Page 32 of Chained to the Horned God

BARSOK

M onths slip by like rivers through worn stone—quiet, steady, cutting deep.

Kharza is still here. Bent, bruised, blistered by fire and blood, but standing.

The walls rise slow, stone by stone, new mortar sealing old wounds.

The charred bones of the city still whisper in the wind, but there’s laughter now.

Hammers ring louder than gunfire. Children cry louder than battle horns. Life has returned.

The council bickers endlessly about trade routes and crop rotations.

I can’t keep track of half their squabbling, but I stand in anyway, arms folded, glaring until they get to the point.

They’re not nobles, not anymore. Farmers, freedmen, blacksmiths, healers.

People who earned their seats with calloused hands and ash in their lungs. People like us.

The gladiators have taken to construction like it’s a new kind of war.

They carve timber, lay bricks, haul iron beams with the same grit they once poured into combat.

The arena is gone. Razed. Not one stone left stacked.

In its place, homes rise—strong and low and warm with lantern light.

It smells like sawdust, sweat, and spiced stew.

Durk’s got a gang of kids swinging sticks at each other in the north courtyard. He bellows at them like a drillmaster, then slips them sweetroot candies when they land a good hit. They adore him. Even when he’s scowling. Especially when he’s scowling.

Sharonna—gods bless her—opened a tavern with her winnings. Called it “The Last Chain.” It’s half-ruined still, but the ale flows like prophecy, and the laughter there shakes the windows. She says it’s her rebellion. Her temple. I believe her.

Valoa is a storm in the hospital. Her hair always tied back, her sleeves rolled up, her hands covered in salves and blood and ink from the ledgers she refuses to let anyone else manage. She smiles more now. It makes my ribs ache in the best way. When she laughs, I swear the earth leans closer.

Me? I train the new city guard.

No slaves or chains.

Especially, no arenas.

Just volunteers. Just people who want to protect something that matters. I bark orders, teach form, correct posture. I knock them flat when they get cocky. I lift them up when they fall too hard. We’re building more than a force—we’re building pride. Purpose. Unity.

The nights are cooler now. Crisp and clean. The fires that once lit the skyline have been replaced by lanterns, by candles in windows. Sometimes I walk the perimeter just to feel the breeze on my skin, to hear the hum of a city breathing deep and slow.

The mornings come early now. Not with alarms or war cries, but with birdsong and the stretch of golden light crawling through the shutters.

It smells like soil and bread and whatever stew Valoa’s got simmering over the coals.

My body still aches most days, old wounds making themselves known in the bones, but it’s the kind of pain I understand. The kind I welcome.

We argue sometimes. She wants the new road to curve around the southern market; I want it straight through. She says the guards need a lighter touch; I say they need backbone. Sometimes our voices rise. Sometimes doors slam. But we always come back to each other.

Because the laughter is louder.

Because the house we’ve built, brick by damn brick, doesn’t echo with silence. It echoes with joy. With life.

We eat on the porch most nights, plates full of roasted roots and thick bread, steam rising into the twilight. She curls her legs under her, leans on my arm, and talks about planting lemon balm next season. I just nod, chewing slow, watching the way the lantern light gilds her cheekbones.

She sleeps tangled in the sheets, one leg thrown over mine, her breath steady against my chest. Her hair always smells like wild mint and smoke. I hold her like she’ll vanish if I don’t. She never does.

We build together. I handle the frames, the beams, the bones of the place. She fills it with softness—paint, books, linens she barters for at the market. The front door sticks a little when it rains. We leave it that way. It feels real.

The garden is hers.

Outside the house, just past the fence I carved myself, she kneels in the dirt every morning with her fingers buried in earth. She talks to the seedlings like they’re old friends. Tomatoes, squash, herbs I can’t pronounce. She sings while she works. It makes my chest tight.

“This is what I dreamed of,” she said yesterday, brushing dirt from her palms, face lit with sweat and sunlight.

I stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, and looked at her.

So did I.

I don’t carry a weapon anymore.

Just a hammer.

It fits better in my grip now than any axe or blade. The thunk of nails driving into wood, the crack of beams locking into place—that’s the sound of peace to me. That’s the sound of a future.

When people pass by, they nod. Not out of fear. Not out of duty. Just respect.

Kharza is still healing.

So are we.

But the roots are deepening.

The air is thick with warmth and scent—basil crushed beneath our knees, lavender curling up from the edges of the stone path.

The sun spills like molten amber through the leaves overhead, painting everything it touches in slow gold.

The tree she planted last spring, the one that took root against all odds, leans over us like a sentinel, its branches whispering in the late breeze.

Barsok kneels before me, his massive form a silhouette against the falling light.

Seven and a half feet of black-furred power, the silver streak running from his brow to his nose shimmering like a comet’s tail.

