Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

PIPER

T he roses are about to be in bloom.

I stare at them, a muscle in my eye twitching, knowing I should be pleased. The roses that climb over the sign proclaiming The Pixie's Perch, and are currently positively littered with buds, are beautiful.

They smell amazing.

My eye twitches again, and I rub my palm across my face, only succeeding in smearing flour all over my nose.

"What's wrong?" a deep, familiar voice murmurs from behind me, and I nearly jump out of my skin.

I should be used to Ga'Rek, the orc I hired to assist with my increasingly absurd baking load.

I should be pleased about the last flush of roses.

I should be both of those things, and I am very much not.

"They look like summer," I finally admit, burying my face in my hands. "The fall festival is in one week, and it's going to look like summer."

Velvet nuzzles her soft nose against my hip, my deer familiar clearly unhappy that I'm unhappy—which just makes me feel worse.

"It's going to look like magic. Like everything else you do," Ga'Rek tells me. His big hand grazes against the small of my back, and a delicious shiver goes through me at the thought that he's just touching me to comfort me.

Until I realize he's tugging at my apron strings, which drag on the cobblestones behind me, barely visible in the early morning gloam. It's darker than it has been at this time for months, and usually that would thrill me.

Autumn is by far my favorite of all the seasons. My mother used to say that the fairies painted the leaves in crimson and burnt umber while we slept. The flush of fall color on foliage reminds me of her, and those happy mornings we spent baking while she told me stories of the fair folk and taught me long-held secrets of kitchen witchery.

His fingers brush against my back again as he ties my apron on for me, surprisingly adept considering how large they are.

"Thank you," I murmur, slightly off balance from his proximity.

I half-turn, the rag I've planned to use to clean the windows swinging uselessly in my hands.

"Couldn't have the finest pastry chef in all the region tripping and falling on her apron ribbons," he tells me in a low rumble.

Ga'Rek's smile transforms his typical orc-ish resting glower to an expression of pure joy, and, as it always does, elicits a smile of my own in response.

His hand brushes across my hip as he finishes tying the strings.

I shiver in response, goosebumps rising across my bare arms.

No, not in response—more likely from the chill pre-dawn breeze that signals the true demise of summer and beginning of fall. Soon, green will be replaced on the leaves all around us as they melt into fiery oranges and reds before the boughs lose them with a great shake and go to sleep for winter.

Not that the budding roses dripping dramatically over the front of my pastry shop received the autumnal notice.

Tears of frustration sting my eyes, and I sniff once, outraged by my own irrational outrage. Two outrages for the price of one.

"Do not cry, kal'aki ne," Ga'Rek murmurs, so low I nearly miss the words. "We will make it right."

I rub the back of my hand across one eye. I don't know what the name he keeps calling me means, and I'm half afraid to ask.

Probably something like, ‘weak worm' or ‘possible appetizer' or ‘tiny snack' or ‘woman who cries over roses for no damned good reason.'

Could be any of those things.

I open my mouth to ask.

"Do you miss speaking Orcish?" comes out instead.

Ga'Rek goes silent, and I'm a coward, because I can't even bring myself to look at him.

Finally, I wipe the one spot I've missed on the window, the glass squeaking under my ministrations. The willow broom I keep beside the door out of pure witch tradition seems to glare at me in reproach for my rude question.

Even Velvet seems to side-eye me from where she stands, grazing on some of the potted impatiens that flank my shop. It's time to switch them out to something more appropriate for fall. The roses are clearly beyond my control, but the annuals? The annuals I can at least make festive.

"Orcish isn't just something spoken," Ga'Rek finally answers.

A blush heats my cheeks. "I, I didn't mean to pry, please don't feel like you have to answer?—"

"Language doesn't cease to exist just because it isn't spoken. It lives inside our hearts and minds. And how could I miss it when I just spoke it to you?" A laugh follows the question, and though there's not a shred of cruelty or fun-making in it, my cheeks get even hotter.

Stammering an apology, I open the front door and practically jog inside. Black and white checkered tiles run together as I race towards the kitchen in the back, needing to splash water on my cheeks and get myself right before Ga'Rek and I start our work together.

I should be used to the huge orc by now, should be used to the way he seems to know exactly where to move around me in the kitchen. It's a specific dance of companions, when you know how to predict where they will be at any given moment, how to determine where their tasks will take them.

It should have taken us much, much longer to reach this point of comfort with each other than the few meager weeks that have passed.

The thought makes me feel wildly uncomfortable, and then it gets so much worse, because it's immediately followed by a very obvious realization.

This huge warrior orc who's made himself at home here in my most sacred space, my kitchen… I am extremely attracted to him.

And there's nothing friendly or companionable about it.

I swallow hard, squeezing my eyes shut as the bell over the door jingles, announcing he's followed me inside The Pixie's Perch.

The question is now: what am I going to do about it?