More silence. I grip the counter, feeling the cheap laminate creak slightly under the pressure. "I was considering preparing breakfast. Do you have a preference?"
"Not hungry," she mutters flatly. She takes another deliberate sip of the coffee, keeping the mug pressed to her lipslike a shield, using it as a physical barrier between us in the cramped kitchen space.
"Chantel, you genuinely need to eat something," I press forward, my voice remaining measured and calm despite the frustration beginning to simmer beneath my carefully maintained composure. "Skipping meals will only worsen your stress response, and given the circumstances, your body requires proper fuel to function optimally." I pause, watching her face harden further at my words, knowing even as I speak that I am likely making this worse rather than better. "At minimum, you should consume something with adequate protein and?—"
"I said I'm not hungry, Faugh," she snaps, finally looking directly at me, and the sharpness in her eyes makes me take a step back despite myself. "Can you just... not? Not right now?"
I raise both hands slowly in a gesture of surrender, swallowing back the urge to argue with her about proper nutrition and the importance of maintaining regular meals during stressful situations. "As you wish," I say instead, my voice coming out stiffer than I intended.
She sets her coffee down with slightly more force than necessary, the mug clicking loudly against the counter. "You know what? I can't do this. I can't stand here and pretend everything is normal and have you hovering over me like some kind of..." She waves her hand vaguely, searching for the word. "Like some kind of overprotective babysitter who thinks I can't take care of myself."
"I do not think that," I counter immediately, my own frustration beginning to rise to meet hers, a low rumble building deep that I struggle to contain. "I have never thought that. You are entirely capable of managing your own life, Chantel. What I think, what I have always thought, is that you do not have to manage it alone. There is a difference, and you know it."
I pause, watching the way her shoulders tense at my words, seeing the conflict flicker across her expressive hazel eyes. The kitchen suddenly feels smaller, the air between us charged with something I cannot quite name. My hands clench at my sides, and I force them to relax, deliberately straightening my posture to give her more space, even though every instinct in me wants to close the distance.
"You are capable," I repeat, quieter now, more controlled. "But capability does not mean you must do everything yourself. That is not weakness. That is simply... being human."
"Then why are you always trying to feed me and protect me and make decisions about who I should or should not date?" The words come out rapid-fire, her voice pitching higher with each accusation. "Why are you constantly reorganizing my studio and folding my laundry and acting like I'm some kind of fragile disaster you need to rescue?"
"Because I care about your wellbeing," I say, the words coming out rougher than I intended, edged with the growl I am trying desperately to suppress. "Because you work yourself to exhaustion and forget to eat and surround yourself with people who do not deserve your time, and someone needs to?—"
"To what? To manage me? To fix me?" She laughs, but it is a bitter sound, entirely devoid of genuine humor. "I didn't ask for that, Faugh. I asked for a roommate. Someone to split rent. Not a... a..."
"Not a what?" I challenge. The rational part of my mind screams at me to maintain distance, to keep the careful boundaries I have constructed around this entire situation, but my body has other ideas. My shoulders tense, and I can feel the familiar heat rising , that primal possessiveness I have been fighting to suppress for weeks now clawing its way to the surface. "Say it, Chantel. Finish the thought. Do not soften it or wrap it in sarcasm or hide behind that defensive humor you use whenthings get too real. I want to hear exactly what you believe I am, unfiltered and complete."
She backs up instinctively, bumping into the counter, and I see the flash of something that might be fear cross her face before it hardens into defiance. "Not a temporary protector who's going to get bored of his little human experiment and go back to his clan with a good story about his rebellious phase."
"That is not what this is," I repeat, forcing each word out through gritted teeth. "That is not what you are to me."
"Then what am I?" she demands, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Because from where I'm standing, I'm the convenient distraction. The messy little human who happened to need a roommate at the exact moment you needed somewhere to hide from your responsibilities."
"You are not a distraction," I growl, and this time I do not even try to keep the primal edge out of my voice. "You are not convenient. You are infuriating and chaotic and you leave paint everywhere and your organizational system is genuinely offensive, and I—" I cut myself off, breathing hard, realizing I am dangerously close to saying things I am not certain she is ready to hear, things I am not certain I am ready to admit.
"You what?" she pushes, her voice cracking with everything unsaid between us, the accusation hanging raw and exposed in the charged air of our small kitchen. "You tolerate me? Is that what this is? You feel sorry for me? You pity the poor, messy human who couldn't get her life together?" Her hands clench into fists at her sides, knuckles white with tension. "What is it, Faugh? Tell me exactly what I am to you, because I need to hear you say it, and I need to know if I've been deluding myself this entire time."
"I love you," I bite out, the words tearing free before I can stop them, raw and unpolished and entirely too honest. "I love you, and I have loved you since you stood in this kitchen coveredin paint and yelled at me for folding your vintage sweaters wrong, and I have been terrified every single day that you would realize you could do better than a disgraced Orc who cannot even return to his own people."
The silence that follows is deafening. Chantel stares at me, her mouth slightly open, her face cycling through shock and confusion and something that might be hope, and I realize with dawning horror that I have just completely derailed whatever argument we were having with a confession I had not planned to make for at least several more months, possibly years, possibly never.
Before either of us can process what just happened, before I can begin to figure out how to backtrack or clarify or apologize for the emotional ambush, she turns sharply and walks toward the front door, grabbing her rain jacket from the hook with shaking hands.
"I need to go," she says, her voice tight and unsteady, threading with barely restrained desperation. "I need air. I need to think. I need—" She breaks off, pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead as if she can physically push away the confusion roiling inside her. "I just need to get out of this apartment before I say something I can't take back, before I convince myself that what you just said was real and not just some cruel trick my own mind is playing on me."
She struggles with the zipper of her jacket, watch her blink rapidly against tears, and every instinct I possess screams at me to stop her, to keep her here where it is safe and dry and I can protect her from the storm still raging outside. "Chantel, the weather is dangerous. The streets are flooded, visibility is poor?—"
"I don't care what the weather is doing out there," she cuts me off with a sharp edge to her voice, finally wrestling the stubborn zipper up to her chin and reaching desperately for thedoor handle with trembling fingers. "I just need to not be here right now, in this apartment, standing in front of you while my entire world is spinning sideways. I need—" She pauses, her hand closing around the cold metal of the handle, her breathing ragged and uneven. "I need space. I need to walk. I need to feel the rain on my face and remember how to think straight, because everything you just said is making it impossible for me to see anything clearly anymore."
I move before I consciously decide to, crossing the space between us in two long strides and planting my palm flat against the door above her head, holding it closed. "You cannot leave in this weather," I say firmly. "It is unsafe."
She whirls to face me, and the fury in her eyes makes me want to step back, though I hold my ground. "Move, Faugh," she demands, her voice shaking with barely suppressed emotion. "You aren't my husband!"
11
CHANTEL
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, sharp and defensive and designed to cut. "You aren't my husband!"
The effect is immediate and absolutely devastating in its totality. My heart, which had been hammering against my ribs just moments before, seems to stop entirely, not in a gentle, romantic way, but in that jarring, breathless way that makes you wonder if it's going to start beating again. Every nerve ending in my body suddenly feels hyperaware, sensitized to the faint warmth radiating from him, the scent of something wild and distinctlyhimthat fills the narrow space between our bodies, the barely perceptible movement of his chest rising and falling with controlled breaths that suggest he's fighting to maintain some kind of composure.
