AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This, I know with every fiber of my being, every flicker of my soul...
This...is only the beginning.
As I drift towards sleep with Lily in my arms, I let my eyes slip closed...and I dream.
Human and ogre, warlord and warrior, bound together across every border, every barrier.
By love. By fate.
By the promise, infinite and intimate...of forever.
Epilogue: Lily
Six Months Later
The sun's first tentative rays paint the windowsill in hues of gold and blush as I rouse from a sleep grown increasingly fitful. A pang, low in my back, has me shifting with a soft grunt, one hand falling instinctively to the swell of my belly.
Six months gone now, and I've only just begun to feel the true weight of it, the pressure and discomfort warring with the wonder and anticipation. Our child, mine and Grok's, wriggles beneath my palm—an increasingly common occurrence as they grow and thrive, cocooned safe within me.
The sensation never fails to steal my breath, to bring a stinging sheen to my eyes that has little to do with surging hormones. A life, a perfect blending of ogre and human, Bloodclaw and Thornwood...sheltered in the haven of my body, nurtured by the boundless wellspring of our love.
A living symbol of all Grok and I have fought for, the future we've wagered everything to forge. Proof of concept, made flesh and blood. Two hearts bound across every barrier, every border.
Grok stirs at my back, one massive arm tightening around my waist as he nuzzles into the spill of my hair over the pillow. "Lily?" he rumbles, his voice sleep-roughened but shot through with concern. "What is it, my heart? Is the babe keeping you awake again?"
I hum, shifting onto my back to meet his gaze, lambent amber and luminous with tenderness in the nascent light. "Just the usual acrobatics," I assure him, twining my fingers with his where they splay over my rounded stomach. "Our little warrior seems determined to begin training early. Particularly when it comes to bladder strikes."
Grok huffs a laugh, warm breath gusting over my brow as he leans in to nuzzle a kiss there. "That's my fierce little cub," he croons, his tone gone low and liquid with awe, with pride. "Already preparing to take on the world, one kick at a time."
Despite the ungodly hour and the persistent pinch in my pelvis, I find myself grinning like a fool, my heart too full, too fierce, for my chest to contain. Gods, I love this side of my mate—the gentle giant, the doting father-to-be who never fails to make me feel cherished, protected...even as he respects and revels in my own strength, my own warrior's mettle.
"They get it from both of us, I'd wager," I murmur, arching up to brush my lips softly over his. "No offspring of ours could be anything but fierce, blade-bright..."
"And devastatingly alluring," Grok finishes in a growl, the hand not cradling my belly sliding up to cup my breast through the thin silk of my shift. "A menace on the battlefield and in the bedchamber, in equal measure..."
My breath catches, heat and hunger alike kindling low in my core at the raw want, the reverent possession, in his touch, his tone. Even swollen and ungainly with child, waddling more than walking these days...my mate never fails to make me feel like a goddess.
"Grok." His name leaves my lips on a sigh, a plea, as I press into his palm. "My love, as much as I'd like to explore that particular prophecy in more depth..."
"It will have to wait," he finishes ruefully, hand gentling to a soothing stroke even as disappointment clouds his expression, his scent. "I know, Lily-my-love. Duty calls, and we must be about it."
He presses one last kiss to my brow, then the jut of my belly, before rolling from our bed with a leonine stretch. "The summit awaits...and with it, the last, best chance to cement this fragile peace we've brokered."
I watch him move about our chamber, admiring the play of muscle beneath scarred grey skin, the deadly grace and economy of motion even in so domestic a scene. My warlord, my heart...as fierce and fluid in our home as he is on the field of battle.
But my enjoyment of the view is tempered by the weight of his words, the reminder of the momentous task before us. The summit, a year and a day in the making, to bring together the leaders of Agaroth's fractious factions under a banner of truce and tentative accord.
A summit that represents the culmination of all Grok and I have worked towards, the vindication of our belief that there is a better way, a brighter path, than unending war and enmity. That our love, our union, can be a template, a touchstone, for a new era of interspecies cooperation.
Or a tragic folly, doomed to fail and fade in the face of centuries of prejudice and pain, suspicion and strife...
No. I quash the insidious whisper of doubt before it can take root, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and leveraging myself upright with a determined huff. I will not entertain defeatism, not now, not with so much on the line. Not with the future—our child's future—hanging in the balance.
Grok and I have come too far, fought too hard, to surrender to cynicism or despair now. We have allies, advocates, on both sides of the divide—those who have seen the wisdom, the necessity, of putting aside the old hatreds.
It's that conviction, that shared vision, that has sustained us through trials and tribulations too numerous to count over the past year. And it's that conviction that I hold fast to now, a talisman against the fear that tries to burrow beneath my breastbone as I dress for the day ahead.
Grok, no doubt sensing the turn of my thoughts, pauses in the act of buckling his own brigandine to cross to my side. His hands, so large and lethally capable, are infinitely gentle as they settle on my shoulders, turning me to face him.
