I had not threatened her. I had never, would never threaten her. Everything I had said, everything I had done, had been an act of protection, of devotion so fierce it bordered on obsession. But she could not see that. She could only see the danger, the barely contained violence that lived just beneath my carefully maintained exterior.
The door remains closed, a flimsy barrier of cheap wood that I could reduce to splinters with a single strike, but I hold myself rigidly in check. I curl my bruised knuckles into fists at my sides, forcing air into my lungs in slow, controlled intervals, and I knock again with plenty of force to make the frame groan audibly in protest.
"Chantel," I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I intend, the formality I usually maintain fraying at the edges. "I know you are in there. Open this door."
There is movement on the other side, muffled voices I can barely distinguish through the wood, and then I hear her voice, soft and uncertain, speaking to someone else inside the apartment.
I lean closer to the door, pressing one palm flat against the surface, and I drop my voice lower, speaking directly to her even though I cannot see her face. "I will not leave, Chantel. You can hide in there for as long as you wish, but I will remain right here until you speak to me."
"Faugh," she says, and her voice is so close now that she must be standing just on the other side of the door. "I can't—I don't know what to say. You bought an entire building for me. That's not normal roommate behavior, that's?—"
"I am not your roommate," I interrupt, my tone sharpening with frustration. "I have not been merely your roommate sincethe moment I set foot in your chaotic apartment and decided I would never leave. You know this. You have always known this."
There is a long pause, and I can hear her breathing on the other side, quick and shallow, the rhythm of someone fighting tears.
"You spent your dowry," she whispers. "You spent everything you had. What if I'm not worth that? What if I mess this up? What if?—"
"Open the door, Chantel," I say again, and this time I allow the command to bleed fully into my voice, the low rumble that I have been suppressing rising from deep within me. "Open it now, or I will remove it from the wall and carry you home over my shoulder in front of your friend and every neighbor in this building."
I hear a sharp intake of breath, and then the lock clicks.
The door swings open, and there she is, small and paint-streaked and absolutely perfect, her eyes red-rimmed and swimming with unshed tears. She looks up at me, her expression a complicated tangle of fear and longing and something that might be hope, and I feel the tight band of panic around my chest finally begin to loosen.
Behind her, a human woman with meticulously styled short purple hair stands frozen in the hallway looking shocked. Her mouth hangs open in a perfect O of shock, her entire body seeming to shrink slightly as though my sheer mass is somehow pressing the air out of the space around her. She clutches her phone a little tighter to her chest, her knuckles turning white with the force of her grip.
I do not spare her a single glance. My attention is entirely, irrevocably fixed on Chantel, on the small, trembling woman in front of me whose eyes still glistening with tears, whose paint-stained fingers are gripping the doorframe as though it mightsteady her. Everything else, her friend, the hallway, the building beyond, simply ceases to exist.
"You ran from me," I say quietly, my gaze locked on Chantel's tear-streaked face. "You looked at what I had given you and decided it was too much. That I was too much. That you were somehow unworthy of protection and care and a home that cannot be taken from you."
"Faugh, I?—"
"You are wrong," I interrupt, stepping forward into the doorway, forcing her to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact as I tower over her. "You are completely, utterly wrong, and I will not allow you to run from me again based on faulty reasoning and human insecurity."
Her friend makes a small, strangled sound behind her, but Chantel does not look away from me.
"I did not spend my dowry on you because I thought you needed rescuing. I spent it because the thought of you being forced from your home, from the space where you create your art, from the place where we have built something together, was unacceptable. I spent it because I wanted to. Because protecting you, providing for you, ensuring that you never have to fear eviction notices or predatory landlords or anything else that threatens your peace, brings me more satisfaction than any amount of gold ever could."
She stares up at me, her lips parted, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
"You think you have nothing to offer me," I say, and I reach out slowly, deliberately, cupping her small face in one massive hand. My thumb brushes across her cheekbone, wiping away the trail of moisture there. "You think that because you do not have wealth or stability or a pristine living space, you are somehow less valuable as a partner. But you are the reason I left my clan, Chantel. You are the reason I chose this city, this life, this chaoticexistence that makes absolutely no sense by Orcish standards. You are the reason I wake up every morning and feel something other than emptiness."
Her breath hitches audibly, and she leans into my touch, her eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment before opening again.
"I do not want an equal financial partnership," I tell her bluntly. "I do not want you to match my resources or contribute rent or worry about whether you are pulling your weight in some arbitrary human calculation of fairness. I want you to paint. I want you to fill our home with your beautiful chaos. I want to cook for you and clean for you and stand behind you at galleries and intimidate anyone who dares to insult your work. That is what I want, Chantel. That is all I have ever wanted since the moment I stepped through your door and decided you were mine."
"Faugh," she breathes out, her voice cracking on my name.
"I am formally requesting permission to court you," I say, the words coming out with absolute, unwavering certainty. "Forever. Not as a roommate, not as a temporary arrangement, but as your mate. I want to build a life with you. I want to argue with you about your organizational systems and carry you to bed when you fall asleep covered in paint and protect you from every single person in this city who does not see how extraordinary you are. I want everything, Chantel. And I will not accept anything less."
For a long moment, she simply stares up at me, her expression shifting through a dozen different emotions too quickly for me to catalog. Then, with a choked sound that is half-laugh and half-sob, she launches herself forward, throwing her small body against mine with more force that I have to brace myself to catch her.
Her arms wrap around my neck, and she buries her face against my chest, her entire frame shaking with the force of her tears.
"Yes," she gasps out against my soaked shirt. "Yes, you ridiculous, overprotective, perfect Orc. Yes to all of it. Yes forever. Just—just don't ever let me run away like that again, okay? Don't let me be that stupid."
Relief crashes through me with such intensity that my knees nearly buckle. I wrap both arms around her, lifting her completely off the ground, and I hold her against me as though she might disappear if I loosen my grip even slightly.
"Never," I murmur into her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of lavender and turpentine and home. "I will never let you go, Chantel. You belong to me now. Permanently."
