“I told him I was testing acoustics. Then I walked off.”
“You’re insane.”
“You’re welcome.”
It starts with a whisper.
Runestones etched in old Orcish, glowing faintly like coals in the dark. Kursk lays them one by one along the foundation of Calvin’s sleek, modern monstrosity of an office—corporate chic meets evil lair. I hold the flashlight and try not to hyperventilate.
“Do they have to hum like that?” I whisper, squinting at one that’s vibrating slightly against the tile.
“It means they’re working,” Kursk replies, voice low. “The tether is fraying.”
“Great. Love that for us. You’re sure this won’t, like... explode his Keurig machine?”
“That is... uncertain.”
I smother a laugh, even as adrenaline coils in my stomach.
We finish planting the last of the runes in the sub-basement, just beneath the pulsing lines of Calvin’s Veil reactor. It glows with sickly light—green-gold and wrong—and the spear strapped to Kursk’s back pulses like a living thing.
He stares at it for a long moment. His jaw tightens.
“We should go,” he says.
But neither of us move.
Later, back at the cabin, the silence stretches between us like a bridge waiting to collapse. I sit at the edge of my bed, peeling off muddy boots, trying to process what just happened. What’s still happening.
Kursk moves like he’s still in battle. Every muscle coiled. Every breath calculated.
Until I stand and say, quietly, “Stay.”
His eyes soften.
And then we cross the room like magnets finally giving in.
This kiss isn’t desperate like the first. It isn’t born from fear like the second.
It’s slow.
Warm.
His hands are careful. My breath stutters. We move together like a question being asked—do you want this, too?
I answer by pulling him down to me.
His weight settles over me, not crushing—anchoring. His lips explore mine, then trail across my jaw, down the line of my throat. He tastes me like I’m a battlefield he doesn’t want to conquer—just memorize.
“You’re warm,” I whisper, fingers exploring the hard muscle of his arms.
“You are the fire,” he says softly, voice rough.
I pull at his belt. He lets me, breath hitching.
I undo the ties. His cock springs free—thick, ridged, impossibly hard. My breath catches at the sight of him. He’shuge, dark green with a blunt head and veins running thick along the shaft.
“You’re staring,” he rumbles.
