Chapter 7 Olivia
OLIVIA
The kiss almost tilts into something deeper—something molten and reckless.
Kursk’s hand cradles the side of my face like I’m made of glass, and yet there’s a barely leashed wildness in him, like he’s one breath away from dragging me onto his lap and forgetting the world exists.
I feel it—the tension, the gravity pulling us toward each other like planets spiraling into collision.
My breath hitches. His eyes flicker down to my lips again.
And then, a sound splits the night.
Low and guttural, a distant roar that reverberates through the trees, shaking the windows in their frames. It isn’t the wind. It isn’t some bear wandering too close. No. That thing—that thing—is out there again.
Kursk pulls away so fast it leaves me blinking, lips tingling.
He’s already on his feet, spear in hand, body tense and shadowed in firelight. His nostrils flare as he sniffs the air like some kind of primal bloodhound. He’s beautiful in that dangerous, otherworldly way—like a thunderstorm made flesh.
“I will hunt it,” he growls, voice thick and sharp.
I start to protest, but he’s already vanishing into the woods, the spear’s glow swallowed by the dark.
So much for the moment.
I don’t sleep.
I just wait.
The coffee grows cold. The fire turns to ash. Every creak of the old cabin makes my heart stutter. I keep glancing toward the trees, expecting to see him stumble out—or worse, something else entirely. I even pick up the fire extinguisher again, just in case.
He doesn’t return until well past three in the morning, exhausted, frustrated, and still empty-handed.
I can see it in the way his shoulders sag, in the blood-streaked dirt across his arms. Not his blood. But not the Vorfaluka’s either. Whatever he found out there, it wasn’t the thing we’re hunting.
He doesn’t speak. Neither do I. We just sit there, staring at the cold hearth like we’re waiting for a sign from the gods.
The next morning, I do the unthinkable.
I take a seven-foot illusion-cloaked orc to work.
Kursk mutters something about shame and visibility and how no warrior should be forced to “hide his true skin in glamor like a wailing elf-bard,” but I tell him he can’t exactly waltz through Walnut Falls looking like a damn Street Fighter boss.
So he adjusts the talisman around his neck, and just like that, poof. He’s still huge—built like a brick wall with an attitude problem—but now he looks more like a shirtless Viking gym rat than an actual green-skinned warlord.
Which, by Walnut Falls standards, is basically Tuesday.
We make it to the library in one piece, though not without a few stares. I guide him to the back stacks with a thermos of coffee and instructions to “try not to scare any children, elderly patrons, or anyone who hasn’t already seen a Marvel movie.”
He doesn’t find that funny.
Walnut Falls is buzzing like a kicked hornet’s nest.
Rumors are flying. Peggy Sue is flitting around the main desk like a nosy little hummingbird on Red Bull and pure spite.
“You hear about Dale Price?” she whispers, leaning across the desk like a cat with a secret.
I raise an eyebrow. “Dale Price, the guy who runs the car wash?”
“That’s the one. Dead.”
I freeze. “What?”
“Yup. Body found behind The Lazy Lanes bowling alley this morning. Sheriff’s department is keeping it hush-hush, but my cousin’s best friend’s ex-boyfriend’s brother is dating the coroner’s assistant and he says Dale was all hollowed out like a goddamn juice pouch.”
My stomach turns. I glance toward the stacks where Kursk is pretending to read something titled From Hummus to History: The Culinary Chronicles of the Mediterranean.
If only they knew.
Peggy narrows her eyes. “You okay, Liv?”
“Yeah,” I say too quickly. “Just… bad news.”
Peggy leans in further. “And what’s that?”
I flinch.
She’s spotted him.
Kursk stands tall, looming over the endcap, pretending to study a rack of children’s picture books like it’s deep political theory.
“Oh,” I say, scrambling for a lie. “That’s… Mr. Sigurdsson. He’s part of the rare books residency program.”
Peggy squints. “He looks like if Thor and a fire hydrant had a baby.”
“Uh huh.”
“And why is he shirtless?”
“He runs hot?”
Peggy doesn’t look convinced. “Does he talk?”
“No.”
At that exact moment, Kursk grumbles something in Old Orcish under his breath that sounds like a rockslide wrapped in a curse.
I shove Peggy toward the break room. “You should check on the printer! It’s doing that thing again.”
She gives me the side-eye. “You’ve got some explaining to do, Olivia of House Wilkins.”
I groan. “Don’t start.”
As soon as she’s gone, I march over to Kursk and hiss, “Could you maybe not announce your presence to every gossip monger in a ten-mile radius?”
He shrugs. “I do not understand the purpose of this woman.”
“She’s like… a chaos imp. Ignore her. If she sees weakness, she’ll eat your soul.”
Kursk looks thoughtful. “A predator, then. I respect this.”
I sigh and rub my temples. “This day is never going to end.”
He tilts his head. “Your people. They gossip about death, but do not act. Why?”
“Because they don’t know what they’re dealing with. They think it’s drugs. Or wild animals. Or freak accidents.”
“They are blind.”
I nod. “And if they stay that way, more people will die.”
He looks at me for a long beat. “Then we must make them see.”
And somehow… I know we will.
It starts like every argument between a man and a woman who care too much and know too little about each other—loud, fast, and wrapped in too much pride.
