Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
IVALYS
My mother used to make me feel like this. Protected. Cherished. Like I mattered not for what I could do, but simply because I existed. When she died, I thought I’d never feel that way again. I thought that kind of safety was gone from the world—or at least from my world.
But here’s this orc. This monster, by his own admission. And he looks at me like I’m the most precious thing he’s ever seen. He threw himself between me and death without hesitation. He shattered every chain that bound him because I looked at him and saw a man instead of a weapon.
And now he wants to leave. Wants to take himself away because he thinks I deserve better.
No.
The word rises from somewhere primal. Somewhere that’s been waiting since I was nine years old to stop being strong, stop being careful, stop being the one who protects everyone else while no one protects her.
“And I should let you?”
He doesn’t answer.
“You said you loved me.” I let the words hang between us. “In the Hall. You said it out loud. Made me believe it. And now you want to leave because—what? Because you think I’d be better off without you?”
“Because I am not good enough.” His voice cracks. “Because you deserve—”
“Don’t.” I grab his face. Both hands on his jaw, forcing him to look at me.
His skin is rough beneath my palms. Warm.
Real. “Don’t tell me what I deserve. I’ve spent my entire life being told what I should want, what I should be, what’s best for me.
My mother hid me away to protect me. Gror tried to save me by signing a contract that nearly killed us both.
Everyone thinks they know what’s good for me. ”
He doesn’t pull away.
“I’m a truth-speaker, Rathok. I see lies. I see intent. I see the real meaning beneath the words.” I hold his gaze. Let him see the certainty in mine. “You are not a lie. What you feel for me is not a lie. And what I feel for you—”
I stop. Take a breath.
“I was there to collect you.”
“Yes. And you didn’t.” My thumbs trace his cheekbones. “You could have dragged me before the Ledger Master that first night. You didn’t. You gave me time. Helped me search for Gror. Broke your oath, your contract, two centuries of service—for me.”
“You make it sound noble.”
“I make it sound true.” I lean closer. Our foreheads almost touching. “You’re not a good man. You’ve done terrible things. You’ll probably do terrible things again, because that’s who you are—a killer, a fighter, someone who survives at any cost.”
He flinches. Tries to pull back.
I don’t let him.
“But you’re mine.” The words come out fierce. Certain. “You’re mine, and I don’t care about easy. I don’t care about safe. I care about what’s true.”
“Ivalys—”
“I love you.” I say it before I can stop myself. Before fear can choke the words back. The words tear out of me—raw, unpolished, terrifying in their truth. “I love you, and I’m not interested in someone without graveyards in his past. I’m interested in you. All of you. The monster and the man.”
Saying it out loud makes it real. Makes it dangerous. Gror was different—he was already there, already my responsibility. But choosing to love someone new? Opening myself up to that kind of devastation again?
When Mom died, it nearly destroyed me. I was nine years old, and the only person in the world who made me feel safe was gone. I swore I’d never let myself be that exposed again.
But here I am. Vulnerable. Terrified. Saying the words anyway.
Because he’s worth it. Because he makes me feel things I thought I’d forgotten how to feel. Because for the first time since Mom died, I don’t have to carry everything alone.
He goes still. Utterly, completely still—the predator stillness I’ve come to recognize, the motionlessness of something holding itself back by sheer force of will.
“You mean that.”
“I can’t lie. Truth-speaker, remember?”
Something breaks behind his eyes. The wall he’s been holding up, the distance he’s been trying to maintain—it crumbles. His hands find my waist. Pull me closer. Onto his lap, straddling his thighs, my chest pressed against his.
“Say it again.”
I cup his face. Trace my thumbs across his cheekbones, his jaw, the hard line of his mouth. “I love you.”
He kisses me.
Not desperate this time. Not fueled by fear and adrenaline and the certainty of death. Slow. Deliberate. His mouth moves against mine with devastating patience, tasting me, learning me, savoring every moment.
I melt into him. Let my fingers thread through his hair. Let my body press against his, feeling the heat of him through our clothes. His hands span my waist, thumbs tracing circles against my ribs. Gentle. So achingly gentle from hands that have killed more people than I can count.
When he finally pulls back, we’re both breathing hard.
“Not here.” His voice is rough. Strained. “I want—” He stops. Swallows. “I want time. With you. Real time. Not stolen moments between fights.”
