5. Sabine
SABINE
The world fractures into pure chaos, and my body freezes in the worst possible way—spoon halfway to my mouth, oatmeal dripping back into the bowl, brain screaming at my limbs to move while they stubbornly refuse to cooperate.
Glass cascades across my carefully vacuumed carpet like deadly confetti, and the creature that just crashed through my window is already lunging toward the dining table with those horrible serrated blades catching the morning light in ways that make my stomach lurch violently.
I don't even have time to scream before Jagger moves.
He's across the room in a blur of grey skin and coiled muscle, his massive body inserting itself between me and the attacker with a speed that shouldn't be possible for someone his size.
The impact of their collision sends shockwaves through the floorboards, rattling my carefully arranged shelf of alphabetized fiction and sending Meatball skittering under the couch with a terrified warble.
Jagger's arm sweeps out, catching one of those wicked blades on his forearm guard, and the sound of metal on reinforced leather cracks through my apartment like a gunshot.
The attacker—another Orc, I realize distantly, though smaller than Jagger and covered in different tattoos that swirl across his skin like angry red serpents—snarls something in a guttural language I don't understand, but Jagger doesn't bother responding with words.
His fist connects with the attacker's jaw in a devastating uppercut that lifts the smaller Orc completely off his feet, and I watch in horrified fascination as the intruder's head snaps back at an angle that would have broken a human neck.
The blades clatter to my floor, gouging the hardwood I just had refinished last spring, and before the attacker can recover, Jagger grabs him by the throat and slams him down onto my coffee table with enough force to shatter the tempered glass surface into a thousand glittering pieces.
Five seconds. The entire fight lasts maybe five seconds, and by the end of it, the attacker is unconscious on my destroyed coffee table, bleeding onto the fragments of what used to be a perfectly acceptable piece of furniture from IKEA, while Jagger stands over him breathing hard, his runes pulsing with angry amber light that illuminates the sharp planes of his face.
My brain finally catches up with my body, and I lower my spoon back into my oatmeal bowl with trembling fingers.
"Sabine." Jagger turns to face me, his expression shifting from murderous rage to something approaching concern, and he steps over the unconscious Orc like the body is merely an inconvenient piece of furniture. "Are you hurt? Did any of the glass—"
"My window."
The words come out flat, hollow, completely disconnected from the terror still singing through my nervous system.
I'm looking past him now, staring at the gaping wound in my living room wall where my perfectly functional double-paned window used to be.
Cold air rushes in, carrying the smell of exhaust and autumn leaves and someone's burnt toast from the apartment below, and I watch in numb horror as a pigeon lands on the jagged edge of the remaining glass, cocking its head at me like it's considering whether to make itself at home.
"My window that cost me eight hundred dollars to have custom-fitted.
My window that I specifically chose because it has excellent noise-canceling properties and a UV-protective coating that prevents my furniture from fading.
My window that was supposed to last another fifteen years according to the manufacturer's warranty, which is now completely void because you—"
"The Bloodfang Syndicate has been tracking me for weeks. Targash's brother. I collected the bounty on him three months ago, and the family has been looking for revenge ever since. I didn't think they'd find me here so quickly."
"You didn't think. You didn't think that maybe, just maybe, inviting yourself to live in my apartment might put me in danger from the various criminals and murderers who apparently want you dead?
You didn't think that was information I might have found relevant when you were casually inserting yourself into my life? "
Jagger's jaw tightens, and his runes flare brighter for a moment before he visibly forces himself to calm down, the glow fading back to a subtle shimmer beneath his grey skin.
He looks down at the unconscious Orc on my destroyed coffee table, then back at me, and I can see him struggling to find words that might make this situation even remotely acceptable.
"I will fix the window."
"You will—" I break off, laughing in a way that sounds slightly unhinged even to my own ears.
"You will fix the window. Fantastic. Perfect.
Just pop down to Home Depot and pick up a custom-fitted double-pane window with UV-protective coating, shall you?
I'm sure they have those just sitting on the shelves next to the light bulbs. "
"I can fix it. Temporary repair until I can source proper replacement glass. I have skills beyond bounty hunting."
"Skills beyond—" I gesture wildly at the chaos surrounding us, at the glass covering every surface, at the bleeding criminal unconscious on my former coffee table, at the massive hole letting city air pour into my climate-controlled living space.
"This is my home. This is my sanctuary. This is the one place in the world where I'm supposed to be safe and comfortable and in control, and you have been here less than twenty-four hours and there is already blood on my carpet and a body on my furniture and a hole in my wall and I don't even know how to begin processing any of this because none of it fits into any framework I have for understanding how life is supposed to work! "
The words run out, and I stand there panting, fists clenched at my sides, waiting for him to argue or dismiss my concerns or tell me I'm overreacting.
That's what people usually do when I have these moments of complete emotional overflow—they tell me to calm down, to be reasonable, to stop making such a big deal out of everything.
Jagger doesn't do any of those things.
Instead, he crosses the room in three massive strides, stepping carefully around the worst of the glass, and reaches down to haul the unconscious attacker off my coffee table with one hand like the fully-grown Orc weighs nothing at all.
He carries the body to the corner of the room, deposits it in a heap next to my potted fern, and then pulls a set of heavy-duty restraints from somewhere on his person—I don't want to know where he was keeping those—and secures the attacker's wrists and ankles with practiced movements.
