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"Lily." Just my name, rough-edged and resonant, but it's enough to center me, to slow the gallop of my pulse and the whirl of my mind. "Breathe, my little blade. Be here, in this moment, with me."
I obey instinctively, the soothing cadence of his voice, the hypnotic hold of his gaze, acting as a balm, a bolster. Tucking my face into the crook of his corded neck, I inhale deeply of his scent—leather and vetiver, sword oil and the lingering traces of our lovemaking.
Home. Hearth. The harbor I've found within the circle of his arms, the sanctuary of his soul.
"There is nothing we cannot face together," he murmurs into my hair, arms coming up to enfold me as best they can, mindful of the babe between us. "No enemy we cannot overcome, my beloved...so long as we stand united. So long as we hold fast to each other, and to the rightness of our cause."
I burrow deeper into his embrace, absorbing his certainty, his steadfast strength. "I know," I whisper, the words muffled but fierce against his throat. "I know, my heart. It's just..."
I trail off, but he hears the words unspoken, the fears unvoiced. "The stakes have never been higher," he finishes softly, one broad, battle-roughened palm coming to rest over the swell of my stomach. "With more to lose, and thus more to fight for, than ever before."
I nod jerkily, tears threatening as I cover his hand with my own. "I'm scared, Grok," I confess, voice hitching on the bald truth of it. "Gods help me, for all my faith in our cause, our love...I'm terrified of failing. Of all our work, our sacrifices, coming to naught in the face of prejudice and politics."
I swallow hard, meeting his gaze with eyes gone misty. "Of bringing a child into a world still mired in hate and bloodshed, divided by lines of race that even we cannot erase..."
"Oh, Lily. My own, my everything..." Grok's voice is a ragged rasp, his own eyes suspiciously shiny as he cradles my face in tender hands. "You could never fail, never fall short, in this or any endeavor. You are the wisest, bravest, most brilliantly determined female I've ever known...and our child will know a world transformed by that courage."
His lips find my brow, the bridge of my nose, catching the salt of my tears before slanting softly, sweetly, over my own. A reaffirmation, a rededication, imbuing me with his bone-deep belief as he breathes his next words into my skin, my soul:
"We will show them, my love. Our little one, and all of Agaroth. We will show them that peace is possible, that fellowship can flourish, in the places where our paths meet. Where our heritages and histories mingle, not as oil and water...but as the vital hues that make up a radiant whole."
He rests his brow against mine, voice dropping to a fervent whisper. "We will show them that there is another way, a higher road...as we have shown each other, every day since that first fateful meeting on the battlefield. When a human warrior and an ogre warlord looked across the lines of hate and division...and saw a mirror. A mate."
My breath shudders out, tears flowing freely now. But they are good tears, cleansing and cathartic, sluicing away the residue of fear and doubt. Leaving behind only love, luminous and unassailable, and a burgeoning sense of renewed purpose.
Of hope, pure and potent as a prayer.
"Grok," I whisper, my hands coming up to frame his beloved face, tracing the arch of his brow, the blade of his cheek. "My rock, my refuge....what would I do without you? Without your steadfast strength, your unshakeable faith in me, in us?"
"You will never need to find out," he vows, low and intent, eyes flaring molten gold. "I am here, Lily. Here and yours, in this life and whatever waits beyond. To whatever end, no matter the trials or tribulations to come...you will always have me. My blade and my body, my breath and my blood...all that I am, is ever and always at your service. Your shield and your spear, your husband and your mate...just as you are mine."
Emotion swells like a storm surge in my chest, my throat, stealing my voice and stinging my sinuses. But I have no need of words, not now, not when every fiber of my being is alight and attuned to this male, this miracle, who holds my heart, my hopes, in hands that could crush stone to powder.
Slowly, reverently, I rise up on my toes to slant my mouth over his. Pouring all my passion, my boundless wonder and deathless devotion, into the press of my lips, the swipe of my tongue along the seam of his own.
He groans, sinking into the kiss, one hand fisting in my hair, the other splaying wide and worshipful over the swell of our child, nestled safe within me. I can feel the shudder that ripples through him as the babe chooses that moment to tumble, an exuberant kick against their father's palm...and it undo me, ignites me like tinder to flame.
Need, sharp and sweet and sustaining as breath, surges through my veins, narrowing the world to the slide of skin and the hitch of heated breath. To the slick, seeking tangle of tongues and the eager arch of my aching body into Grok's bulk, his strength.
"Lily," he rasps, tearing his mouth from mine to blaze a trail of nipping kisses down the column of my throat. "Gods, Lily, I want...I need..."
"Yes," I hiss, hands scrabbling at his brigandine, fumbling with the fastenings in my haste to feel him, all of him. "Yes, Grok, please...love me, my own. Make me yours again, remind me of all that we are, all that we can conquer, so long as we come together..."
A snarl, low and luscious, vibrates against my clavicle, followed by the delicious sting of his teeth. "Mine," he growls, the word dark and drugging, a claiming and a covenant. "Always, forever...mine."
Cloth and leather tear like gossamer beneath his claws, the primal power of his need, baring me to his avid gaze and the cool kiss of dawn air. I keen at the first brush of battle-roughened hands over sensitive skin, curves and swells made lush and heavy with impending motherhood.
"Beautiful," Grok rumbles, eyes roaming me like a physical caress, savoring and covetous. "So bloody beautiful like this, my Lily...swollen with our child, flushed and glowing with the force of my want, my seed..."
I arch wantonly into his touch, head tipping back on a throaty moan as he palms my breasts, thumbs whispering over the peaks, the dusky areolas pebbled and puckered with arousal. "Yes," I rasp, pushing into those devastating hands, that devastating praise. "Yes, Grok, always...I am ever and always yours. Your woman, your warrior, the vessel for your seed, proof of your virility..."
A growl, guttural and glorious, and then Grok is lifting me as if I weigh no more than a petal. Laying me out on our bed like an offering, a sacrament, and following me down with a predator's preternatural grace.
His mouth blazes a scorching path along my jaw, my shoulders, pausing to lathe and lave each aching nipple before trailing lower. Over the swell of my belly, pausing to press reverent kisses to the taut skin, to whisper words of love and longing to the babe sheltered beneath.
And then lower still, to the thatch of amber curls at the juncture of my thighs. To the slick, swollen folds of my sex, already so wet, so wanting, clenching on nothing in desperate anticipation.
"Grok," I whimper, alight and agonized, restless hands tangling in his hair, urging and entreating. "My love, my heart, please..."