? ? ?
We find a room in a building near the healer’s ward. An inn, or what passes for one—clean beds, quiet hallways, a proprietor who asks no questions and accepts coin without comment. The kind of place that exists in every city, catering to those who need privacy.
The room is simple. A bed. A washstand. A window that lets in the afternoon light, painting gold across white sheets. It smells of soap and clean linen. Nothing like the ink and blood and terror of the last few days.
Rathok closes the door behind us. The click of the latch sounds unnaturally loud.
I turn to face him. Watch him cross the room with that predator’s grace, each movement controlled and deliberate. He stops in front of me. Close enough to touch. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his massive frame.
“We don’t have to—”
“I want to.” I reach for the clasps of his ruined armor. “In the catacombs, it was desperate. Fear and adrenaline and not knowing if we’d survive the night. I want—” I fumble with a clasp. His hand covers mine, helping. “I want to choose you. Without fear.”
And I want to let myself be chosen. That’s the part I don’t say out loud.
The part that terrifies me most. In the catacombs, I could pretend it was just physical.
Just need and release and the desperate comfort of another body.
But this—choosing to be here, choosing to be vulnerable with him—this is something else entirely.
This is letting someone take care of me. Letting someone see the parts of myself I’ve kept hidden since childhood. The lonely parts. The scared parts. The parts that have been aching for someone to hold them since I was nine years old and crying in the dark.
His armor falls away. Piece by piece. Revealing the body beneath—scarred, massive, a map of violence written in flesh. The wound where the contract-heart tore free is bandaged, white against green skin. I trace my fingers along the edge of the bandage. Feel him shiver.
“Does it hurt?”
“Everything hurts.” His hands find the laces at my back. Begin working them loose with surprising dexterity. “I don’t care.”
My dress pools at my feet. I’m left in my shift—thin cotton, worn soft from years of use. His hands hover at my shoulders, not quite touching.
“You’re beautiful.”
I laugh. Can’t help it. “I look like I’ve been through a war.”
“You have.” He pulls the shift over my head. Lets it fall. His eyes trace my body—the bruises, the scrapes, the scars, both old and new. “Still beautiful.”
The way he looks at me—like I’m something precious, something worth protecting—makes my throat tight.
He sees more. He sees the woman beneath the armor. The girl who lost her mother too young. The person who’s been so tired for so long.
I reach for his trousers. He helps me strip them away. And then we’re both bare, standing in afternoon sunlight, nothing between us but air and the truth of what we feel.
He lifts me. Easy as breathing, his hands spanning my waist, carrying me to the bed. He lays me down on clean sheets and follows—his weight settling over me, supported on his arms, his face inches from mine.
“Tell me if it’s too much.” His voice is strained. “Tell me if you need me to stop.”
“I will.” I pull his face down to mine. “I won’t.”
He kisses me again. Slow. Thorough. His mouth traces a path from my lips to my jaw, my throat, the hollow between my collarbones.
His tusks graze my skin—a light scrape, sensation without pain.
I arch into him. Let my hands explore the landscape of his back, the ridges of old scars, the places where muscle meets bone.
This is different from the catacombs. That was fire and desperation, claiming each other because we might not live to see morning. This is something else. Something slower. Something sacred.
His mouth finds my breast. I gasp. My fingers dig into his shoulders. He takes his time—tasting, teasing, learning every response. When his hand slides between my thighs, I’m already wet for him.
“Rathok—”
“I know.” His fingers stroke. Explore. Find the places that make me writhe beneath him. “I have you.”
The pleasure builds. Wave after wave, cresting and falling, each peak higher than the last. I cry out when I shatter—his name torn from my throat, my nails raking his back. He holds me through it. Watches my face with something like reverence.
“Again,” I manage, when I can speak. “I want you inside me.”
He positions himself. Waits. Meets my eyes.
“I love you.” The words come rough. Unpolished. “I don’t know how to stop.”
“Then don’t.”
He enters me in one slow, devastating stroke.
I cry out. Wrap my legs around him. Pull him deeper. He groans—a sound that seems torn from somewhere primal, somewhere beyond words. His hips move against mine. Slow at first. Building.
The mark glows. Not burning—glowing. Soft white light that pulses in time with our rhythm. I press my marked hand to his chest, over his heart. Feel it racing beneath my palm.