Page 39 of The Fall of the Orc

“You are yet… sure of this, Aulis,” Olarr’s low voice finally said, slicing into the heavy darkness. “Should you wish to turn around, I could —”

“No,” Gerrard snapped back, as something dark and bitter surged in his chest, almost too powerful to be borne. “I’m not leaving my men to this, and you damn well know it. You” — his voice cracked — “youknewit, the entire fucking time.”

Olarr’s breaths were heaving louder, but he didn’t reply, and Gerrard’s mouth made a harsh, frustrated sound, much like a growl. “And I was so damned close to getting them out of here,” he continued, harder. “So close to getting rid of Livermore for good. Enough that I was even back there worrying aboutleavingyou, worrying about how I would keep seeing you — and meanwhile, you were lying to me, again and again. Pretending to want to see me, and spar with me, while training me up to fight your battles. To face my owndeath.”

A choked laugh grated from his mouth, ringing through the trees, while beside him, Olarr was rubbing at his face, his eyes. “I ken you do not wish to hear me, Aulis,” he croaked, “but I have never wished for your death. I have done my utmost to help you, and strengthen you, and keep you alive. You are — mymate.”

Gerrard laughed again, shook his head so hard it hurt. “Oh, fuck off with that, Olarr,” he hissed. “I am not. Harja was your mate. The one you really loved, the one whose death you’re avenging with all this. I’m just — just like your axe. A tool you use and sharpen and keep nearby, until you break it, use it up, and find another one.”

But now that was Olarr’s laugh, or maybe a sob, grating out harsh between them. “No, warrior,” he insisted. “My axe is part of me. It grants me strength, and bravery, and keeps me safe from my enemies. It defends those I care for most. And ach, I sharpen it, polish it, spar with it, and care for it as well as I can. For I should be lost —lost— without it.”

Gerrard grimaced and shook his head — so maybe that had been a rubbish comparison, but his point still stood — until a hand, Olarr’s hand, grasped his arm, yanked him to a stop. “You are — so much more to me, Aulis,” he said, his eyes bright and miserable in the moonlight. “You have become part of me, and I have never —never— longed for another, as I have longed for you. And ach, I ken I did not swear the vows of matehood to you, as I ought” — his still-reddened throat convulsed — “but I yet marked you. I granted you my mating-bite. I covered you with my scent and my seed, and touched no other. I even took you beneath the moon, face to face, upon the goddess’ altar, as is her wish.”

That caught Gerrard short for a moment — did Olarr mean that night he’d spread the fur on the stone, and afterwards they’d sat together in the moonlight, and talked about their future? About… a son?

“I claimed you in our deepest ways,” Olarr continued, between heavy breaths. “In the ways of the Bautul, and our goddess. I made youmine.”

His voice had deepened, his bottom lip jutting out, the challenge flaring in his eyes. So familiar, and so damned painful, clutching tight in Gerrard’s belly. And somehow he laughed again, shaking his head, clamping his shaky hand against his sword-hilt.

“You don’t get to say that, Olarr,” he countered. “You don’t. You lied to me, the whole time. You didn’t tell me any of this! You didn’t tell meshitabout this so-called ‘claim’ of yours, or what it meant to you — let alone your secrets, or your plans! You put me at risk, you fucked up my goals, you put my men in danger. And” — another bitter laugh in his throat — “you never even once sucked me off, or let me fuck you. This all went one way, Olarr. This all wentyour way! To benefityou!”

But Olarr was still looking like that, shaking his head, his hand squeezing tighter on Gerrard’s arm. “You ken I did this for mygain?” he demanded. “You ken I ever wished to grieve you, or harm you, or see you face my cruelest enemy? You ken I wished to live in such fear for you, praying and praying, with all my strength, for the goddess to spare you? And” — his eyes shimmered, bright with misery and pain — “you ken I wished to go all these moons without knowing your scent upon me? Without evenoncetasting the sweetness of you?”

Gerrard bitterly laughed again, shook his head. “Well, you made your choices, didn’t you?” he said, clipped. “And whatever the hell you say to me, it still doesn’t change what youdid. You lied to me. You hurt me. You put me and my men at risk. Youneversaw me as your equal, even when you pretended you did. And you didn’t go there in bed, not even close, notonce—”

When without warning, Olarr... sank downwards. Sank to his knees before Gerrard, his molten eyes held to Gerrard’s face, as his hands clutched for — Gerrard’s trousers. Fumbling at them, yanking the front fall down…and suddenly revealing Gerrard’s groin, his slack dangling cock. Exposing him to the cool air, the white light of the watching moon.

