Chapter 19
Neither of them moved. Ralvar just stood in the threshold, his gaze moving over her, drinking her in.
"Hours," he said, his voice a low rasp. "I have been thinking about you for hours."
Delia's pulse jumped. "Thessaly said you were handling your duties."
"Duties." He made the word sound like a curse. "I sat in that room and answered questions about patrol routes and guard movements, and all I could think about was you."
"Your wound—" she started.
"Is fine." Another step closer. He was in front of her now, towering over the chair where she sat, and the hunger in his face made her breath catch. "Unless you don't want—"
"I want."
The words came out before she could think better of them. Before the old familiar voice could whisper that she was too much, too eager, too desperate. She watched his nostrils flare, scenting her response, and a dark satisfaction moved through his expression.
"Good," he said roughly. "Because I have been patient. I have been restrained. I have been everything a decent male should be." He reached down and cupped her face, tilting her head back to meet his eyes. "But right now, my krenna, I need to be inside you. I need to feel you around me. I need—"
She kissed him.
It wasn't graceful. She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and pulled, and he came down to her with a groan that vibrated through her chest. His mouth opened against hers, hot and hungry, and she felt his tusks press against the corners of her lips as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding against hers with an urgency that made her whimper.
"Bed," he growled against her mouth.
He pulled back just enough to scoop her up, and she gasped at the sudden motion, her arms wrapping around his neck. His wound. His side. But he was already moving, carrying her through a doorway, into a chamber beyond the main room.
The bed was massive.
Of course it was. Everything about him was massive.
But this—a frame carved from dark wood, piled with furs so thick they looked like clouds, large enough to hold three of him—this was something else entirely.
He set her down on the edge and she sank into softness, surrounded by his scent and the evidence of his life here.
"I should have brought you here first," he said, already reaching for the ties of his tunic.
"Should have laid you down in my bed the moment we arrived.
But there were duties, obligations—" The shirt fell away, revealing the bandage wrapped around his ribs.
White cloth spotted with the faintest hint of red.
"—and I thought if I came to you before I handled them, I would never leave. "
Delia reached for him. "Come here."
He made a sound low in his throat, quickly removed his trousers, and then he was on the bed with her, over her, his weight braced on his arms as he looked down at her.
"Your ankle," he said.
"I'll be careful."
"Your body is still learning mine."
"Then teach it more."
His control snapped.
She felt the moment his restraint gave way to need.
He kissed her hard and deep, his tongue claiming her mouth while he found the hem of her borrowed shift and began pulling it up.
She lifted her shoulders to help him, and he groaned against her lips as the fabric cleared her thighs, her belly, her breasts.
"How," he breathed, pulling back to look at her, "are you more beautiful every time I see you?"
Delia felt the old shame try to rise—too much, too soft, too—
But then he was touching her, stroking up her sides, cupping the weight of her breasts, and the worship in his gaze drowned everything else out.
"I want to try something." His voice was rough, strained. "If you'll trust me."
"I trust you."
The words seemed to settle something in him. He lowered himself carefully, mindful of his bandaged side, until his chest brushed hers. The heat of him was furnace-like, radiating through the thin linen still wrapped around his ribs.
He kissed her again, slower this time, like he was savoring the taste after starving for it.
One hand slid down her body, tracing the soft dip of her waist, the generous curve of her hip, before cupping the back of her thigh and guiding her leg up around his waist. The position opened her, let the thick length of him settle hot and heavy against her folds, ridges already flexing with his heartbeat.
She rocked up instinctively, slicking him with the wetness that had been building since he walked through the door. A low groan rumbled out of him; his tusks grazed her lower lip as he pulled back just enough to speak.
“I want you on top,” he said, voice gravel-rough. “I want to watch you take me. Watch your body move over mine. Let you set the pace and feel every ridge exactly how you want it.”
"I don't—I don't know how—"
“Yes, you do,” he said. "Your body knows. It knew yesterday morning, in the cave. It knows now."
