Chapter 10 Kursk #2
But even here, in her warmth, my thoughts drift. To home. To the red skies above the Storm Crags. To the sound of the war horns and the scent of oiled leather and burning incense.
To the mountain winds that may never touch my face again.
I shift, uneasy, and she notices. Of course she does.
“Talk to me,” Olivia says, voice low. “What is it?”
I sit up, staring into the dim shadows cast by the lamp near her bed. My spear leans against the far wall. It hums with faint light, but that light is dying. I feel it.
“I am… torn,” I admit. “I came here for vengeance. For duty. I swore on the blood of my brother that I would end the creature. I must. But…”
She waits.
“I do not wish to leave you,” I say, the words sticking like ash in my throat. “Not now. Not after this.”
She sits beside me, sheet drawn around her like a cloak. Her face is unreadable for a long moment.
“Then don’t,” she whispers.
“It is not so simple,” I growl. “The spear. The Veil. They tether me to my world. If I stay too long, I become… stuck. A phantom of neither place.”
“Like the Vorfaluka?”
“Yes,” I say. “But slower. Corruption over time. I would fade. Break.”
She touches my arm. “We’ll find a way. You’re not alone in this.”
The way she says it, like a promise etched in fire.
I want to believe her.
But the road ahead is dark. And even now, I feel the pull of the Veil stretching thinner, the weight of the spear growing heavier in my grip.
Still, for tonight, we have this.
I turn back to her and press my forehead to hers. “Thank you,” I murmur.
“For what?”
“For seeing me. Not just the beast. Or the warrior. Me.”
She cups my face and kisses me softly—nothing wild this time. Nothing desperate. Just something real.
The peace doesn’t last. It never does.
A knock comes, sharp and too eager. Olivia stiffens in my arms. I don’t even have time to pull on a shirt before she’s off the couch and peering through the curtain like the enemy’s breached our outer defenses.
“Shit,” she mutters, spinning to face me. “It’s Peggy.”
The name is familiar. Olivia’s littermate in arms from the knowledge den, the one with the sharp tongue and keener eyes. I step back, instinct guiding my hand to where my spear would be if I hadn’t propped it behind the woodstove. “Do we slay her?”
She blinks, then laughs. “No, Kursk. We don’t slay Peggy. We hide you.”
“From your kin?”
“She’s not my kin. She’s just… Peggy. And she’s drunk. That’s a whole other kind of dangerous.”
The knock comes again, louder this time, followed by a muffled, “Liv! I brought wine and gossip, and you’re not answering your phone, which means either you’re dead or doing something deliciously inappropriate!”
Olivia groans. “Which, of course, I am.”
I frown. “Should I shift? The illusion?”
“Do it. Now.”
I press a thumb to the talisman around my neck, muttering the glyph of veiled skin.
Flesh bends, contracts, reshapes—not truly, but to their eyes, enough.
The green becomes gold, the tusks retreat, the hair darkens into something sleeker.
Still broad, still bare-chested, but human enough to fool the drunk.
Olivia’s already halfway to the door, brushing her hair down, adjusting her shirt like it’ll somehow erase the fact we were moments away from devouring each other. I duck into the shadows of the kitchenette, try to lean casual-like against the counter.
The door swings open with the force of a siege battering ram.
Peggy Sue barrels in like a storm wrapped in perfume and scandal. She’s wearing heels too high for sanity, jeans that defy physics, and a leopard-print jacket that might actually be growling. “LIVVVVVV! Why didn’t you answer my texts, you deceitful little minx?”
“Hi, Peg,” Olivia says with a smile that’s half fond, half cornered animal. “It’s… been a night.”
“Oh, has it? And what’s this I heard about tall, dark, and Norse god lurking around the stacks? Is this him?” Her eyes land on me, and widen like saucers on solstice. “Holy hell, Liv. You didn’t say he was carved out of pure sin.”
I blink. “Greetings.”
She saunters forward, hips swaying like she’s making an entrance on a stage that exists only in her mind. “And who might you be, handsome?”
“Uh,” Olivia jumps in, too quickly, too brightly. “This is… Kurt. From out of town. Way out of town.”
I incline my head. “Kurs—Kurt. Yes.”
Peggy looks me up and down, smirks, and waves the bottle of wine like a weapon. “Well, Kurt, you’re obscenely attractive, half-naked in my best friend’s living room, and smell faintly of bonfire and regret. I’m gonna go ahead and assume you’re trouble.”
“I am a warrior.”
“Oh, I bet you are.”
Olivia makes a sound like she’s trying not to scream or laugh or both. “Peg, maybe this isn’t the best time—”
Peggy plants herself on the couch like she owns it. “You can’t not let me in now. You’ve been ducking me all week. You owe me at least one glass and some serious hot tea. Spill it, librarian. Who is he, where’d you meet him, and does he have a brother?”
I exchange a glance with Olivia. Her eyes say help, but her mouth moves too slow.
I step forward. “I have no brothers remaining.”
Peggy pauses. Her eyes soften just a hair. “Oh… shit. Sorry.”
“No offense taken.”
“Still,” she says, lifting the wine, “I feel it’s my duty as Liv’s best friend to say this: if you hurt her, I will break your kneecaps. And your… spear.”
I blink. “You would shatter my honor-weapon?”
“No,” Olivia groans, face in her hands. “No no no. Don’t take that literally.”
“I wouldn’t dare break your actual… thing,” Peggy grins, winking at Olivia. “It’s just an expression.”
“Ah.” I nod solemnly. “Then I swear it shall remain intact. As will her heart.”
Peggy whistles. “Damn. Where’d you find this guy, Liv? Renaissance Faire? Viking funeral? Hunky ex-convict book club?”
“Peggy—”
“No judgment, babe. Just jealous. If I’d known they made ‘em like this outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’d have been prowling harder.”
I sit carefully, still half-alert, watching Olivia flit around the room pouring wine like she’s praying it will distract her friend. Peggy talks and talks—about work, about town gossip, about a raccoon that broke into her garbage cans and left behind a mutilated Ken doll.
But slowly, I see it—her vigilance easing. Her shoulders untightening. The laughter that bubbles out of her isn’t forced anymore. Even Olivia, caught between horror and hysteria, lets herself breathe.
In this moment, around this strange fire of human absurdity and wine-stained affection, the shadows don’t press in quite so heavy. I don’t forget the vow. I don’t forget the monster. But I remember something else too—why we fight. What we guard.
Her.
Peggy eventually dozes off on the couch, mid-rant about the mayor’s scandalous secret vacation photos. Olivia covers her with a throw blanket, her movements tender.
“She’s gonna wake up thinking this was all a dream,” she whispers, moving to stand beside me.
“Do dreams often involve threats of weapon mutilation?”
“With Peggy? You’d be surprised.”
She smiles at me. I reach for her hand.
For once, there’s no looming threat. No chittering. No blood.
Just laughter. Wine. And her hand in mine.