And curse him, but Gerrard — didn’t move. Didn’t protest. Just stood there, staring, breathing hard, as Olarr leaned forward, and… inhaled. Inhaled, slow and deep and reverent, the way he’d done so, so many times. But he’d never gone further than that, he’d never, he’d never —

Touched Gerrard there, with his lips. Kissed him. Tasted him, that hot slick tongue already slipping eager against his slit, and… seeking. As if… as if…

“The hell, Olarr!” Gerrard gasped, as he lurched backwards, far too late — but damn it, he was half-hard now, and Olarr was still just kneeling there before him. Gazing at him with those shimmering eyes, as his tongue blatantly swept across his lips.

“It’s — too risky,” Gerrard choked, even as he winced at the sound of the words, coming from his mouth. “Slagvor will smell it, and he’ll —”

But Olarr just kept looking at him like that, with too much meaning, too much grief, in his watching eyes. “I told you, Aulis,” he whispered. “My fate is entwined with yours, and always has been, since that first day I touched you. The moment Slagvor scents you, I have met my own doom, ach?”

His voice sounded steady, curiously calm, as if he’d been awaiting this, expecting this, as if he’d known it all along. And for perhaps the first time, blinking down at Olarr’s upturned face, Gerrard fully considered how Olarr… had done that. He’d marked Gerrard as his own, and thus he’d marked himself, too. And had it been some kind of fucked-up double suicide mission, or had it been… had it been…

“I never wished for you to face,” Olarr continued, between heaving breaths, “aught that might come, without me. Never wished to ask you to bear what I would not bear alongside you. And I have prayed each night and each day that this would not come, this fate would not find us. That the goddess would see us, and keep us safe.”

But she wasn’t, she hadn’t, and now they were doing this, walking straight toward Slagvor, toward their doom. And Olarr was still on his knees, still looking at Gerrard with such agony, such adoration, in his eyes. As his big hand reached forward, found Gerrard’s hip, drew him closer again…

And then sucked him deep. Swallowed Gerrard’s ever-hardening length all the way down, enclosing it in his hot mouth, his tight throat. As that slick, clever tongue flicked and twirled at his too-sensitive tip, and Gerrard staggered, gasped, swelled up to full, dizzying hardness in an instant. While that hot sucking mouth easily stretched to accommodate it, to keep him held tight and safe and full, oh, oh —

It was unlike anything, any mouth, any hole, Gerrard had ever felt before — and the moan ripped from his throat on its own, hitching out low and hungry between them. As his hips reflexively bucked forward, gouging himself deeper… and finding only more warmth, more approval. More dark, dizzying pleasure as Olarr moaned too, the sound rumbling all around them, through them, through Gerrard’s very skin, into the swollen pulsing craving beneath.

Olarr’s big hands were here now too, clutching at Gerrard’s hard arse, caressing his full bollocks, drawing him closer. And sucking him even deeper, harder, just on the perfect edge of pain, as that sinuous tongue swirled, and that hot throat audibly bobbed and clenched. Working Gerrard over with frantic, single-minded dedication, with appalling skill, and Gerrard would never forget the sight of it, the feel of it, the visceral obscene sounds of it. The truth of this huge powerful orc salivating on his knees, all but gagging himself with Gerrard’s rigid leaking cock, as if he would never, ever get enough…

Gerrard’s hand had somehow sunk into Olarr’s messy hair, maybe to steady himself on his shaky feet. Or maybe just to see this, to know this, to remember what this finally looked like… or maybe, maybe, to touch him. To caress him. To keep himself from…

“Good, captain,” Gerrard croaked, before he’d even thought it. “Fuck, you’re so good, aren’t you? With such a sweet mouth, and such a deep tight throat?”

Olarr’s groan was utterly unfeigned, the rumble vibrating Gerrard from the inside out, his eyes so wide, so worshipful, on Gerrard’s face. And Gerrard even tilted Olarr’s head back a little, gave himself a better view of the powerful deceitful warrior, working on his knees, with a leaking human cock jammed through his lips, stuck down his throat.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Gerrard gasped, as his own head tilted back, his blinking eyes fixed to the moon. “You’re such a good orc, aren’t you? Such a good Bautul. Just where your goddess wants you, on your knees, sucking out your —”

His voice choked, wrenched, his hips hitching forward, plunging even deeper into that eager glorious heat — and yes, fuck, that was it. His release catching, cresting, and — flying. He was flying, crying out, as the unthinkable euphoria whipped and whirled all through him, emptying him in pulse after screaming, shattering pulse. Pouring him out into Olarr, into Olarr’s mouth, down Olarr’s desperately sucking throat, while Olarr himself moaned and shuddered, his lashes rapidly fluttering, his rapt, moonlit face covered with a sheen of sweat. And Gerrard only distantly noticed that Olarr had also shoved his own trousers downwards, and his own release was spurting around Gerrard’s feet, spattering white and sticky across his leather boots.

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