Page 31 of Savage Devotion (Orc Warrior Romances #2)

RESSA

T he tent empties around us like water draining from a broken basin. Guards follow Heldrik's retreat, boots heavy on packed earth, voices carrying fragments of argument and disbelief. Within moments, only Kaelgor and I remain in the sudden stillness.

Blood drips from my arm where Heldrik's blade found its mark, not deep, but purposeful. A claiming cut, the kind meant to scar and remind. I press my hand against the wound, feeling warmth seep between my fingers.

"Let me see." Kaelgor says.

"I can manage."

"You're bleeding on my shirt."

I glance down and realize I'm still pressed against his chest, my wounded arm trapped between us. His leather vest shows dark stains where my blood has soaked through.

"Sorry." I try to step back, but his arms tighten around me.

"Don't apologize for bleeding when someone cuts you."

The simple statement carries unexpected weight. How many times have I apologized for injuries inflicted by others? For consequences of choices forced upon me? For existing in spaces where my presence challenged expectations?

Too many.

"Come on." He guides me to the low campaign table, where maps still lie scattered from the interrupted council. "Sit."

I perch on the table's edge while he rummages through supply chests, movements efficient and purposeful. His hands emerge holding a clean cloth, a waterskin, and something that makes my breath catch, a knife unlike any I've ever seen.

The blade gleams with the distinctive ripple-pattern of forge-folded steel, but embedded along its length are veins of what looks like molten gold. The metal seems to pulse with its own internal heat, casting dancing shadows on his face.

"Mountain-steel," he explains, noting my stare. "Forged in the deep fires beneath our ancestral halls. It holds heat longer than regular steel, burns clean."

"You're going to cauterize the wound?"

"Clean it. Mountain-steel burns away infection without scarring if you know how to use it."

He tests the blade's edge against his thumb, drawing a thin line of blood that hisses and steams on contact with the metal. Steam rises from the cut on his skin, carrying the scent of purified flesh and something deeper—ozone and earth and the distant memory of forge-fire.

"This will hurt."

"Everything hurts."

He searches for permission or protest. I extend my arm, palm up, exposing the gash Heldrik left as his parting gift.

The heated blade touches my skin with a sound like water hitting hot iron. Steam rises in delicate spirals, carrying away blood and poison and the lingering taint of my uncle's hatred. Pain flares bright and clean, then fades to manageable heat.

I watch Kaelgor's face as he works, noting the careful concentration that furrows his brow. His jaw clenches with each application of the blade, as if my pain registers in his own flesh. When he reaches a deeper section of the cut, his breath hitches.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize for healing when someone wounds me."

A ghost of a smile touches his lips before concentration reclaims his features.

The process takes minutes that feel like hours.

Steam continues rising from the blade's contact with my flesh, each touch burning away damage and leaving clean, sealed tissue in its wake.

By the time he finishes, the wound has closed to a thin pink line that will probably fade completely within days.

"Mountain medicine," I observe. "Your people know things ours have forgotten."

"Survival teaches harsh lessons."

He sets the knife on the table between us, blade still glowing faintly with residual heat. In the amber light cast by the tent's oil lamps, his face shows exhaustion and the choices made under pressure.

"You didn't have to do that," I say quietly.

"Stop Heldrik? Heal your wound?"

"Any of it. All of it."

He studies my face with the intensity of someone reading battle-plans. "What would you have done if our positions were reversed? If one of my clan threatened me in front of you?"

The answer comes without hesitation. "Exactly what you did."

"Then you understand."

Understanding. Such a simple word for something so complex.

I understand he protected me because protection is fundamental to his nature.

I understand that his loyalty, once given, doesn't bend under pressure.

I understand that somewhere between our first collision in Ember Hollow and this moment, I've become something he considers worth defending.

What I don't understand is why that knowledge feels like standing too close to a forge-fire, warming and dangerous in equal measure.

"Heldrik will try to turn the camp against us," I say, reaching for practical concerns to anchor my thoughts. "He has authority, connections, and tradition behind him."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Have connections. Supporters. People who follow you instead of him."

