Page 32 of Protective Pucking Orc

Silence.

Rosa was asleep, her mouth slightly open, her dark lashes fanned against her cheeks.

Sofia’s eyes were still on me. “That’s beautiful,” she whispered.

I looked away, my throat tight.

Outside, the snow kept falling.

I reached for the book on the side table—The Count of Monte Cristo, half-read—and opened it to a random page.

The words blurred.

I didn’t care.

I just needed something to focus on that wasn’t the way Sofia’s scent wrapped around me, warm and sweet and mine.

I turned the page.

And pretended I didn’t hear the way her breathing slowed, the way she, too, drifted into sleep.

The fire crackled. The snow fell.

Mine.

Chapter Seven

Sofia

I was surprised by how much more human I felt by the evening of that first day. The pain meds and whatever tea Dakvaar had made me were doing their job, and that made me feel more in control. I actually took a shower—thank God, because I was beginning to smell, I don’t know how he stood it—but he hovered nearby the whole time.

The fact that he was trying to look like he wasn’t hovering out in the hallway in case I suddenly collapsed was half-infuriating, half-adorable.

This morning I’d told him he was a friend, and he was; he’d saved my ass and treated my daughter as if she was a miracle. But deep down, I could acknowledge the truth: I wouldn’t mind him being more than a friend.

Dakvaar the Wall was my protector, and the longer I stayed with him, the more tempting it was to allow him to protect us.

The snow had stopped by the morning of the second day, and I was feeling much better. I ate most of the hearty breakfast he put in front of me, glad I could mostly chew again, although my face still felt like an overripe peach. I had more energy, too, and when Rosa demanded to go outside and play in the snow, I did my best to join in.

Although I confess I spent most of that hour sitting on the porch beside the covered hot tub, watching my daughter laugh uproariously as Dakvaar pretended to chase her around the large yard. I inhaled as deeply as my bruised ribs would allow, and reflected that this home, this yard, this town would be an idyllic place to grow up in.

And that made me sad again, to realize I would have to take Rosa and run soon.

Just focus on getting better.

The morning of the third day, Dakvaar emerged from his room dressed in the clothing I saw him in each morning when he came to the diner, rather than the gray sweatpants and Henleys he’d been wearing the last few days around the house.

He marched to the couch where I was reading, dropped to one knee, and gathered my hands in his.

“I am going to practice, dkaar,” he announced solemnly. “You don’t owe me anything, much less a promise, but I’ll beg if I have to.”

I blinked, surprised by the seriousness in his green eyes. “I owe you too much.” I squeezed his hands. “What do you need?”

“Please be here when I come home? I won’t be able to concentrate, being so far from you while you’re in danger, so I’m going to leave right after the scrimmage. Please be patient and wait for me?”

I was still weak, still hurting. I told myself that was why it was easy enough to grin my new lop-sided smile and promise him, “We’ll be here, Dakvaar.”

When he sighed in relief, I realized how easily I could read him now. His expression rarely showed what he was thinking, but his eyes did. They weren’t as green today, but he was still worried.