“Mine,” he whispers, pushing the head of his cock between my swollen lips. I grip onto him as best I can as he glides into me, as smoothly as sheathing a sword.
If I thought the second time would be less intense, I was mistaken. I’m swept away by a tempest of our interlocked bodies, his cock gliding in and out, driving my rapid breaths into gasps and moans. I grab him, burying my face in his sleek shoulder as he pushes me over the threshold of climax.
Waves of pleasure explode from my pussy to encompass my entire being, body and soul. I forget all about the impending attack, my parents, even my own identity. For a moment we are one soul with two bodies, linked in a way that feels perfect.
A sharp cry from over the defenses crashes into my post climactic bliss. Verr growls in annoyance.
“Someday, I will spend an entire day and night taking you,” he promises with his eyes as much as his voice. “You deserve my full, unflinching attention.”
“Yes, Verr,” I gasp, still feeling the glow of aftershocks. “I am yours.”
“Yes.” He kisses me, hard and deep, before pulling away. “And now it seems I must kill orcs. Such an inconvenience."
I giggle as we compose ourselves. It’s madness, engaging in an act that ultimately creates life…
While he prepares to engage in an act that ultimately causes death.
26
VERR
The ground gives under my step, the damp earth shifting beneath my boot. The river has pulled back and left the bank soft and unreliable. I adjust without thinking, angling my weight, testing before committing, because anything that unstable is either a liability or an advantage depending on who understands it first.
The line ahead of me doesn’t have that luxury.
Wood splinters under the next impact before the sound fully registers, the east barricade bowing inward as a cluster of orcs drives into it with brute force. The rhythm is wrong, though. Not the clean surge of a committed charge, not the chaotic scatter of something undisciplined. It’s staggered, uneven, like something heavier is pacing behind it, waiting for the opening to widen before it commits.
I feel it before I see it.
The vibration rolls through the ground in a low, steady pulse, not sharp enough to be a sprint, too heavy to be anything light-footed. It moves with intention, and my grip tightens slightly on my blade as I shift my stance to meet what’s coming.
“Hold that line,” I snap, stepping forward as an orc breaks through the splintered gap, its weapon swinging wide and unrefined. I catch the edge of it and shove it off-line, turning the force back into its own body hard enough to send it crashing into the one behind it. “Don’t chase—hold!”
A soldier to my left lunges anyway, instinct overriding instruction, and I catch him by the shoulder before he can step too far past the line. His armor jerks under my grip as I haul him back into place.
“Stay in formation,” I growl close to his ear, forcing his attention back to me for half a second. “You step out, you don’t come back.”
His breathing is already uneven, panic sitting too close to the surface, but he nods, resetting his stance with a stiffness that tells me he heard the warning even if he didn’t fully process it.
Behind the broken barricade, the second shape emerges.
The minotaur doesn’t rush. It pushes through the debris like it expects the world to move for it, splintered wood catching along its horns and dragging free as it steps into the open. Its shoulders roll once, testing the space, and then it looks at us—not wildly, not blindly—just measuring.
That’s worse.
“Kareth,” I call, not taking my eyes off it.
He’s there before I finish the word, stepping into position at my right, his blade angled slightly forward, weight already shifting in anticipation. “I see it.”
“Don’t meet it head-on,” I say, sliding my foot back half a step, adjusting for the slope behind me. “Pull it left. Toward the bank.”
His gaze flicks once toward the uneven ground, then back to the approaching shape, understanding settling fast enough that he doesn’t waste time questioning it. “Unstable footing.”
“Yes.”
“And if it ignores us?”
I let out a short breath. “Then we make it care.”