“You will remain here,” Kursk growls, already half-laced in his armor, the Spiritslayer spear strapped across his back like it belongs to him more than his own shadow. “This place is not safe for you. The Vorfaluka is stirring. I feel its rot in the trees.”
I slam my travel mug on the kitchen counter. “Yeah, and you know what else I feel? Useless. Sitting around while that thing kills people in my hometown? Not happening.”
His jaw tightens, and I swear I can see veins bulge beneath the illusion glamor. “You are mortal. Breakable.”
“Wow, thanks for the biology lesson, Mr. Ogre-the-Obvious,” I snap. “Look, I’m not trying to play hero here, okay? But you said yourself this thing feeds on fear. And it’s already got a buffet going out there.”
He’s pacing now, muscles twitching beneath his skin like he’s trying not to punch a hole in the wall.
“I have trained my whole life to track and slay such filth. You have not. You carry no weapon.”
“I carry pepper spray and the crushing weight of unresolved trauma. Close enough.”
He actually stops. Blinks. Then, unexpectedly… chuckles.
Just a little. A short, gravelly thing that rumbles in his chest like a purr with a body count.
I cross my arms. “You think that’s funny?”
“No,” he says. “But I think you are. Infuriating. But brave.”
A long pause stretches between us, taut and fraying at the edges. And then, he exhales. Low and defeated.
“Fine. You will accompany me. But stay close. And if something feels wrong… run.”
The forest at night is different.
More alive. More aware. Every step crunches underfoot with a thousand secrets. The moon slices through the canopy like a cold silver blade, casting Kursk in pale light as we move deeper.
“You grew up in this?” I whisper. “All this wild?”
“No,” he says, voice quiet but steady. “I grew up in the Stone Maw Valley. Up past the Riven Peaks. The trees there are taller. Meaner. The wind would steal your breath if you didn’t know how to hold it.”
“That sounds... awful.”
“It was home.”
We keep walking. The deeper we go, the more the silence sinks into my skin. I tug my jacket tighter.
“Tell me something,” I say, mostly to keep from screaming. “What are these Blood Moon Trials you keep mentioning?”
He glances over. “When a youth of the Mountain Tribes comes of age, they must pass the Trials—three nights, three challenges, beneath a crimson moon. Alone. If they survive, they are given their warrior name.”
I arch a brow. “So you weren’t born Kursk the Longstrider?”
“No. I earned it.”
“Dare I ask what the challenge was?”
He grins, feral and fond. “The Long Hunt. I tracked a Razorback boar through an avalanche zone, barefoot, for two days. Killed it with a bone knife I carved myself. Brought back its tusks and roasted its heart.”
“…you know, I spent my eighteenth birthday drinking boxed wine in a dorm bathroom.”
“You also survived the kiss of communion, fought off a Vorfaluka, and smuggled a warrior of the Horde through your town undetected.” He pauses. “Perhaps your Trial is still ongoing.”
That… feels oddly comforting.
A while later, it’s my turn.
“My parents died in a car accident. Three years ago.”
The words fall out of me like loose teeth.
Kursk doesn’t interrupt.
“They were coming back from some ridiculous library convention in Syracuse. Snowstorm caught them. Semi didn’t stop in time.”
I shake my head. “I’d just started a new job in Boston. Big academic library. All chrome and digitization. But when I got the call, I just… I didn’t want to be there anymore. I came back here.”
“Because it is your home.”
“No,” I murmur. “Because it’s theirs.”
He nods, slowly. “We do not bury our dead beneath stone. We burn them on mountaintops. But the pain is the same.”
Our eyes meet in the dark. No more jokes. Just shared ache.
That’s when it happens.
A sudden rustle. A screech.
The underbrush explodes.
A raccoon—at least, it was a raccoon once—bursts from the trees. Its body is bloated, patchy, twitching like it’s possessed. Eyes glowing green-white like acid in the dark. Jaws unhinged far too wide.
I scream.
Kursk is faster.
One fluid motion—spear in hand, pivot, thunk—he skewers the beast against a pine trunk. It lets out a sound like nails on glass and crumples into a heap of twitching fur and blackened ichor.
The stench hits like a wall.
Kursk kneels beside it, frowning.
“The Vorfaluka has left its mark,” he growls. “It is nesting. Seeding corruption. This creature was twisted. Not killed. This is… new.”
I clutch my jacket tighter. “You mean it’s making more of itself?”
“Or testing what it can control.”
A long silence.
I feel his hand on my shoulder. Gentle. Too gentle for a warrior.
“You are trembling.”
“I’m fine.”
“You lie badly.”
I look up. He’s closer than I realized. His breath is warm on my cheek. The forest fades away. The fear, the death, the twisted raccoon… it all goes distant.
Our faces are inches apart.
“You shouldn’t—” I begin.
He doesn’t finish whatever he was about to say.
Neither do I.
The moment stretches. Breathless.
CRACK.
A branch falls from above, smashing between us like the universe cockblocking us on purpose.
We both jump back, startled, weapons half-raised before we realize what it is.
I exhale, shaking. “The forest doesn’t want us making out either, huh?”
Kursk growls at the sky. “Even the trees conspire.”
We laugh. It’s the only thing that makes sense right now.
But when we look at each other again… the moment isn’t gone. Just waiting.
Somewhere deeper.