
The stone catches light. The proportions become genuinely monumental.
“I didn’t understand how big it was,” I say. “From the sketch.”
“Scale is difficult to convey in a small format,” he says, standing close behind me. “I know what it should feel like. The page was never large enough to hold it.”
“It certainly works at this size.”
He makes a dismissive sound. “Functional documentation, nothing more.”
“I disagree.” I turn to face him, suddenly aware of how close we’re standing in the privacy of his home. “They’re beautiful. You’ve captured something essential about your world. It has a dreamy quality that calls to me.”
His gaze sharpens, heat flickering there for a split second, longing held tightly in check. For a moment, I think he might reach for me. Instead, he steps back, gesturing toward the dining room table.
“We should eat while it’s hot.”
The moment passes, though the undercurrent remains as we unpack containers of pad Thai, Panang curry, and various rice dishes.
I watch with fascination as Vraag arranges everything with methodical precision, grouping similar foods together before retrieving plates that look custom-made for orc portions, significantly larger than standard human dinnerware.
“Water? Or I have beer,” he offers.
“Beer sounds perfect.”
He retrieves two bottles from the fridge, opening mine before handing it over. The simple courtesy feels oddly intimate.
We settle at his dining table, which I notice is positioned to provide a clear view of both the front door and balcony entrance.
“District security completed its preliminary review this afternoon,” Vraag says as we serve ourselves. “I’ve notified Principal Winters.”
I pause, fork halfway to my mouth. “What did she say?”
“She’s meeting with district security tomorrow. The police report will be updated.” His jaw tightens slightly. “She acknowledged the pattern wasn’t consistent with random vandalism.”
“That’s progress, at least.” I take a bite of the curry, which is so delicious it distracts me for a moment. “Did she mention… anything else?”
“She reiterated professional boundary expectations.” His gaze meets mine across the table. “Observed that my concern seemed ‘particularly focused’ on your classroom.”
“I bet she did.” I can’t help a slight eye roll. “Did you tell her that’s literally your job, being concerned about security threats, especially in my classroom?”
He looks almost pleased with himself. “I explained that protection priorities are assigned based on vulnerability assessments and previous targeting patterns.”
“Very professional,” I approve, smiling despite the seriousness of the situation.
“I am capable of diplomacy,” he says with that almost-smile I’ve come to adore. “When necessary.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the tension of the day gradually easing.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says suddenly, setting down his fork. “About your questions regarding orc traditions.”
“Yes?” I encourage when he hesitates.
“Perhaps meeting others beyond Grulk would provide better understanding.”
My heart leaps at the suggestion. “You want me to meet more of your people?”
“Specifically elders who maintain cultural knowledge.” He watches my reaction closely. “There is a gathering place—not for large ceremonies like First Frost, but a clan gathering house we call HearthHouse where traditional practices continue.”
“I would love that,” I reply immediately. “When?”
He seems surprised by my enthusiasm, then pleased by it. “This weekend? Sunday afternoon? Elder Korgath maintains a traditional cooking circle. Others gather for crafts and language preservation.”
“It sounds perfect.” I meet his eyes. “Thank you for the offer.”
For a moment neither of us speaks.
Then he says, quietly, “You’ve shown unusual interest in understanding. Not just observing.”
“I want to understand your world,” I tell him. “Not just how you’ve learned to adjust to ours. What you’ve carried with you. What matters to you.”
Somewhere during the conversation, his hand had settled over mine on the tabletop. He looks at me the way he rarely does—not the careful, assessing attention he gives the world, but with an open expression.
“Then ask me,” he says. “Whatever you want to know.”
So I do. I ask about the clan halls, about what StoneWatch children were taught before they were warriors, about whether he misses the scent of his homeworld or just the familiarity of it. He answers carefully at first, then less carefully. The food goes lukewarm and neither of us notices.
By the time we clear the table, something has shifted—the earlier tension transformed into something more comfortable, though no less charged.
As I help load his dishwasher, my elbow bumps his arm. The jolt sends a quick, sharp awareness through me—one I was already fighting not to notice.
He goes still beside me. “Riona.” Just my name. Low, and not quite steady.
I lift my gaze to his. “Vraag.”
For a breathless moment, neither of us moves. Then, with deliberate slowness, he reaches out to brush a strand of hair from my face, his hand gentle against my cheek.
“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he admits.
“Me too,” I whisper, leaning into his touch.
He bends down as I rise on tiptoe, meeting halfway in a kiss that starts gentle but quickly deepens. His other arm circles my waist, drawing me against his solid warmth. I slide my hands up his chest to his shoulders, marveling at the breadth of him, the contained power in his frame.