I consider the question seriously. "Some. The younger mercenaries respect competence over bloodline. A few of the veterans remember campaigns where my tactics saved lives. But not enough to split the force evenly."

"Then we don't try to split it."

"What do you mean?"

He picks up the mountain-steel knife, testing its balance with the unconscious expertise of someone born to weapons. "We make them choose. Not between you and Heldrik, but between the old ways and new possibilities."

"By doing what?"

"By succeeding where traditional approaches fail."

The simple statement carries layers of implication. Success in what? Defending the camp? Negotiating peace? Building bridges between species that have warred for generations? All of the above?

"That's a significant gamble."

"All worthwhile choices are."

Steam continues rising from the knife blade, carrying the metallic scent of purified steel and something else—the earth-deep smell of forge-fire and determination. I watch the patterns dance in the heated metal, mesmerized by the way golden veins pulse like a heartbeat.

"May I?" I extend my hand toward the knife.

He hesitates, then places the hilt in my palm. The weapon carries warmth that seeps through skin and muscle, settling somewhere deeper. Mountain-steel doesn't just hold heat—it holds intent, purpose, the accumulated will of everyone who's wielded it.

"It's beautiful," I breathe.

"It's functional."

"Same thing, in the right hands."

I observe the blade's surface, noting how the golden veins follow stress-patterns in the steel. Not decoration, but integral structure, the very thing that makes mountain-steel superior to regular iron. Beauty emerges from necessity rather than being imposed upon it.

"This represents something," I say slowly.

"All weapons represent something."

"No. This specific blade, given to me in this specific moment, for this specific purpose."

Understanding flickers in his eyes. "What does it represent?"

"Shared mercy."

The blade cauterized my wound not through violence but through healing. His people's knowledge applied to my injury. Ancient techniques serving present needs.

Transformation through unity.

"Take it." I extend the knife back toward him, hilt-first. "Not as a loan or temporary use, but as an offering."

"Ressa—"

"You shared your clan's healing with me. Let me share my trust with you."

He stares at the weapon, conflict clear in his expression. Accepting would mean acknowledging the symbolic weight of the gesture. Refusing would deny the connection we've both fought to ignore and embrace simultaneously.

"What are you really offering?"

Everything. The word hovers unspoken but understood. My loyalty, my faith, my willingness to build something unprecedented together. The abandonment of safe choices in favor of necessary ones.

"Partnership," I say aloud. "Real partnership, not just tactical cooperation or temporary alliance. Shared purpose. Shared risk. Shared consequence."

"And if it fails?"

"Then we fail together."

"And if it succeeds?"

"Then we succeed."

He reaches for the knife, fingers closing around the hilt just below mine. For a moment we both hold the weapon, our hands overlapping on mountain-steel that pulses with retained heat. The metal seems to thrum between us, conducting more than temperature.

"This changes everything," he says quietly.

"Everything was already changing. This just makes it intentional."

He lifts our joined hands, pressing my knuckles against his chest. Through leather and cloth, I feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat—strong, consistent, uncompromising. The knife rests between our palms, still warm, still carrying the healing.

"Feel that," he says. "That's what you're trusting. That's what's yours to claim."

His heart. Not just metaphorically, but literally—the physical center of his strength, the source of his loyalty, the core of whatever this is becoming between us.

"And this." I guide his hand to my chest, just above where my heart hammers against ribs. "This is what you're claiming."

The moment stretches, balanced on the edge of revelation and commitment. Outside, voices continue calling orders and questions, the camp reorganizing itself around the absence of clear authority. Inside, two people from warring peoples hold a weapon that represents healing instead of harm.

"We should address the camp," I say eventually. "Before rumors and fear make choices for us."

He releases my hand but keeps the knife, sliding it into his belt where it rests beside his own weapons. The sight of mountain-steel among human-forged iron strikes me as profoundly symbolic, with integration rather than replacement, addition rather than substitution.

New ways of building on old foundations.

We move toward the tent entrance, but he pauses at the threshold, hand on the canvas flap.

"Ressa."

"Yes?"

"Whatever happens next, with the camp, with our clans, with this war, know that you're not facing it alone."