His whole body contracts. Shoulders curling inward. Chin dropping. This massive, battle-scarred orc folding himself small in my living room like he's trying to disappear into the floorboards.
"But you came back." I hold up one finger. "With evidence." A second finger. "And an admission that you were wrong." A third. "And you bled on your own walls instead of doubling down."
The copper-ringed eyes lift.
"My brothers never once came back."
I reach up and press my palm flat against his cheek. The skin is hot. Rough along the jawline where the tusk roots push through. His breath catches and holds, ribs locked, everything locked, like a man standing at something and waiting to find out if the ground will hold.
"I forgive you. But if you ever use that voice on me again, I will plant poison ivy in your underwear drawer and water it daily."
A sound rips out of him. Low and broken and genuine. A laugh. The first real one I've heard from him in twelve hours, and it transforms his whole face. The rigid lines crack open. The jaw unclenches. He looks five years younger and ten pounds lighter.
He covers my hand with his bandaged one. Sunflowers against green skin.
"I won't."
"Good." I drop my hand and stand. Pace to the window. The sun is mid-sky. Through the glass, his yard is visible. The crater where the rosebush lived gapes like a wound in the otherwise flawless green.
"The judging is tomorrow morning."
Flynn's head snaps up. Battle mode. The shift is instant. One second, devastated penitent. The next, six-foot-seven of tactical calculation scanning the room like it contains a field map.
"Nine a.m. sharp. Valerius submitted the schedule to the committee last week."
"Which means he ripped your rosebush out the night before prep day. On purpose. So you'd spend today mourning instead of finishing the archway."
Flynn rises from the crouch. Slowly. Vertebra by vertebra. His skull nearly brushes my ceiling fan.
"Where would he take it?"
"His greenhouse." Zero hesitation. "The one behind his property. Climate-controlled, ward-locked, sits on a half-acre lot that backs up to the ravine."
"You've been inside?"
"I've been past the perimeter. Twice. During my morning runs." His eyes narrow. "Third row of hedges, east side, has a gap where the irrigation pipe feeds through. Camera blind spot. I mapped it three weeks ago."
"You mapped his camera blind spots three weeks ago?"
"Threat assessment is a warband habit."
I stare at him. This ridiculous, meticulous, lawn-mowing, hedge-trimming, camera-mapping orc.
"We're breaking into an elf's greenhouse."
"We're retrieving stolen property."
"Under cover of darkness."
"Tactically optimal timeframe."
"Flynn." I grab his arm. The bicep barely fits inside both my hands. "This is insane."
"He destroyed my rosebush. He's trying to take our homes. He sent the beetles, the storm, probably the amended ordinances." Flynn's lip curls back from his lower tusks. "Tonight, we take the fight to his lawn."
I grin so hard my cheeks ache.
"I'll get my pruning shears."
