No.
It couldn't be.
I set down my coffee before I dropped it, my hands trembling as I gripped the deck railing. He kept coming, each step bringing him into sharper focus, more real, more possible. The rational part of my brain—the part that had gotten me through organic chemistry and gross anatomy—insisted I was hallucinating. Sleep deprivation. Stress. A psychological break brought on by impossible choices.
But then he was climbing my deck steps, and there was nothing imaginary about the way he filled the space, the way the air itself seemed to thicken with his presence.
Ruka.
My sign hadn't come in an email. It had walked up my driveway like Mr. Darcy emerging from the mist, and I couldn't breathe.
"Ruka?" The word scraped out of my throat. My mind spun with the details of how he stood before me, then I remembered.
My address. I'd pressed it into his hand before I left, my handwriting shaky on that scrap of paper.In case of emergency. In case you need me.
Medical instinct overrode the chaos in my chest. "Is it Ardin? Did the wound get infected? Is he—"
"No." His voice was gravel and smoke. "Everyone is well."
Relief crashed through me, followed immediately by confusion so profound it made me dizzy. "Then why—"
He moved closer, and I catalogued everything my racing heart had missed. The exhaustion carved into his features, the dark circles under his eyes, the barely restrained tension in every line of his body. His hands flexed at his sides like he was physically holding himself back from reaching for me.
"You told me," he said, each word weighted with something that made my knees weak, "that if I needed you, I should come."
The world tilted. "Ruka..."
"I need you, Jordan." His voice dropped, intimate and raw despite the open air between us. "Ineed you."
"I don't understand," I whispered, gravity pulling me closer. "Are you sick? Ruka, you look like you haven't slept in days."
Something cracked across his expression—a flash flood of pain and longing and frustration that made my chest ache. "I haven't."
My hand found his arm before conscious thought could intervene, fingers pressing against warm skin as professional concern wrestled with something far more dangerous. "How long? Tell me what's wrong."
"You." The word landed between us like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through everything I thought I understood. "You are what's wrong."
Time stuttered. My fingers remained frozen against his forearm, feeling his pulse beat wild beneath my touch. "I don't—"
"Every time I close my eyes, I see you." His gaze pinned me in place, fierce and unrelenting. "Every single time, Jordan. Every night my sleep is haunted by dreams of you."
My breath caught in my throat.
"Every breeze carries your scent," he continued, his voice dropping into something that felt like a secret being dragged into daylight. "Lavender and something else, something sweet that is you and you alone. I catch it in the village, in my home, in the forest. Everywhere. You're everywhere and nowhere, all at once."
"Ruka..." My heart was a wild thing trying to escape my chest.
He closed the distance between us until I could feel the heat rolling off him in waves, could see the tremor running through his hands like a current. "Nothing feels right without you. The village hasn't changed, my family is the same, my clan continues as it always has, but I—" He pressed a fist against his chest, right over his heart. "I am not the same. I am incomplete."
The confession hit me like a physical force, driving the air from my lungs. My heart slammed against my ribs as I looked up at him, desperate to understand but terrified of misunderstanding. I knew what I hoped he meant, what every cell in my body was screaming he meant, but I needed the words. "Ruka, what are you—what does that mean?"
He dragged a hand through his dark hair, and I watched the war playing out across his features—frustration, longing, something almost like fear. "There's a story the elders tell. Something from our history. A legend."
"What story?" My voice came out threadbare.
"Before the underground. Before the exodus." His eyes found mine, holding them captive. "My people had something the surface dwellers called magic, but we knew as truth. When an Orc found their mate—their true mate—the earth itselfwould sing in recognition. A bond that transcended choice, that rewrote your very existence around another person."
The world tilted slightly on its axis.