Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
AVIORA
Asound rumbles from his chest—half laugh, half something darker.
His fingers work at the laces of my borrowed leather vest, loosening them with a dexterity that surprises me.
The wet leather falls away. Then the shirt beneath, peeled up and over my head until I’m bare from the waist up, my nipples pebbling in the cold air.
He goes still. Just looks at me—chest heaving, hands hovering an inch from my skin, his gaze traveling over me with an intensity that makes me want to squirm.
“Zoric.” His name comes out breathless. Impatient. “Touch me.”
His hands close over my breasts. Rough palms, calloused fingers, and the contrast of his scarred skin against my softness sends a shudder through me. He cups and squeezes, thumbs brushing over my hardened nipples, and the sensation arrows straight to my core.
“Fuck.” The word escapes me on a gasp. His mouth finds my neck—kissing, biting, sucking marks I’ll feel for days—and I arch into him, my hands fisting in his hair. He’s still mostly dressed, his armor and leather between us, and suddenly that feels unbearable.
“Off.” I tug at his straps, his buckles. “I want to feel you.”
He pulls back long enough to shed his armor, his shirt.
Scarred muscle and weathered skin, covered in the history of violence, I want to map with my tongue.
His chest is broad, his stomach ridged, and lower—I follow the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his waistband, see the thick ridge straining against the leather.
My mouth goes dry. My thighs clench.
He catches me looking. His expression changes—vulnerability bleeding through the hunger—and then he’s on me again, his mouth claiming mine as his hands work at the laces of my pants. I return the favor, our fingers tangling and fumbling until finally, finally, we’re skin to skin.
He lifts me. Like I weigh nothing. My back presses against cold stone as my legs wrap around his waist, and the feel of him—hard and hot and pressed right against my center—makes us both groan.
“Aviora.” My name comes out broken. Reverent. He says it like a prayer, like a curse, like something he’s been trying not to say for days. His hips rock forward, sliding his length through my wetness, and pleasure sparks through me.
“Yes.” I pull his mouth back to mine. “Please. Zoric. I need—”
He reaches between us. Positions himself. And then he pushes inside me with one long, slow thrust that steals the breath from my lungs.
I bite down on his shoulder to stifle the cry that tears from my throat.
He fills me completely—stretches me until pleasure blurs into something sharper.
He’s big. I knew he would be. But knowing and feeling are different things, and the reality of him inside me, splitting me open, is overwhelming in the best possible way.
For a moment, neither of us moves. We just breathe. Hold each other. Feel the reality of our impossible survival written in the place where our bodies join.
Then he starts to move.
It’s not gentle. I don’t want gentle. I want the bruising grip of his hands on my hips, the scrape of stone against my back, the way each thrust sends shockwaves through my entire body. He fucks me like he fights—ruthless, relentless, with a single-minded intensity that leaves no room for thought.
“Harder.” The word tears out of me. “Zoric—harder—”
He growls against my throat and obeys. His hips snap forward, driving into me with enough force to shove me up the boulder, and the new angle makes me see stars. I cling to his shoulders, my nails raking down his back, leaving marks that match the ones he’s sucking into my neck.
“So fucking tight.” His voice is ragged. “You feel—gods, Aviora—”
I can feel every inch of him. The thick drag of his cock against my inner walls. The way he hits a spot deep inside me that makes my legs tremble. The pressure building low in my belly, coiling tighter with every thrust.
His mouth finds my breast. Closes over my nipple. Sucks hard enough to make me cry out, my hips bucking against his, desperate for more friction. He switches to the other breast, teeth grazing sensitive flesh, and I’m making sounds I’d be embarrassed by if I could think clearly enough to care.
“Aviora.” His growl vibrates against my skin. “Look at me.”
I force my eyes open. His face is inches from mine, gray-green skin flushed with exertion, his gaze fixed on me with an intensity that steals the air from my lungs.
He’s beautiful in a way I never expected—all hard angles and brutal edges, but underneath, something fierce and wanting and almost vulnerable.
“Stay with me.” He punctuates each word with a thrust that makes my vision blur. “Right here. Right now. Stay.”
His hand slides between us. Finds my clit. Circles it with rough, calloused fingers while he fucks me harder, deeper, and the dual sensation is too much. The pleasure crests—
I shatter.
The release crashes through me—violent and overwhelming, my inner walls clenching around him, pleasure radiating out until I’m shaking with it. I cry out, beyond caring who might hear, and Zoric catches the sound with his mouth.
He follows me over the edge moments later.
Three more hard thrusts, his rhythm faltering, and then he buries himself to the hilt with a groan that rumbles from deep in his chest. I feel him pulse inside me, feel the heat of his release, and a second wave of pleasure rolls through me at the sensation.
For long seconds, neither of us moves. We stay locked in place, breath mingling, chests heaving, still joined in the most intimate way possible.
The sea whispers against the rocks around us.
The wind cuts cold through our scattered clothes.
And I feel more present in my own skin than I have in years.
“That was necessary.” Zoric’s voice is a rumble against my collarbone. “We’re alive. We should act like it.”
I laugh. It bubbles up from somewhere deep in my chest, surprising me—this genuine, uncalculated sound. “Is that your version of pillow talk?”
“I don’t do pillow talk.” But there’s warmth in his voice. A softness I’ve never heard before. “I do tactical assessments.”
