We move like waves—rising,crashing, rolling through one another.
I lean down,kissing him hard, tongue sliding into his mouth. He grips my ass tighter, fucking up into me until I cry out.
My orgasm builds again,wild and electric.
“I’m gonna—Kursk—fuck—”
He growls.“Come for me, fireheart. Drench my cock.”
I screamas it hits me, my pussy clenching around him, milking him.
He follows,roaring, his cock jerking inside me as he fills me.
We collapse together again.
Later,when he falls asleep at last, I sit at the kitchen table with my journal. The cabin smells of burnt bread from the toaster he insists on wrestling every morning, woodsmoke from the dying fire, and the faint metallic tang of the amulet resting by his bedside.
I dipmy pen in ink and write:
Love doesn’t always looklike a fairytale. Sometimes it looks like an orc in sweatpants burning toast.
I close the book,press my hand against the cover, and smile.
Because that’s enough.More than enough.
CHAPTER 26
KURSK
The woods are quiet this morning, hushed in a way that feels almost reverent. Mist clings low to the earth, curling around my boots, dampening the moss until it squelches underfoot. The air smells of pine sap and wet stone, sharp and clean.
I stand at the edge of the clearing, staff in one hand, the other resting on the pouch of river stones I’ve been carrying for weeks. One more to set. One more name to carve.
The spirits are here. I can feel them. Not as shapes or voices, but in the way the air thickens around me, charged like before a storm. Birds stay silent. Trees lean in. It’s listening weather.
I kneel and run my hand over the shrine I’ve built—just a low mound of stones stacked careful, each one etched with a rune or a name. Ancestors. Kin. Those who walked before me. Those who fell. My brother’s space has been waiting, the gap like a wound among the rest.
“Spirits,” I begin, my voice rasping in the morning stillness. My breath clouds the air. “I don’t know if you hear me, or if I’m only filling the silence. But I’ll speak anyway. I’ve learned that sometimes words matter, even when no one answers.”
The staff hums faintly in my grip. The amulet at my chest warms.
“I’ve known love,” I continue, “and I’ve known loss. I’ve known the thrill of battle, and the shame of mistakes. But humans… they showed me something different. They bleed the same, cry the same, but they carry joy like a banner, even in the ruins. That’s what she taught me. What Olivia taught me.”
I reach into the pouch and pull out the last stone. Smooth, heavy, veins of quartz running through gray. I carved it myself with careful hands, etching the name until my fingers blistered.
“Grothak,” I whisper. The word tastes of ash and iron. My brother’s name.
“You died chasing honor. Sword in hand, heart proud. You thought it would save us.” My chest tightens. My tusks ache from clenching too hard. “But me—I found honor in the strangest place. Not in war. Not in killing. I found it… in her.”
My throat burns, but I set the stone anyway, fitting it into the shrine, pressing it down until it holds fast.
The shrine looks whole now. Complete. The mist swirls around it, almost approving, like unseen fingers smoothing the edges.
I bow my head. “Rest now, brother. I’ll carry what you can’t.”
The woods don’t answer. But they don’t need to. I feel it—weight lifting, something settling into place.
I stand, staff in hand, and glance back toward the cabin where Olivia waits. Smoke rises from the chimney. I smell burnt bread even from here, faint but real. My lips twitch into a smile.
