Page 74 of Her Orc Healer

A pause. Then the sound of Vorgrim retreating down the stairs, boots heavy on the old wood.

Kazrek shifted, pulling away from me with a final brush of his hand against my thigh. He stood, naked in the gray light spilling through the curtains, and for a moment, I just… looked.

Broad shoulders, thick with muscle and marked with old ink. His back was a map of scars and strength, and when he bent to pick up his trousers, the curve of his ass made something low in my stomach tighten all over again. Even the backs of his thighs were powerful—dense and solid, the body of a man built to carry weight. When he straightened and dragged the fabric up over his hips, my breath caught. He wasn’t trying to be seductive—he just was. Every inch of him. The kind of man you didn’t just look at—you felt him. In your bones. In your knees.

He pulled his tunic over his head, the hem catching on the ridge of muscle at his stomach before settling into place.

Kazrek turned then, adjusting the belt at his waist, and caught me staring. His eyes darkened slightly—just a flicker—but he didn’t say a word. Just crossed to me in three long strides.

He leaned down, one hand braced beside my head, the other finding my jaw. His thumb swept gently beneath my cheekbone, and then he kissed me—slow and quiet.

“I’ll wait downstairs,” he said, voice low. "Take your time."

I nodded, heat still pulsing behind my ribs.

He lingered for one more second—like maybe he didn’t want to go, not really—then turned and left, the door clicking softly behind him.

I lay there a moment longer, staring at the low ceiling, the grain of the beams overhead blurred by sleep I hadn’t fully shaken. The scent of skin and sweat and smoke still clung to the blankets, and my body still thrummed with the aftermath of his hands on me.

Then I sat up.

Slowly. Carefully. My muscles ached in places that hadn't been used in far too long, and there was a tender sort of soreness between my legs that made me press my thighs together, just to feel it again.

I pulled the sheet around me and rose slowly, bare feet meeting the cool floor. At the basin by the hearth, I splashed water over my face, then the back of my neck. I tried not to think of the dark stone in my drawer. Or the elf downstairs. Or the way Maeve had said the shadows whispered to her.

But they came anyway, creeping back in like cold around the edges of a closed door.

I wrapped the sheet tighter around my shoulders. The scent of Kazrek was still in the cloth—cedar and ironroot and the faintest trace of the oil he used on his hair. I pressed the sheet tighter to my chest, breathing him in one last time. Then I let it fall.

My dress was draped over the chair, the fabric wrinkled and faintly scented with firelight and mead. I stepped into it slowly, wincing a little as I tugged the bodice back into place. It clung more snugly than I remembered—maybe because of how aware I was now of the places he’d touched. Where his hands had rested. Where his mouth had lingered.

I reached for my shawl, which had fallen across the back of the other chair. It took me a moment to settle it around my shoulders, fingers fumbling with the pin as I tried to fasten it at my collarbone. Modesty, I told myself. But it was more than that. It was armor. The soft, worn kind that didn’t clink or shine, but made me feel held all the same.

When I turned to the mirror above the wash basin, I hesitated.

I looked.

Not long. Not deeply. But enough.

The circles beneath my eyes were still there, but softened somehow. Less sharp. My cheeks held a flush that hadn’t come from embarrassment, and my mouth… by the Alders, my mouth looked kissed. Not swollen. Not bruised. Just softened. Like he’d drawn something out of me I hadn’t realized I’d buried.

I reached up and tucked a stray lock of red hair behind my ear, smoothing it down with damp fingers. The mirror didn’t lie.

I looked like someone who’d been touched. Who’d been wanted.

And more than that—someone who’d let herself want back.

For a second, it rattled me. The woman staring back wasn’t the one who always had a plan, who always kept her shoulders straight and her jaw locked tight.

But maybe… that wasn’t weakness.

Maybe it was just living.

I drew in a breath. Let it out slow. Then turned away from the mirror and crossed to the door.

The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I descended the narrow staircase. The inn was quiet, hushed in that way things get the morning after a long night. Most of the tables had been cleared, though a few mismatched chairs still sat askew, as if the revelers who left them behind hadn’t quite made a clean exit. Low voices murmured from the corner table near the hearth.

Kazrek sat with his back to the fire, its steady warmth casting a faint glow along the curve of his jaw. Vorgrim lounged across from him, mug in hand, his bulk slouched but his eyes sharp. And between them, the elf with silver-marked skin that I saw the night the caravan first rode into town.

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