Heat flooded her face, but it wasn’t shame. It was power. Want. The idea of controlling the depth, the speed, the angle—of riding him until she shattered—made her core clench hard around nothing.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He rolled them carefully—mindful of his ribs, of her ankle—until he was on his back in the sea of furs and she was straddling his hips.
The bed was so wide she had room to settle her knees on either side of him, thighs spreading wide over the thick muscle of his waist. Her soft curves spilled over his sides a little, breasts swaying as she braced her palms on his chest for balance.
Ralvar’s fingers sank into her hips, thumbs stroking the gentle rolls at her sides like he couldn’t get enough of touching her. His cock stood proud and thick between them, ridges gleaming faintly in the low lamplight, the broad head already slick with precum and her arousal.
“Look at you,” he rasped, eyes locked on where their bodies would join. “Take what you need from me, Delia. I am yours to use."
The words should have shocked her. Would have, days ago. But now—
Now they made her bold.
She reached down, fingers wrapping around the base, barely able to circle him fully. His eyes rolled back. His mouth fell open. His chest heaved beneath her.
"Delia."
She stroked him experimentally. Thick, hot, the ridges firm and slightly raised under her palm, each one flexing when she squeezed gently.
He throbbed hard in answer, a bead of precum welling at the slit, and when she smoothed it down the length he made a noise that wasn't quite a word—low, guttural, desperate.
"Like this?" she asked.
"Yes. No." He was panting now, his restraint clearly in tatters. "I need—I need to be inside you. Please."
Please. This massive, terrifying warrior. Begging her.
She rose up on her knees, positioning herself over him, and felt the blunt head of him press against her entrance. She was wet, but he was so big, and this angle—
"Slow," he gritted out, voice strained to breaking. "Take it slow. Your body will adjust. It will—" He broke off with a low, guttural groan as she sank down an inch, taking just the thick head inside. The stretch bloomed sharp and immediate; her walls fluttered wildly around him. "—fuck."
The stretch was intense. More intense than yesterday, in this position, with gravity pulling her down onto him. She paused, breathing hard through her nose, feeling every ridge of the head seated just past her entrance, pressing insistently against her.
"You don't have to—" he started, voice rough with concern.
"I want to." She braced herself on his chest, feeling the hard slabs of muscle jump and flex beneath her palms, the bandage a faint reminder of his wound. "I want this. I want to feel all of you."
She sank lower.
Another inch. Then another. Her body yielded in slow, reluctant increments, stretching around the impossible girth.
Each ridge popped past her rim one by one, stroking her inner walls in long, devastating passes.
The fullness was overwhelming. She felt split open, impaled, completely possessed—and gods, she loved it.
She felt powerful.
"Look at you," Ralvar breathed. "Taking me. All of me. So brave. So perfect. So—" His words cracked as she took the final inch, settling fully onto him with a soft, wet sound. The base pressed flush against her clit; every ridge was buried deep, throbbing in time with his pulse. "Mine."
Delia's head fell back. "Full. So full."
"Too much?"
"No." She rolled her hips in a slow, experimental circle, feeling the ridges shift and drag inside her in every direction at once, and they both gasped. Pleasure sparked bright and sharp along her spine. "Not enough."
His laugh was half a groan. "Greedy. My krenna is greedy."
"Is that—is that bad?"
"It is everything." His grip tightened on her hips, not guiding, just grounding. "Move. Please. Before I embarrass myself."
She lifted herself slowly, feeling every ridge drag out in reverse, each one tugging reluctant whimpers from her lips, and then sank back down, letting gravity and her own hunger drive him deep again.
The wet slap of their bodies meeting echoed softly in the room; the furs shifted beneath his back, cradling them both.
She found a rhythm. Slow at first, careful of her ankle, of his wound, of her own body still learning what it meant to take rather than be taken. But the pleasure built anyway, coiling tight in her belly, spreading through her limbs like honey dissolving in hot water.
