The remainder.
The remainder of his dowry gold, that precious, irreplaceable inheritance that had been set aside since his birth, meant to secure his future and honor his clan's standing. The very same gold that represented generations of his family's accumulated wealth, their status, their legacy in the eyes of his people. The gold he had dipped into just weeks ago to pay six months of rent in advance and save me from immediate eviction. And now, impossibly, he had taken what little remained of that sacred family fortune and liquidated every last coin to purchase this entire building, this crumbling old structure that housed our apartment, that held my studio space, that kept me safe.
The gold that was meant for his arranged bride. The gold that represented his entire family legacy, his clan obligations, his future. The gold he already spent a massive chunk of just to pay our rent six months ago.
And he just... used the rest of it to buy a building. The entire, crumbling, beautiful building that housed our apartment, my studio, my sanctuary. To buy my building. My building. The one where I paint until three in the morning, where my art lives and breathes, where I have finally begun to feel like I belong somewhere. To protect my home. To protect me. To ensure that no landlord could ever threaten me with eviction again, that no financial catastrophe could ever tear away the one place on earth where I felt even remotely safe.
"Faugh," I whisper, and I can hear my voice cracking, feel the hot sting of tears spilling over my lashes. "That was yours. Thatwas your money, your family's money, and you just, you just spent it all on this?"
"On you," he corrects, stepping closer, his huge body towering over me in the dim lamplight. "I spent it on protecting what is mine. You’re mine, Chantel. This apartment, this space where you create your art, where you feel safe, it is part of you. Therefore, it is mine to protect."
I press my hand to my mouth, trying to hold back the sob building , but it escapes anyway, broken and raw.
"I can't..." I gasp, shaking my head frantically. "I can't accept this. Faugh, this is too much. This is insane. You don't just buy buildings for people you've been sleeping with for like two weeks!"
His expression darkens noticeably, the sharp angles of his face becoming even more severe in the lamplight. His massive jaw tightens with barely contained intensity, the muscles beneath his slate-green skin clenching visibly. When he speaks, his voice drops to something lower, more primal, a deep, resonant rumble that vibrates through the very air between us.
"You are not 'people I have been sleeping with,'" he says, each word deliberate and heavy with absolute conviction. "You are not some casual arrangement or temporary distraction to be categorized with others. You are my mate, Chantel. The distinction is not semantic. It is fundamental."
"I'm a broke artist who can barely afford groceries!" I burst out, the words exploding from me in a rush of panic and shame and overwhelming inadequacy. "I can't even pay my half of the rent most months! I survive on instant ramen and overdue credit card payments! And you just spent what, hundreds of thousands of dollars? Millions? On a building? For me?"
I'm spiraling now, the anxiety clawing its way up my throat, making my hands shake and my vision blur with tears. Because this is the thing I've been trying not to think about, the ugly,uncomfortable truth that's been lurking in the back of my mind ever since Faugh moved in with his custom suits and his leather briefcase and his literal chest of gold.
We're not equals, not by any conceivable measure, and the disparity between us yawns so wide that I can’t comprehend how we've ended up in the same room, let alone the same bed. The gap between his wealth, his power, his sheer competence at navigating a world I barely understand and my own desperate scrambling just to keep my head above water feels insurmountable, a chasm so vast that I'm not sure anything could bridge it.
We're not even close. Not close to being on the same footing, not close to being compatible in any practical sense. He's operating on an entirely different plane of existence, one where buildings are casual purchases and tailored suits are the baseline, and I'm down here fumbling with torn canvases and overdue bills and the constant, gnawing fear that I'm going to wake up one day and realize this was all some elaborate dream that ended the moment reality decided to reassert itself.
He's this powerful, wealthy, terrifyingly competent Orc who can buy entire buildings on a whim, and I'm a struggling artist who had to beg strangers on the internet for a roommate to avoid eviction.
"I can't be your partner in this," I choke out, wrapping my arms around myself. "I can't... I can't give you anything close to what you just gave me. I don't have money, or property, or anything valuable. I'm just... I'm just me, Faugh. And that's not enough."
The silence that follows is absolutely deafening, the kind of quiet that has weight and presence, pressing down against my eardrums until I can hear the frantic rhythm of my own heartbeat thundering . It stretches between us like something tangible, a barrier made of all the things neither of us knows howto say, filled with the ghost of everything I just spilled out in that raw, ugly confession. My words hang in the air like a stain that won't wash out, and I can feel Faugh's gaze burning into me, steady, unwavering, utterly terrifying in its intensity.
Faugh stares at me with an intensity that steals the oxygen from the room, his amber eyes burning with an emotion I can't quite name, something fierce and possessive and almost wounded, a raw vulnerability flickering beneath the surface of his controlled exterior. His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, the muscles working beneath his slate-green skin as he processes my words, and for a moment, he looks less like the immovable mountain of a man I've come to know and more like something fractured, something I've managed to crack despite his seemingly impenetrable composure. His gaze pins me in place, and I can feel the conflict radiating off him in waves, the battle between whatever he's feeling and the careful restraint he's always maintained around me, the control that now seems to be slipping through his fingers like water.
"You think you are not enough," he says slowly.
"I know I'm not!" I snap back, my voice breaking. "Look at us, Faugh! Look at what you just did! You bought a building! I’m almost too poor to afford paint supplies! How is that supposed to work? How am I supposed to, to be with someone who can just throw money around like that when I'm drowning in debt and failure?"
"You are not a failure," he growls, and the sheer intensity of it makes me flinch. "You are brilliant. You are talented. You create beauty from nothing. Your art has worth far beyond what small-minded critics and exploitative galleries recognize."
"But it doesn't pay the bills!" I shout, and I'm full-on crying now, tears streaming down my face, my chest heaving with broken sobs. "It doesn't buy buildings or gold or, or anything that matters in the real world! I'm a financial disaster, Faugh!I'm a mess! And you're perfect, and organized, and you have your life together, and I can't be the reason you throw everything away!"
I can see it on his face, the moment my words hit him, the way his expression shifts from fierce determination to something rawer, something almost devastated.
"Chantel," he starts, his deep voice cracking with something I've never heard before with a note of genuine desperation. He reaches for me, his massive hand extending across the space between us, and I can see the barely restrained urgency in the movement, the way his fingers flex as though reaching for something slipping away.
I stumble backward, nearly tripping over my own feet, shaking my head so frantically that the stray curls escape my claw clip entirely. The rational part of my brain is screaming that I need to stop, that running is only going to make this worse, but the panic is too loud, the overwhelming sense of drowning too consuming to ignore.
"I need to go," I gasp out, my voice small and broken. "I need to think. I can't do this right now. I can't be here, I can't look at you, I can't..." The words tumble out in a breathless rush, each one punctuated by a shaky inhale. "I just need space. I need air. I need to figure out how to feel about any of this before I say something else that shatters what's left of us."
"Do not leave," he says, and it's not a command, it's a plea, rough and desperate in a way I've never heard from him before. "Please. We can discuss this. I will explain?—"
But I'm already grabbing my jacket from the hook by the door, shoving my arms through the sleeves with shaking hands. I can't breathe in here. The walls are closing in, his sacrifice pressing down crushing me.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, not looking at him because I know if I meet his eyes I'll break completely. "I just... I need space. I need to clear my head."
I yank open the door and run.
