Chapter 20 #2
Bliss's fingers trace idle patterns across my chest, following the dark lines of my tattoos, and I realize she is not watching the movie at all.
"What are you thinking about?" I ask quietly.
"Your tattoos," she murmurs. "You never actually told me what they mean."
I glance down at the sprawling black ink covering my torso and arms.
"They are traditional Orcish genealogical records and family recipes," I say. "This section maps my maternal grandmother's lineage back six generations. This portion documents her signature bone broth recipe with precise ingredient ratios."
Bliss props herself up on one elbow, staring at me.
"You're telling me these incredibly intimidating tattoos that made my Aunt Susan physically recoil are... soup recipes?"
"And family trees."
"Olog."
"Orcish cultural preservation prioritizes practical knowledge transfer," I explain. "My grandmother was the clan's primary healer. Her recipes were considered sacred medical texts."
Bliss starts laughing again, that bright, unreserved sound that makes my chest feel too tight.
"That's amazing," she says, tracing a particularly complex symbol just below my collarbone. "What's this one?"
"Spiced root vegetable stew. Optimized for winter caloric requirements and immune system support."
"And this?" She touches a jagged line running down my ribs.
"My uncle's combat record. He killed a cave bear with his bare hands during the winter of seventy-three."
"Okay, that one's actually scary."
"He was protecting the clan's food stores. It was tactically necessary."
She shakes her head, smiling, and settles back against me.
"Your family sounds incredible."
"They are loud, chaotic, and have no concept of personal boundaries," I reply. "You will meet them at the winter solstice gathering. I have already prepared a detailed briefing document."
"Of course you have."
Her phone rings, the sound cutting through the comfortable silence like an alarm.
She groans, long and deep, reaching for it on the coffee table. The movement dislodges her from her relaxed position against me, and I feel the exact moment she sees the caller ID because her entire body goes rigid. Every soft, loose line of her posture snaps taut like someone pulled a cord.
"It's my mother."
The words come out flat. Resigned.
I sit up slightly, every muscle in my torso tightening in automatic response. My hand stays on her hip, but my focus sharpens, narrows. Combat awareness flooding my system.
Bliss stares at the screen for three more rings, her thumb hovering over the accept button.
I can see her weighing it. Calculating.
Then she swipes to accept.
"Hi, Mom." Her voice shifts instantly, takes on that bright, hollow cheerfulness I have learned to despise. The customer service voice. The performance voice.
I cannot hear the other side of the conversation, but I do not need to. I can read Bliss's body language with perfect clarity, can catalogue every micro-expression, every tell.
Her shoulders tighten, rising half an inch.
Her jaw clenches, the muscle jumping beneath her skin.
Her free hand, resting against me, curls slowly into a fist, gathering a handful of my shirt.
I stay very still.
"I'm aware the holidays are coming up," she says, her voice carefully neutral. "Yes. I remember the gala."
A pause.
"Actually, I'm not sure I'm going to make it this year. I have plans with Olog's family."
Another pause, longer this time.
Her mother's voice rises enough that I catch fragments through the speaker, tinny and sharp.
Family obligation. Embarrassing. Unacceptable.
Bliss closes her eyes.
"Mom, I'm twenty-eight years old. I'm allowed to spend the holidays however I want."
More shrill commentary from the phone.
Her fist tightens against me.
Her face cycles through three separate expressions in the span of four seconds, frustration, resignation, something that looks dangerously close to old grief, and my jaw tightens in response.
The binder has a full section on this.
I wrote it two months ago.
Scenario 14B: Maternal pressure campaign. Recommended response: physical proximity, non-verbal affirmation, tactical de-escalation. Do not intervene unless Bliss explicitly requests extraction.
I had added a footnote.
Exception: if she cries. Then all protocols are suspended.
"No, bringing Olog is not up for discussion," Bliss says, her voice hardening into something that sounds like armour but has cracks running through every syllable. "If he's not welcome, then I'm not coming. It's that simple."
A long, tense silence.
I can hear her mother breathing.
Then her mother says something in a low, deliberate voice that I cannot entirely make out, but I catch enough of it—your father's money, the trust, don't be naive, Bliss—and every drop of colour leaves Bliss's face like a tide going out.
