Chapter 13 Olivia
OLIVIA
It starts with Burnout trying to play "Sweet Home Alabama" on a guitar he probably bought with stolen lunch money.
“You’re off again,” Booger says, smacking the busted amp like it owes him rent. “That’s not even a chord. That’s a war crime.”
“It’s jazz,” Burnout argues, licking Cheeto dust off his fingers. “You just don’t get the nuance.”
I’m sitting on a milk crate near the door of the garage, sipping cold coffee and wondering how I ended up the babysitter for the world’s loudest apocalypse.
Kursk stands just behind me, arms crossed, looking equal parts confused and haunted by what passes for “music” in this timeline.
“I fear your younglings are cursed,” he mutters.
“Nope,” I say. “Just public school.”
Booger cranks the volume on the amp past sanity, and Burnout strums a sludgy, slow 12-bar blues riff so dirty it could peel paint. The amp shrieks in protest, hiccups once—then blasts the sound out like a war horn.
That’s when we hear it.
A roar.
From the woods behind the garage.
Low.
Wounded.
Wrong.
I’m on my feet before I even process it. Kursk already has the spear in hand, eyes narrowing. The Vorfaluka is out there. Close. Watching.
Burnout freezes, one hand still hovering over the strings.
“You heard that, right?” he whispers.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “We all did.”
Then it gets weirder.
The sound of rustling leaves. The groan of twisted limbs. And then—we see it.
In the tree line.
Lurking.
Its dual faces twitching and gibbering in discord. One side grins, skeletal. The other, melts like wax. But it’s not attacking. It’s staggering.
Backing away.
Like it’s… hurt?
Kursk steps forward, spear glowing faintly. “Again,” he commands. “Play it again.”
“What?”
“The riff,” I say. “The thing that just almost broke the garage door off its hinges. Play it.”
Burnout shrugs. “If we die, I’m blaming you.”
He strums.
The same dirty, grimy progression. That soupy riff that sounds like doom had a baby with delta blues and fed it nothing but beer and bad decisions.
The Vorfaluka screams.
High-pitched and furious.
Then it runs.
Just disappears into the woods, its limbs flailing like broken kites.
Dead silence follows.
Booger is the first to speak.
“Okay. What the actual hell just happened?”
Kursk is staring at the amp, brow furrowed, lips moving in quiet reverence. “The rhythm,” he mutters. “It mimics the battle chants. Discordant enough to break the tether. The cadence—it echoes the chant of the Black Crags.”
I blink at him. “Wait… are you saying we just discovered the monster’s weakness?”
“Yes,” he says, slowly, reverently. “Your cursed lightning-box… sings the music of war.”
Burnout throws his hands in the air. “I told you it was jazz!”
Booger’s already scrambling for his phone. “Dude. If we livestream this—”
“No livestreams,” I bark. “This stays in the group.”
Burnout frowns. “Scooby Gang from Hell rules?”
“Exactly,” I say.
Kursk turns to me, eyes gleaming. “This… this could change the tide. We must learn to harness this sound. Weaponize it.”
Booger grins like he’s just been told he gets to fight crime with power chords. “Time to shred the undead.”
“Guys,” I say, heart pounding with adrenaline and the weight of what we just saw, “we might’ve just turned the tide.”
I glance at Kursk.
He’s already looking at me.
At last, fear loosens its grip on my ribs.
We might actually have a shot. The plan is stupid.
Which, to be fair, is how most of my plans start.
“Let me get this straight,” Peggy says, holding her wine glass like it’s a weapon. “You want to weaponize... blues-metal?”
I swirl my own glass, then toss back the last of it. “Yep.”
“To fight... what exactly?”
“An extradimensional, soul-eating, two-faced freak with claws like hedge trimmers and the worst breath this side of a landfill.”
She nods slowly. “Cool, cool. So you’ve just gone full-on batshit.”
I laugh, but it’s the kind that sticks in my throat.
We’re in my cabin, two bottles deep into “wine therapy night,” which has historically been used for things like ex drama and ranking Hemsworths—not discussing plans to exorcise a monster with music and murder.
Kursk is out in the woods again, prepping traps. Booger and Burnout are building an amp fortress in Booger’s mom’s minivan. And me? I’m trying to convince my best friend that the apocalypse is real... and that I need her to help me DJ it.
“I’m serious, Peg,” I say, leaning in. “I know it sounds like a fever dream, but it’s all real. The creature, the spear, the Veil—Kursk is the only thing keeping this town from becoming ground zero for some Lovecraftian hell-beast’s nesting ground.”
She squints at me, then pours herself a little more merlot. “Alright. Let’s say I believe you—which I don’t. Not fully. But let’s say I do. Why the hell would you drag me into it?”
“Because we need someone to handle the town’s audio system during the Fall Festival,” I say. “And you’re the only one who knows how to reroute the PA without alerting Mayor Flanders.”
Peggy blinks. “So your master plan is to sneak cursed battle-chants disguised as blues-metal into the Fall Festival... during line dancing?”
“Exactly.”
She laughs so hard she nearly spills her drink. “You’re lucky I love you, you psychopath.”
The next day, we’re in full prep mode.
Kursk, disguised again with illusion magic, lifts speaker equipment like it's made of styrofoam. Burnout is duct-taping a power strip to a hay bale. Booger’s rigged a smoke machine to the back of a corn dog stand.
Peggy marches up to me, sunglasses on, chewing gum like she’s ready to take over the Pentagon.
“We good?” I ask.
“Oh, we’re better than good. I just ran into Calvin.”
I freeze. “What?”