And he watched her.
That was the part that undid her more than anything else.
He watched her with such hunger. Such reverence.
He tracked the bounce of her breasts, the jiggle of her belly, the spread of her thighs around his hips, and instead of the disgust she'd been taught to expect, she saw only desperate, devoted desire.
"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," he said hoarsely. His hands slid up from her hips, stroking over her stomach, cupping her breasts. "I want to spend the rest of my life beneath you."
"Ralvar—"
"I am serious." His thumbs found her nipples, circling, pressing. "Every day. Every night. However you want me. Whenever you want me. I am yours."
The pleasure crested.
Her cunt clamped down in frantic, rhythmic waves that milked him relentlessly. A raw cry tore from her throat; her hips bucked once, twice, grinding against the base.
Ralvar thrust up once, hips lifting off the furs as a guttural roar ripped from his throat.
His cock throbbed inside her, ridges pulsing with each thick, hot spurt that flooded her.
He came hard, pulse after pulse, filling her until she felt the warmth overflow, dripping down his shaft and soaking the pelts beneath them.
His hips jerked in short, grinding rocks, drawing out every last drop while she trembled through the aftershocks.
She collapsed forward onto his chest, both of them gasping, slick and spent. His arms wrapped around her immediately—careful of his ribs—holding her close as his cock twitched weakly inside her, still buried to the hilt.
For a long minute there was only their breathing, harsh and uneven, and the faint crackle of the lamp.
Then Ralvar pressed a slow kiss to her temple, one tusk grazing her hairline.
"I didn't hurt you?" she murmured against his skin.
His laugh was a rumble beneath her ear. "You could have stabbed me through the heart and I wouldn't have noticed."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's honest." His hand stroked up her spine, slow and soothing. "I have thought of nothing but this since I left you. Nothing but having you again. Feeling you around me. Hearing you say my name when you peak."
Delia turned her face into his neck, breathing him in.
"Thessaly told me you announced me to your officers," she said quietly. "Called me your krenna in front of everyone."
"I did."
"The whole settlement knows."
"They do." He paused. "Does that... distress you?"
She considered the question. Considered how it would have felt, a week ago, to have an entire fortress full of orcs knowing her name. Knowing she belonged to their captain.
"No," she said finally. "It doesn't distress me."
His chest expanded beneath her in a deep breath. "Good. Because I am not capable of hiding what you are to me. What you mean." His arms tightened around her. "Let them see. Let them know. Let every orc in this mountain understand that Delia Harrowmere belongs here. With me."
She lifted her head to kiss him.
Softer this time. Tender. The urgency had burned itself out, leaving only this quiet, steady warmth. This certainty.
When they finally parted, he tucked her against his side and pulled the furs up over them both. The fire from the main room cast flickering shadows across the walls. Outside, she could hear the distant sounds of the stronghold—voices, movement, the rhythm of a functioning world.
A world she was part of now.
"Tomorrow," Ralvar murmured against her hair, "we will speak to the elder about your sanctuary claim. Make it official. And then—"
"And then?"
"And then we see what comes." His voice was low but seemingly unconcerned. "There will be challenges. Some here will question a human in the captain's quarters. The guards who fled will report to their masters. Your contract holder will not simply accept your disappearance."
Delia tensed slightly, but his hand resumed its slow stroke along her spine.
"None of it matters tonight," he continued. "Tonight, you are here. Safe. Mine." A pause. "And I am yours."
The problems he named were real. She knew that. Castellan Vorn. Human law. Orc prejudice. The world beyond these walls hadn't stopped existing just because she'd found shelter within them.
But Ralvar's heartbeat was steady beneath her ear. His body was warm against hers. And for the first time in her life, the weight of tomorrow felt like something she could carry.
Outside, the mountain wind howled against stone walls that had stood for generations. Inside, the fire crackled low, and Delia Harrowmere—debt-bonded daughter, fugitive, krenna—closed her eyes and let herself rest.