Her lips part.
"That's not fair," she whispers.
Her voice has gone very small. The armour isn't cracked anymore. It's gone entirely. She sounds exactly like the woman who climbed into a rideshare with a fake binder and a desperate plan and whispered please just make them think I'm okay before we'd even reached the motorway.
I take the phone from her hand.
Bliss's mother sputters.
"Bliss will attend your holiday gala if and when she chooses to do so," I continue. "However, any further attempts to manipulate her attendance through emotional coercion or threats to her inheritance will be considered a direct hostile action. Do I make myself clear?"
"You have no right—"
"I have every right. Bliss is my mate. Her well-being is my primary operational concern. If you wish to maintain a relationship with your daughter, I strongly recommend reevaluating your tactical approach."
I end the call.
The phone sits in my palm for precisely two seconds before I set it on the coffee table with the careful, deliberate restraint of a man choosing not to shatter it.
Bliss is staring at me.
Her eyes are very wide. Her mouth is open. The colour has not entirely returned to her face, but something new is moving in beneath the shock, something bright and disbelieving and, unless my emotional intelligence training is failing me catastrophically, deeply moved.
"Did you just threaten my mother?"
"Yes."
"Oh!"
"She was attempting to weaponize financial leverage to force your compliance." I set my jaw. "The behavior was unacceptable."
She makes a sound I cannot immediately categorise. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sob. Something torn directly down the middle between both.
Then she grabs my face with both hands and kisses me.
Not the soft, sleepy morning kisses from the kitchen counter. Not the fond, amused brushes against my jaw she deploys when I say something she finds endearingly unhinged.
This is something rawer. Something with teeth in it.
Her fingers curl against my jaw, dragging me down to her, and she kisses me like she is trying to communicate something that does not have words yet, like the feeling arrived before the language did, and she is bridging the gap with her mouth pressed hard against mine.
I respond immediately.
My hands find her hips, her waist, the bare backs of her thighs where my shirt has ridden up, and I pull her in one smooth movement directly into my lap so she is straddling me, her knees bracketing my thighs, her body warm and soft and already pressing close in ways that make my entire tactical framework begin to collapse in an orderly but rapid fashion.
"You're perfect," she says against my mouth. The words land unsteady, slightly breathless, fractured in a way that tells me she means it in a register well below the performative. "Absolutely perfect."
"My threat assessment was accurate," I murmur, my palms dragging slowly up the outside of her thighs beneath the hem of the shirt, skin warm and smooth under my hands. "The delivery may have lacked diplomacy."
"Shut up about the delivery." She pulls back just far enough to look at me, her dark eyes wet at the corners, her bottom lip faintly swollen. "She was going to make you feel like nothing. Like you were less than. And you just—" She exhales. "You just didn't let her."
"No."
"Nobody has ever done that before."
Something moves through my chest at that.
Something slow and very heavy and not entirely comfortable, because it requires me to sit with the full weight of what she is telling me, all twenty-eight years of it, the galas and the inheritance leverage and the careful, surgical management of her daughter's affections.
I pull her closer instead of answering.
She comes willingly, her chest against mine, her forehead dropping to my shoulder, and I wrap both arms around her and hold her the way I would hold something I am not willing to lose under any tactical or financial circumstance on record.
Her breath hitches once.
Just once.
Then she tips her chin up and finds my mouth again, and this time the kiss changes register completely.
Slower. Deeper. Her fingers sliding up from my jaw into my hair, curling at the back of my skull, and I feel the deliberate shift in her, the decision she is making somewhere behind her sternum to put down the grief and pick up something else entirely.
I am very willing to assist with that transition.
My hands move under the shirt—my shirt, which she is wearing, a fact my hindbrain registers with enormous and disproportionate satisfaction—palming the bare skin of her waist, her ribs, dragging upward with unhurried purpose until I find the soft, unrestrained weight of her and she makes a sharp, involuntary sound into my mouth that travels directly down my spine.
"Olog," she breathes.
"I have you," I reply, quiet and certain.
She shivers.