“He was ‘randomly’ getting coffee across the street. Started ranting about how the town needs to embrace the New World Order or whatever.”
“And?”
She grins. “I slapped him.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You what?”
“Not hard. Just... y’know. Assertively.”
“Oh my god, Peg.”
“I told him I was testing acoustics. Then I walked off.”
“You’re insane.”
“You’re welcome.”
It starts with a whisper.
Runestones etched in old Orcish, glowing faintly like coals in the dark. Kursk lays them one by one along the foundation of Calvin’s sleek, modern monstrosity of an office—corporate chic meets evil lair. I hold the flashlight and try not to hyperventilate.
“Do they have to hum like that?” I whisper, squinting at one that’s vibrating slightly against the tile.
“It means they’re working,” Kursk replies, voice low. “The tether is fraying.”
“Great. Love that for us. You’re sure this won’t, like... explode his Keurig machine?”
“That is... uncertain.”
I smother a laugh, even as adrenaline coils in my stomach.
We finish planting the last of the runes in the sub-basement, just beneath the pulsing lines of Calvin’s Veil reactor. It glows with sickly light—green-gold and wrong—and the spear strapped to Kursk’s back pulses like a living thing.
He stares at it for a long moment. His jaw tightens.
“We should go,” he says.
But neither of us move.
Later, back at the cabin, the silence stretches between us like a bridge waiting to collapse. I sit at the edge of my bed, peeling off muddy boots, trying to process what just happened. What’s still happening.
Kursk moves like he’s still in battle. Every muscle coiled. Every breath calculated.
Until I stand and say, quietly, “Stay.”
His eyes soften.
And then we cross the room like magnets finally giving in.
This kiss isn’t desperate like the first. It isn’t born from fear like the second.
It’s slow.
Warm.
His hands are careful. My breath stutters. We move together like a question being asked—do you want this, too?
I answer by pulling him down to me.
His weight settles over me, not crushing—anchoring. His lips explore mine, then trail across my jaw, down the line of my throat. He tastes me like I’m a battlefield he doesn’t want to conquer—just memorize.
“You’re warm,” I whisper, fingers exploring the hard muscle of his arms.
“You are the fire,” he says softly, voice rough.
I pull at his belt. He lets me, breath hitching.
I undo the ties. His cock springs free—thick, ridged, impossibly hard. My breath catches at the sight of him. He’s huge, dark green with a blunt head and veins running thick along the shaft.
“You’re staring,” he rumbles.
“I’m appreciating.”
He grins, a flash of tusk and mischief.
Then his hand slides down my thigh, lifting it over his hip. His fingers find the wet heat between my legs, sliding through my slick folds. I gasp.
“You’re drenched,” he growls, voice darker now.
“For you,” I breathe.
He leans down and licks my neck, tracing the edge of my collarbone. I shiver beneath him. He pushes two thick fingers inside me—slow, steady. I arch into him, mouth parting on a moan.
“Gods, Kursk—”
“You open for me so sweet,” he murmurs. “Like you were made for my cock.”
His words make me throb.
He curls his fingers, hitting that spot that makes my hips lift off the bed. He kisses me again, tongue stroking deep into my mouth, mimicking what his fingers are doing below.
I clutch at his shoulders, nails dragging down the thick slabs of muscle there. He groans and bites my lip, then moves down my body, kissing his way past my ribs, my navel, until he’s between my thighs.
“You taste like the first rain after drought,” he whispers, then lowers his mouth to my pussy.
The first lick nearly ends me.
His tongue is broad, hot, relentless. He flicks my clit, then sucks it between his lips, moaning low in his throat like he’s feasting.
I buck beneath him, lost in sensation.
His tusks graze my thighs, never hurting—just reminding me who’s there. What he is.
My orc.
“Kursk—please—I need—”
He lifts his head, eyes glowing. “Say it.”
“Fuck me,” I pant. “I want your cock. Now.”
He doesn’t hesitate.
He positions himself at my entrance and presses in.
My pussy stretches around him, the burn sharp, exquisite. He pushes slow, letting me feel every inch of him. It’s too much—and yet, not enough.
“You’re so tight,” he growls. “You grip me like a fist.”
“You’re so fucking big,” I gasp, clinging to him. “Don’t stop—please—just keep—”
He thrusts.
Hard. Deep.
And I break.
My orgasm slams into me, wild and hot. I cry out, shaking, as he keeps fucking me through it.
He doesn’t stop.
He sets a brutal rhythm—deep, punishing, perfect.
I claw at his back. He snarls and kisses me, tongue and teeth and tusks.
“I will never leave you,” he growls against my lips.
“Then stay inside me,” I whisper.
He does.
We move as one, skin slick with sweat, breath tangled. The bed rocks beneath us. The storm outside rises. But in here, in his arms, I am safe.
I feel another orgasm building—fierce, inevitable.
He feels it too.
“I want to feel you come again,” he growls. “I want to feel your pussy milk my cock.”
“Don’t stop—don’t ever stop—”
And I shatter.
I scream his name as I come again, harder than before. My pussy clenches around him, soaking him in my heat.
He roars and follows, spilling deep inside me with a groan that shakes the walls.
We collapse in a tangle of limbs, hearts pounding.
“I’m not afraid anymore,” I whisper, tracing the curve of his shoulder. The ridge of an old scar. He lets me.
“You should be,” he says. “The battle is not won.”
“No,” I say, “but you’re here.”
He doesn’t reply.
But his hand finds mine, and that says enough.
Outside, the wind rages.
But in here—there is only peace. And the slow, aching thrum of something stronger than fear.
Something like love.