His horns curve proud, arcing around a face too noble for the monster some used to call him.

But he’s no monster. Not here. Not to me.

His amber eyes, slitted and dark, lock with mine, and I see it again—that impossible gentleness that never should’ve survived the war. It lives in him still. He cradles it, like he cradles me now.

"You always look at me like I'm a gift you don’t deserve," I murmur, brushing my fingers against the velvet fur of his jaw.

He leans into my touch. “Because you are. I don’t know how I ever held back.”

“You don’t have to now.”

He exhales slowly, nostrils flaring as if tasting the promise in my voice.

One of his hands—broad, four thick fingers and a thumb—rests against my waist. It spans almost the entire width.

The size of him should terrify me. But it doesn’t.

It thrills me. Because I know the strength in him is leashed only for me.

“I want to feel all of you,” I whisper, voice trembling. “No holding back.”

He kisses me then—not soft, not hesitant, but full, hungry. His tongue fills my mouth, tasting, teasing, coaxing every breath from my lungs. His body presses against me, a wall of heat and fur and control barely restrained.

His hands slide beneath my dress, and I gasp when his rough fingers meet bare skin. He growls low in his chest, his cock already hard and pressed against my thigh. Even through the thin fabric of his belt, I can feel the weight of it—thick, long, impossibly hot.

“You’re already soaked,” he murmurs, slipping a finger through the wetness between my thighs. “You want me.”

“I’ve always wanted you,” I breathe, my legs parting on instinct. “Every time I looked at you and didn’t say it—this was what I meant.”

He doesn’t answer. Just lowers his head, licking a slow path from my collarbone to the curve of my breast. His tongue is long and hot, almost rough, but it sends sparks shivering down my spine.

“Say it,” he commands, his breath against my nipple. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want your mouth on my pussy,” I gasp, not hiding the flush in my cheeks. “I want you to taste me.”

A deep rumble of approval vibrates through his chest. He lifts me in one fluid motion and lays me back on the blanket beneath the tree. The grass cradles us, sweet and soft.

And then he’s between my thighs, his massive shoulders parting me like I’m a gift being unwrapped. I watch him, legs trembling, as he lowers his muzzle and drags that long, textured tongue across my folds.

“Gods,” I whimper, arching into his mouth.

He laps at me slowly at first, like he’s savoring a meal. Then deeper—his tongue curling inside me, thick and hot and alive. My back bows. My fingers clutch at the roots of the tree above me. I can’t breathe. I don’t want to.

“More,” I beg, my voice cracking. “Please, Barsok—don’t stop.”

He groans into me, the vibration against my clit sending jolts through my core. I come hard on his tongue, my cry lost in the rustle of leaves and the song of birds silenced by dusk.

He doesn't stop. He drinks down every pulse, every shake of my thighs, until I’m gasping and writhing and begging again.

When he rises, his lips glisten with my slick. His eyes are darker now—almost molten.

“Now,” I whisper, watching him untie the last knot of his belt.

His cock springs free—long, thick, inhuman in shape. Black as shadow, ridged slightly near the base, and veined with silver like lightning frozen in flesh.

I don’t look away. I reach up, wrapping both hands around him, and even then, I can’t take him all. He pulses against my grip.

“You’ll stretch me,” I murmur.

“I’ll go slow,” he says, lowering himself over me. “I’ll make it fit. I’ll make it right. ”

He guides the head to my entrance and pauses. Our eyes meet.

“You’re everything I never dared dream,” he whispers.

“Then take me,” I say, voice shaking. “Make me yours.”

He pushes in.

The stretch is unbearable—perfect. My body fights and welcomes him all at once. Inch by glorious inch, he sinks into me, and I cry out at the fullness, the ache, the right -ness of it.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he growls, hands braced beside my head, muscles trembling.

“You’re so fucking huge ,” I moan, nails clawing at his back. “But I love it. I love how you feel inside me.”

He bottoms out, and we both freeze. For a moment, there’s only breath and heat and the thudding of hearts.

And then he moves.

Slowly at first, then deeper. Harder. Each thrust drives me further into the earth, into the roots, into the sky. My body stretches to accommodate him, each stroke a dance between pain and ecstasy.

Our gasps mingle. He kisses me between thrusts. I sob his name. He says mine like a prayer.

“You were made for me,” he pants. “Your pussy—fuck, Valoa—it’s like it knows me.”

“It does,” I moan. “Every time you move, I feel more alive. Like you’re fucking the broken pieces back into place.”

He groans, thrusts harder, and I scream his name. My orgasm slams into me, tearing sound from my throat. He follows moments later, roaring low, cock twitching as he spills deep inside me, hot and endless.

We collapse together, bodies soaked in sweat and love and everything in between.

The lavender sways. The sun dips low. And in the silence that follows, I know I am his—and he is mine.