"He won't wake up for at least an hour," Jagger says, straightening to his full height. "I know where to hit for that. When he does, I'll contact the bounty office for retrieval. There's a standing reward on Bloodfang enforcers, so at least he'll pay for the window replacement."
"That's... practical."
"I am practical. I am also sorry. You are right. I should have warned you about the dangers of my profession. I was focused on the legal requirements of the bond and forgot that you would need to prepare for the realities of living with someone like me."
The apology catches me off guard, deflating some of my righteous anger before I'm ready to let it go.
I want to stay furious—the anger feels safer than the terror still lurking beneath my skin, easier to handle than the creeping realization that someone just tried to use me as leverage against a man I've known for less than a day.
"Just... fix the window," I choke out finally. "Please. Before every pigeon in the city decides my living room is their new home."
Jagger nods once, then reaches down and grabs the hem of his black t-shirt. Before I can ask what he's doing, he pulls the shirt over his head in one fluid motion, revealing an expanse of grey skin that makes my brain short-circuit in ways I am absolutely not prepared to examine.
He's massive. I knew that already, obviously—I've been acutely aware of his size since the moment he materialized next to me at the DMI counter—but seeing him without the shirt is different.
The tattoos pulse with that faint amber glow, responding to something I can't see, and they seem to shift and move in my peripheral vision even though they stay perfectly still when I look directly at them.
Scars interrupt the patterns here and there, thick white lines that tell stories of violence I don't want to imagine, and his stomach is a ridged plane of muscle that disappears into the waistband of his dark pants.
I should look away. I know I should look away. This is completely inappropriate, staring at my accidental magical husband like he's a particularly interesting museum exhibit, but my eyes seem to have disconnected from my brain's commands and are doing whatever they want.
"For the glass," Jagger explains, and he's wrapped his shirt around his hand like a makeshift glove. "So I don't cut myself while I work."
"Right. Yes. Practical."
He moves to the window and begins carefully removing the jagged shards still clinging to the frame, working with a precision and delicacy that seems impossible for someone with hands his size.
Each piece of glass is extracted carefully and deposited in a growing pile on the floor, and I watch his back muscles flex and shift beneath those luminous tattoos, completely transfixed by the play of light across his skin.
The tattoos are beautiful, I know with something approaching horror.
Intricate and ancient-looking, the lines flowing together in patterns that seem to tell stories I can't quite read, they cover almost every inch of his back in amber and gold that pulses gently with his breathing.
Some of the symbols look like they might be words in a language I don't recognize, while others are purely geometric, interlocking shapes that draw my eye deeper and deeper into their complexity.
The scars cross over the tattoos in places, white lines that cut through the amber glow, and I find myself wondering what battles left those marks, what kind of life creates a canvas like that.
"The frame is intact," Jagger says, and I jolt guiltily, tearing my gaze away from his back. "Good construction. I can secure a temporary barrier until proper glass arrives."
"Where are you going to get materials for a temporary barrier?"
He turns slightly, giving me a view of his profile, and I catch the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "I have supplies in my bags. Tools of the trade. Sometimes bounty hunting requires improvisation."
Of course it does. Of course this terrifying monster of a man carries home repair supplies along with his weapons and his multi-eyed demon pet. Nothing about my life makes sense anymore.
I watch as he retrieves a small pack from the pile of his belongings, extracting tools and materials that I don't immediately recognize.
He works quickly and efficiently, measuring the window frame with a practiced eye, cutting a sheet of some kind of reinforced polymer to size, and securing it in place with a series of quick, precise movements that speak to years of experience.
The polymer sheet isn't glass—it's slightly cloudy, filtering the morning light into something softer and more diffuse—but it seals the gap completely, cutting off the flow of cold air and blocking the curious pigeons from considering my living room as potential real estate.
Jagger runs his hands along the edges, checking the seal, making small adjustments with tools that fit oddly well in his massive fingers.
"This will hold against weather," he says finally, turning to face me. "And against most physical intrusions. The material is rated for high-impact resistance. Not as elegant as proper glass, but safer."
"Safer." I look at the temporary barrier, then back at him, trying to reconcile the violence of five minutes ago with the careful craftsmanship I just witnessed. "You're full of surprises, aren't you?"
"I prefer to be useful." He shrugs, the movement rolling through his shoulders and across his back in a way that draws my attention right back to those damned tattoos. "A bounty hunter who can't adapt doesn't survive long."
Meatball emerges from beneath the couch, apparently deciding that the crisis has passed, and waddles over to investigate the unconscious Orc in the corner. His tentacles poke experimentally at the attacker's face, and I decide I don't want to know what he's doing.
"I need to clean up this glass before someone gets hurt," I say, grabbing onto the practical task like a lifeline. "And figure out what to do with the... the body. The person. The unconscious criminal in my living room."
"I'll handle Targash. You shouldn't have to deal with—"
Three sharp knocks echo through the apartment, the sound so sudden and loud that I nearly jump out of my skin. Meatball freezes mid-tentacle-poke, and Jagger's entire body goes rigid, his runes flaring bright amber as his head swivels toward the door.
"Ms. Lin? Mr. Ironjaw? This is Inspector Delacroix with the Department of Magical Integration. We're here for your mandatory surprise cohabitation verification. Please open the door immediately."