The second I stepped backward—toward the coven, toward the clan, towardhome—something in Corwin’s face snapped.
The charming smile vanished and the polished veneer cracked like thin ice. His jaw clenched so tightly I heard the grind of his teeth.
“Oh, you havegotto be kidding me,” he spat, taking a step forward. “You think you can talk to yourfamilylike that? You think you can walk away from everything we gave you?”
“My life isn’t yours to dictate,” I said, careful, steady. “Andyouhaven’t givenmeanything.”
But Corwin’s eyes darted to Savla—broad, silent and immovable beside me—and something vicious sparked there.
“Thisthing?” he barked, waving at Savla. “This is who you’re choosing?” His voice rose, hysterical around the edges. “A brooding, mute orc-pet? A male who can’t even open his mouth to defend you?”
Savla didn’t flinch, but the air around him tightened—dense, electric and filled with something stormy.
Corwin kept going, voice climbing. “You think he cares? Look at him—he won’t even—”
“Enough.”Savla’s voice cut the air.
It was low, deep and cold enough to freeze the blood in the veins of everyone who was in the clearing.Corwin actually stumbled back a step. He hadn’t expected Savla to speak. He especially hadn’t expectedthat.Savla didn’t move closer, but Goddess Mother—it felt like he did.
“You don’t speak to her like that,” he said, voice quiet and lethal. “Not here. Notanywhere. I don’teverwant you speaking to her again.”
My heart thudded once.Hard.
Corwin’s mouth twisted. “Or what? You’ll grunt at me again?”
Savla’s jaw flexed—the only sign he was holding himself back. “I won’t repeat myself,” he said.
The silence after his words was a warning. A line drawn in the sand that hedaredCorwin to step over.
Corwin scoffed, lifting his hands. “Please. You’re all delusional. Hanna, get in the car.Now. Before you embarrass yourself further—”
He reached for me and hereallyshouldn’t have.A wet, violentthwackhit his arm and Corwin screamed.Ribbon—who had been quietly simmering at Savla’s heels—launched himself like a missile straight at Corwin’s arm, that he’d already wrapped with his tongue.
“Ribbon—” I yelped, but I was far too late.
The toad tackled him with the weight of a mid-sized boulder. Corwin hit the dirt in a flailing mess of limbs and outrage. Ribbon puffed himself up like a furious marshmallow and croaked with all his might—a deep, guttural sound that shookthe leaves.
Corwin scrambled backward, shrieking. “Why is it—Get it off!—Why is it so furry—?!”
“Stop moving,” Savla said calmly, arms crossed. “He’ll get bored.”
Corwin—who was clearly too stupid to listen to any good advice that was given—didnotstop moving. Ribbon pursued with single-minded vengeance, hopping after him, croaking like a war horn. Corwin practically climbed over my father trying to get to the car.
My mother shrieked and my father pulled at Corwin’s collar. They piled into the car in a panic. Ribbon slammed himself at the passenger door with the force of a small meteor.The car peeled out and sped down the road, Ribbon chasing it like a furious swamp deity demanding tribute.
Then, I couldn’t stop myself. I laughed so hard that I choked and I folded into myself.Because as soon as the taillights disappeared—everything I’d been holding inside cracked open. My knees buckled and I sank to the ground, my breath shaking and my vision blurring.
All the old wounds ripped open at once—their voices, their scorn, their disappointment and their love that was never love at all. I didn’t sob and I didn’t wail. I just… broke quietly, the way kids from homes like mine learned to.
No hands touched me, but warmth settled at my side all the same. Savla lowered himself to the ground next to me—knees drawn up, forearms on them, staring ahead.
Close enough to embrace me but far enough not to overwhelm me. He was my quiet shield. The steady presence that I needed so I wouldn’t fall apart at the seams.
Savla was protective without being overly possessive. Present even though he’d never claimed me and he spoke only when my breath evened out enough to hear again.
“They don’t get to define you,” he said softly.
My throat tightened. “They tried.”
