Page 55 of Orc’s Grimoire

Not gently. There’s nothing gentle between us—there never has been.

I kiss her like I fight: with violence and precision and absolute commitment. My free hand fists in her hair, tilting her head back, exposing the line of her throat. She responds with equal ferocity, her nails raking down my back through my tunic, her teeth catching my lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

The mating mark flares between us. Her mark burns against my chest where our bodies press close—heat answering heat, demanding completion.

“Now.” I pull back just far enough to speak. “I’m doing it now.”

I press the execution brand to her chest, just above her heart.

She screams.

The sound cuts off almost immediately—she bites down on my shoulder to muffle it, her whole body arching against mine as the brand sears my mark into her flesh. I hold her through it, one arm wrapped around her waist, keeping the brand steady while the magic does its work.

Fire pours through me. Through her. Through both of us, burning pathways that didn’t exist before, sealing the claiming in blood and agony.

When I pull the brand away, the mark it leaves is perfect: my sigil, the Blackbrand rune, burned into her skin directly over the spot where her heart beats beneath her ribs. It glows red-hot for a moment, then fades to the same red-gold as her claiming mark.

Two marks now. The claiming sigil on her collarbone that announced my intent. The brand over her heart that declares my completion.

“Korrath.” Her voice is ragged, broken with pain and need. “That’s only half.”

“I know.”

“Then finish it.”

I lift her against the wall.

Her legs wrap around my waist, pulling me closer, and I fumble with my belt one-handed while keeping her pinned in place. The leather gives way. Fabric shifts. And then there’s nothing between us but heat and need and the primal drive that’s been building since the moment I first saw her.

I bury myself inside her with a single thrust.

She cries out—pleasure and pain tangled into a sound that goes straight to my spine. Her nails dig into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood through my tunic. Her inner walls clench around me, unbearably tight, scorching hot, dragging a groan from my throat that I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.

I don’t want to.

I take her against the wall with all the violence of a claiming—because that’s what this is. Not lovemaking. Not tenderness. A claiming, raw and primal, my body staking its territory while my mark burns its permanent brand into her flesh.

The mating mark ignites on both of us. I feel mine searing into my chest, completing a circuit that’s been half-formed since the moment it first appeared. The sensation is overwhelming—fire and ice and electricity, pleasure so intense it borders on pain.

“Harder.” Thyra’s voice is a ragged demand against my ear. “I can take it. Don’t hold back.”

I don’t hold back.

My hips slam into hers with bruising force. Each thrust drives her against the stone wall, and she meets me stroke for stroke, her body demanding everything I have to give. My tusks graze her throat—an instinct as old as my species, the urge to bite, to mark, to claim every part of her.

She tilts her head back, offering her throat.

I bite.

Not hard enough to break skin—but hard enough to leave a mark. Another brand. Another claim. She gasps and clenches around me, her whole body shuddering with a pleasure that pushes me toward the edge.

Around us, the chaos continues. Inscribed shouts in the distance. The Author’s voice echoing through impossible corridors. The Archive groaning as reality bends and warps.

None of it matters.

All that matters is her. The way she moves against me. The sounds she makes—gasps and moans and my name, repeated like a prayer or a curse. The heat of her, inside and out, consuming everything I am.

“Korrath—“ Her voice breaks. “I’m⁠—“