Page 40 of The Orc's Protection
“Riona,” he says, and my name in his mouth sounds like something he’s been holding for a long time. “I’m—”
“Yes.” I tighten my grip. “Let go, Vraag. Let me have this.”
His release tears through him. His whole body goes rigid, a sound wrenched from somewhere beneath his chest—the warrior’s rumble split open, unguarded, enormous, magnificent. I stay with him through every shudder, reading his body, gentling my grip as he comes back to himself, until he reaches up and wraps his hands around my wrists to still me.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
He pulls me up against his chest and kisses me with devastating thoroughness. When he finally pulls back, his eyes are still dark amber but clearer, more focused.
“Let me take care of us,” he says quietly, and disappears briefly into the bathroom. When he returns with a warm cloth, he tends to me first—cleaning my hands with the same careful, unhurried attention he gives everything that matters to him. There’s an intimacy to it that catches me off guard, more tender somehow than everything that came before.
When he’s done, he settles back beside me, and I tuck myself against his side. He speaks without being asked—describing the mountains of his homeworld, the way light filtered through crystalline peaks, the sound of wind through stone corridors, the taste of water from underground springs. His voice gradually returns to its usual register, the tension easing from his body as he shares memories he rarely voices.
I listen, occasionally asking questions, letting the intimacy shift and deepen. This too is connection, I realize. This sharing of worlds, this bridge we’re building word by word.
Eventually, the hour grows late. I dress quietly while he buttons his shirt—handing me my sweater without being asked, the small domestic ease of it landing somewhere in my chest. Then we’re both upright and clothed, and the evening is ending.
At my door, he cups my face one last time. “Thank you,” he says simply.
“For what?”
“For trusting me. For letting me give you pleasure. For being patient with my need to do this right.” His thumb brushes my cheek. “For wanting me as much as I want you.”
I rise on tiptoe for one last kiss—gentle this time, a promise rather than an ignition.
“Soon,” I whisper against his lips.
“Soon,” he agrees, the word a vow.
After he leaves, I lean against the closed door. Two nights ago, I kissed him for the first time under a sky full of stars. Tonight was this. It's fast. I know it's fast.
I can't make myself regret a single second of it.
Chapter Fourteen
Vraag
The security footage confirms what my instincts have been warning me for days.
The image is grainy but clear enough: a figure moving along the eastern perimeter fence last night at 2:17 a.m. Not wandering. Not careless. They pause at corners and avoid exposure to surveillance cameras with practiced precision. When they reach the kindergarten wing, they linger. A gloved hand finds the window lock—the new mechanism, not the old one—and tests it. Once. Twice. It holds. A pause, long enough to be deliberate, and then they melt back into the trees as headlights pass on the road beyond the school grounds.
This was not vandalism.
This was assessment.
I replay the footage twice more, slowing the frame rate, cataloging movements, angles, timing. The pattern is deliberate. Purposeful. Someone was learning the school. And someone was learning a specific access point.
I close the laptop and sit back, letting the weight of that realization settle. StoneWatch training teaches swift response: contain, escalate, protect. But this is a human institution, governed by procedures that favor caution over speed. Evidence must be reviewed. Reports filed. Jurisdiction clarified.
Delay is built into the system.
I don’t like it.
“Any luck?”
Grulk’s voice cuts into my thoughts. I glance up to find him leaning in the doorway of my “office,” a converted supply closet. His expression is uncharacteristically serious.
“The first thing I did this morning was check the surveillance footage. Someone was on the grounds three nights ago.”
