Page 74 of Orc's Veil

“Mine,” he snarls against my throat, his tusks grazing my skin.

“Yours,” I agree, and mean it with every fiber of my transformed being. “And you’re mine.”

“Forever.”

The word breaks us both.

I shatter around him, crying out as pleasure floods through me in waves that seem to go on forever. He follows a moment later, my name on his lips, his body shuddering against mine. The Veil shudders with us—responding to our union, to the power that flows between us when we’re joined like this.

For a long moment, we just breathe. His forehead rests against mine, his body still covering mine, still inside me. I can feel his heart pounding, matching the rhythm of my own.

“That,” he manages finally, “was worth dying for.”

I laugh, still breathless. “We should do it more often, then. The sex part. Not the dying part.”

“Agreed.” He rolls us so I’m lying on top of him, his arms wrapped around my waist, my head on his chest. “We have eternity. I plan to spend most of it naked.”

“Most?”

“Someone has to guard the Veil.” His hand traces lazy patterns on my back. “We can take turns.”

I smile against his skin. This is what I never thought I’d have—this ease, this comfort, this ability to joke and touch and simply be with another person. For eight years, I was alone at the edge of the world, bleeding myself dry for a barrier that never thanked me.

Now I have Varkhul. Now I am the barrier. And somehow, impossibly, I’m happy.

We makelove two more times before sleep finally claims us.

Each time is different. Each time reveals new facets of what we’ve become, new ways our changed bodies respond to each other.

The second time is against the wall, fast and fierce, my legs wrapped around his waist while he drives into me with an intensity that leaves bruises on my thighs.

The third time is gentle—so gentle it makes me cry, his lips brushing tears from my cheeks as he moves inside me with aching tenderness.

Afterward, I lie in his arms and listen to his heartbeat. Steady. Strong. Eternal, now, like mine.

“What are you thinking?”His voice is a rumble beneath my ear.

“That I should feel different.” I trace the moving patterns on his chest with my fingertip. “We’re not human anymore. Not fully. We’re part of the Veil, guardians of the boundary between worlds. I should feel… changed.”

“And you don’t?”

“I feel like myself.” I lift my head to look at him. “Just… more. Like I was wearing armor I didn’t know I had, and now it’s gone.”

He considers this, his hand still stroking my back. “I was a weapon. For twenty years, that’s all I was—pointed at whateverthe order wanted dead and never asking why. I thought that was who I was supposed to be.”

“And now?”

“Now I know the difference between a blade and a choice.” His lips quirk.

“Ones we choose,” he agrees. His hand slides up to cup the back of my neck, pulling me down for a kiss that’s soft and slow and tastes like promises. “I’m not gentle, Eirene. I’m not good. The things I’ve done?—”

“I know what you’ve done.” I silence him with another kiss. “I’ve felt every execution. Lived every death. I know exactly what you are.”

“And you still chose me.”

“Sleep,” he orders, tucking my head back against his chest. “We have eternity to talk. Right now, you need rest.”

“Bossy.”