"Mine," he murmurs one more time. The word carries a weight of possession that should feel suffocating but instead feels like coming home. "My mate."
"Yours," I agree readily, my fingers tracing slow, idle patterns across the broad expanse of his back, feeling the subtle shift of muscle beneath his slate-green skin still slick with sweat. The gesture is tender, almost reverent, a counterpoint to the intensity of what we've just shared. "Your mate."
We drift off like that, tangled together in his immaculate sheets that are now thoroughly rumpled, the storm outside finally quieting to a gentle patter of rain against the windows.
I waketo sunlight streaming through the bedroom window and the unfamiliar weight of a massive Orc arm draped possessively across my waist. For a blissful moment, I just lie there, soaking in the warmth of Faugh's body curved protectively around mine, the steady rise and fall of his breathing against my back, the feeling of being utterly, completely claimed.
Then my phone rings.
I groan, reaching blindly for the nightstand where I vaguely remember Faugh placing it last night before he systematically destroyed my ability to think about anything except the feeling of him inside me. The screen shows my landlord's number, and my stomach drops.
"Hello?" I answer groggily, trying not to disturb Faugh, who makes a low, disgruntled sound and tightens his arm around me.
"Ms. Evans." My landlord's clipped, businesslike tone cuts through the post-orgasmic haze like a bucket of ice water. "I'm calling to inform you that the building has been sold to a development company. All current tenants have thirty days to vacate the premises."
The words don't fully register at first. "Wait, what? Thirty days? But my lease?—"
"Your lease has a clause allowing for termination in the event of a building sale. You'll receive your security deposit and prorated rent within fifteen business days. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but the sale is final."
The line goes dead.
I stare at my phone, my brain struggling to process this new catastrophe while Faugh's hand begins tracing lazy circles on myhip, his voice still rough with sleep as he murmurs something in Orcish against my shoulder.
Thirty days. The number echoes in my head, stark and unforgiving, even as Faugh's massive frame settles more firmly against mine, his arm a possessive band across my waist. Thirty days to pack up my life, to gather the scattered remnants of my art supplies that seem to have colonized every corner of this apartment like some kind of colorful, acrylic-scented plague. Thirty days to find somewhere new that won't immediately evict me the moment the property changes hands again.
We have thirty days, just thirty days, to find a new place to live. Somewhere that will accept both of us: a chronically disorganized human artist with paint perpetually under her fingernails, and a seven-foot-tall Orc with exacting standards about thread count and the proper way to fold fitted sheets. The sheer impossibility of it settles over me like a heavy blanket, and I feel Faugh's chest rise and fall against my back as he waits for me to process this particular disaster.
And I just agreed to be permanently, possessively claimed by an Orc who owns exactly six months' worth of gold dowry and a collection of perfectly tailored shirts.
"This is fine," I say out loud to the sunlit room, my voice climbing at least an octave with each word. "This is totally fine. Everything is absolutely, completely fine."
Faugh's entire body stiffens in an instant, his protective instincts firing like a tripwire. His head lifts from where he'd been resting it against my collarbone, and I can practically feel the shift as his Orc senses kick into overdrive, scanning for threats that don't exist, at least not the kind he can physically intimidate into submission.
"What is wrong?" he asks, his deep voice dropping even lower than usual, taking on that rumbling, dangerous edge thatmakes my stomach flip in ways that have nothing to do with the apocalyptic housing situation we're currently facing.
I turn in his arms to face him, needing to see the full weight of his focus settle on me. My eyes take in the evidence of what we've just done written all over his slate-green skin: his thick, meticulously braided hair is thoroughly mussed, falling half-loose around his shoulders in a way that makes him look deliciously feral and undone. There's a satisfied gleam burning in his dark eyes, that predatory satisfaction of a male who's just claimed what's his. And most damningly of all, there are the faint red crescent marks scattered across his enormous shoulders—marks left by my nails as he drove into me with the kind of controlled intensity that had me seeing stars.
I take a breath and decide to tell him about the call I got before all of this started.
"We need to find a new apartment," I say flatly. "In thirty days. Because apparently my landlord sold the building to developers while we were having primal Orc claiming sex."
He blinks once. Twice. Then his mouth curves into a slow, devastating smile that transforms his entire face, softening the sharp angles of his tusks and the natural severity of his features into something that makes my heart do an absolutely ridiculous cartwheel .
"Good. I have been researching apartments with considerably better storage solutions for your art supplies. This one has inadequate closet space, and your supplies are currently occupying thirty-seven percent of the living room floor. It is inefficient."
I look at him, my brain struggling to process the fact that we're literally about to lose our home and he's somehow turned this into a real estate logistics problem. "That's your response? We're about to be homeless and you're concerned about closet space? Faugh, the entire building is being sold to developers. Wehave thirty days to find a place we can actually afford, which, spoiler alert, is basically impossible in this market, and you're worried about?—"
"We will not be homeless," he interrupts, and there's something so absolute in the way he says it, so immovable and certain, that my rambling trails off mid-sentence. He pulls me closer against his broad chest, his massive arms settling around me with that perfect balance of strength and gentleness that I've come to expect from him. He presses a lingering kiss to my forehead, the gesture tender and deliberate and charged with absolute confidence. "We will find a new home. Together. As mates should."
And despite everything, despite the impossible timeline and the looming upheaval and the fact that I just agreed to permanently bind myself to a seven-foot-tall Orc who color-codes his sock drawer, I believe him.
12
FAUGH
Itake the phone from Chantel's trembling hand with deliberate care, my fingers engulfing the small device entirely as I bring it to my ear. The landlord is still speaking, his nasal voice droning on about market conditions and development opportunities and legal timeframes, all of it delivered with the smug satisfaction of a man who believes he holds all the power in this situation.
He is incorrect.