I hold her closer, and the afternoon film continues entirely unwatched behind us, the tactically unsound protagonist making another poor decision every seven minutes, completely beneath our notice.
"Your family does not deserve you," I murmur into her hair. "But you are stuck with me now. And I do not tolerate anyone making you feel inadequate. Including your mother."
She pulls back, her eyes bright with unshed tears and fierce affection.
"So what do we do about the gala?"
I consider the tactical options.
"We have three potential courses of action," I say.
"One, we do not attend and establish a clear boundary regarding your family's manipulative behavior.
Two, we attend and I provide highly visible protective support while making it clear you are no longer subject to their criticism.
Three, we attend and I systematically dismantle their toxic social dynamics using carefully deployed Orcish bluntness. "
Bliss blinks.
"I'm sorry, option three is what?"
"Your family operates on passive-aggressive social warfare and performative superiority. They are unprepared for direct confrontation. I can neutralize their attacks efficiently."
She stares at me for a long moment, her expression shifting from cautious hope to something far more dangerous. Far more delighted.
Then she starts grinning, slow and wicked and utterly beautiful.
"Option three," she says decisively, her voice gaining strength with every syllable.
"Definitely option three. I want to watch you verbally annihilate my Aunt Susan's comments about my career choices.
I want you to stare down my cousin Camden when he starts his usual humble-bragging routine.
And I desperately, desperately want to see my mother's face when you refuse to pretend her passive-aggressive nonsense is acceptable social behavior. "
I nod, my strategic mind already shifting into full operational mode, cataloging weaknesses in her family's social defenses and formulating precise countermeasures.
"I will need to update the binder with revised family engagement protocols," I say seriously. "Section Eight will require significant expansion to include tactical verbal responses to common attacks. I should also add a subsection on appropriate Orcish directness levels for various family members."
"Of course you will," she says, and her voice is filled with so much fond exasperation that body goes dangerously warm.
Her phone buzzes against the coffee table, an aggressive vibration that breaks the moment.
She reaches for it, her expression immediately tensing.
A text from her mother.
You will attend the gala, Bliss. This is non-negotiable. We need to discuss your future and your... choices.
Bliss shows me the screen.
I take the phone and type a response.
We will attend. Olog will be wearing his formal clan armor. Please ensure adequate structural support for your ice sculpture. —O.G.
I hit send.
Bliss reads the message and bursts out laughing.
"You're going to give my mother a heart attack."
"Unlikely. Her cardiovascular health is monitored in section twelve of the binder. But I am prepared to provide emergency medical intervention if necessary."
She kisses me again, slower this time, her hands sliding into my hair.
"I can't wait to marry you," she whispers.
My chest goes tight.
"The marriage blade has already been accepted," I rumble. "By Orcish custom, we are already bound."
"Then I guess we need to make it official for the humans too."
I feel my strategic mind immediately engage.
"I will begin researching optimal wedding venues immediately. There are approximately forty-seven location options within a three-hour radius that meet our combined cultural requirements. I will need to assess structural capacity, catering flexibility, and whether they permit ceremonial weaponry."
"Olog."
"Bliss."
She grins, that dangerously mischievous look I have come to recognize as a precursor to deliberate chaos.
"No binder for the wedding planning."
I pause.
Process this.
"That is... tactically inadvisable," I say slowly, my mind already spiraling through the potential organizational catastrophes.
"Without proper documentation, we risk venue booking conflicts, incompatible vendor schedules, and inadequate guest accommodation protocols.
The logistical failure rate increases exponentially without structured planning parameters. "
"No. Binder."
"I could create a digital spreadsheet alternative," I offer, attempting to negotiate. "Cloud-based. Color-coded tabs. Real-time updates. I would even permit you editing access."
"Absolutely not."
I sigh, a deep rumble of reluctant surrender.
"Your operational methodology is deeply chaotic."
"And you love it," she counters, smug and certain.
I pull her closer, wrapping my arms around her waist and pressing my forehead to hers, breathing in jasmine and champagne and everything that has become essential to my existence.
"Yes," I admit quietly, my voice dropping into that raw register I reserve only for her. "I do."
Her phone buzzes again, angry and insistent against the nightstand.
We both ignore it.