“And what’s your tactical assessment of this situation?”
He pulls back enough to look at me. Really look, the way no one has in years—seeing past the armor of sarcasm, the walls of deflection, all the layers I’ve built to keep people from getting close enough to hurt me.
“My tactical assessment,” he says slowly, “is that I’m in trouble.”
Before I can ask what he means, he sets me down—carefully, steadying me when my legs threaten to buckle—and begins refastening his armor. I retrieve my vest from where it landed, wincing as cold, wet leather meets cold, wet skin.
“We should get back.” He doesn’t sound happy about it. “The keep won’t organize itself.”
“I know.” I finish the last of my laces, run my fingers through hair that’s going to dry in a tangled mess. “Zoric—”
“Later.” He repeats my word from earlier and catches my hand, bringing it to his lips. The gesture is startlingly tender, at odds with the raw intensity of what we just did. “Whatever you’re going to say—save it. Let’s deal with the living first.”
We make our way back along the shore, climbing the treacherous path to Dreadhaven’s walls in silence.
My body aches in ways that have nothing to do with the fight against Oreth.
Every step reminds me of what happened in that alcove, of the way his hands felt on my skin, of the sound he made when he came.
The keep is chaos.
The lower levels are flooded, just as Thorne said—black water lapping at the third-floor landings, carrying debris from the armory and stores.
The Great Hall’s floor is buckled, cracked where water pressure warped the ancient stone.
The ward fires have gone out, leaving everything in the gray pallor of natural light filtering through broken windows.
And everywhere, the evidence of what Oreth’s siege cost us.
Bodies lay out in the courtyard. Arranged with as much dignity as the surviving guards can manage. Some I recognize—faces I saw in battle, names Thorne listed on the beach. Others are strangers to me, people who died before I could learn who they were.
The survivors are watching me.
I notice it gradually, at first attributing the looks to curiosity about the woman who dove into the Wrecktide with their captain. But the longer I stand there, the more I recognize the quality of those stares.
Suspicion. Resentment. The particular calculation of people deciding who to blame for their losses.
“She brought the curse.” The voice is low, but not low enough. A woman I don’t recognize, speaking to Brek near the ruined eastern wall. “Two days ago, the harbor was safe. Then she washes up, and—”
“She helped destroy the curse.” Brek’s response is immediate. “I was there. She threw her coins to save my life.”
“And how many others died because those coins were here at all?” The woman’s voice rises. “Doric. Henna. My brother—” Her voice breaks. “They died because she brought Oreth’s curse to our door.”
I stand frozen, the words hitting like physical blows. Because she’s not wrong. I did bring the curse here. I’ve been bringing it everywhere I go for months, leaving a trail of dead ships and drowned sailors. Dreadhaven is just the latest stop on a journey paved with corpses.
“Enough.” Zoric’s voice cuts through the murmuring. He steps forward, placing himself between me and the gathered survivors. “The curse is broken. Oreth is dead. What happened, happened. We don’t have time for blame—we have work to do.”
The woman who spoke falls silent, but her eyes don’t leave me. I can read her thoughts as clearly as if she’d spoken them.
“Salt Margit.” Zoric turns to the older guard. “The survivors with families on the coast—when’s the next supply run to Saltmere?”
“A few days, if the weather holds.” Margit’s expression is carefully neutral. “Word will spread.”
“Word of what?”
“Everything.” Her gaze flicks to me. “The siege. The curse. The woman who brought it.” A pause. “There’s a bounty on her head. Has been for two years. Some folks here have family who’d be interested in that information.”
The words hit with the force of stones dropped into still water. I knew the bounty existed—Gyla Murker’s price on my head, payment for debts I can never repay. But hearing it spoken aloud, here, surrounded by people who’ve just lost friends and family...
“Then we deal with that when it comes.” Zoric’s voice is hard. “For now, no one leaves Dreadhaven without my permission. We have dead to burn, a keep to rebuild, and wounds to tend. Everything else waits.”
The gathered survivors disperse, returning to the grim work of salvage and recovery. But the looks don’t stop. The whispers don’t fade. And I stand there in the ruins of a fortress that I helped destroy and helped save, knowing that everything I’ve been running from is about to catch up with me.
Zoric’s hand presses against the small of my back. A private touch, hidden from view. “Stay close.”
“Planning to.” I keep my voice light, but something cold is settling in my stomach. “Though I’m starting to think I should have drowned after all.”
“Don’t.” His fingers tighten against my spine. “Don’t even joke about it.”
I look up at him—this massive, scarred, guilt-ridden orc who fought beside me, bled beside me, held me against cold stone while the world fell apart around us. I think about what he said in the alcove.
“Zoric.” I pitch my voice low, for his ears only. “What happens now?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze sweeps the ruined keep, the bodies in the courtyard, the handful of survivors who are all that remain of Dreadhaven’s garrison. When he finally speaks, his voice is rougher than I’ve ever heard it.
“Now we survive. Same as we’ve been doing.” His fingers lace through mine, hidden in the folds of our clothes. “You’re not alone in this. Whatever comes—you’re not alone.”
It should be comforting. It is comforting. But as I stand in the wreckage of a fortress, surrounded by people who blame me for their losses and watched by a man who’s just seen his entire world crumble, I can’t shake the feeling that surviving is about to get a lot harder.
The sea has stopped trying to kill me. But I have a feeling the land is just getting started.