Page 10 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll

DROGATH

R ain shears sideways through the orchard, clawing at the wreaths Tessa’s stapled to every fencepost. Thunder cracks hard enough to rattle my molars. Her silhouette flickers through the downpour—small, stubborn, wrestling a ladder in the mud.

I catch her waist mid-climb, hauling her down with a growl. “They’re rotten vines and glue , Tessa. Let them drown.”

She wrenches free, rain sluicing off her chin. “That one has blackthorn cuttings from Mrs. Quill’s wedding!”

“Quill’s been divorced three times. Let the omen have it.” I snatch the ladder before it topples. Lightning flashes, bleaching the panic in her eyes white.

“That’s not— Drogath, your coat! ”

“Fuck the coat.” I toss the sodden tailored wool into the mud, start yanking wreaths down in bunches. Dryads could’ve woven these and I’d still incinerate every leaf to get her inside faster. She snarls something hot and sylvan about disrespecting nature and swipes at my wrists.

Thunder booms again. Closer.

She slips—I catch her. She kicks the ladder. I crush her wristful of garland against my chest.

“You’ll die for decorative shrubbery?” My bellow barely carries over the storm.

“You’ll play martyr hauling them?” Her knee jabs my thigh. Useless. Adorable. Infuriating.

I fling her over my shoulder. She howls, drenched skirt slapping my hip.

The shop door groans when I kick it. Warmth hits first—clove candles, rosemary oil, her angry panting. I drop her onto the counter with a thud.

“Ass!” She vaults off, curls plastered to her neck like ink. Her boots squelch across the floorboards as she jabs the fireplace. “You’ve ruined half the garlands?—”

“They were ruined the moment the sky pissed on them.”

Her tea kettle slams onto the burner. Steam shrieks. “You don’t get to muscle into my life and start setting priorities for me.”

“Someone has to when you’re playing martyr in a thunderstorm!”

The words hang, raw. I rub the pocket watch through my vest. Her spine stiffens.

“Where is this really coming from?” She whirls, fingers coated in wilting petals. Her voice cracks. “You vanish for years and now you’re policing my shrubbery?”

Lightning flares. The truth lodges in my throat, jagged as broken glass. “Vashnar found out about you.”

Tessa freezes.

The name curdles the air. Vashnar—rival, monster, architect of half the scars hidden under my sleeves.

“He doesn’t touch flowershops,” she whispers.

I laugh, hollow. “He’d raze entire markets to see me bleed. I needed distance. Armor.” My hand flexes, phantom blade-hilt heavy. “If he’d touched you, I’d have scorched the Continent to ash. Would’ve liked it. ”

Her throat bobs. Rain streaks the windows, but her silence is worse.

“You think I’m still that girl who needs saving?” she says softly.

“No.” The word guts me. “I’m the bastard who’s terrified of failing you twice.”

Thunder shakes the rafters. Candels gutter.

Her laugh sounds broken. “You left.”

“You lived.”

Something shatters in her face. Her hands fist my soaked shirt, tugging hard. Our foreheads crash together.

“Say it again.” Her breath hitches.

“I’d burn the world for you.”

She kisses me. Desperate. Feral. Her teeth catch my lip. I lift her onto the countertop, jars of lavender spilling. A flower crate crunches under my boot.

She tastes like rainwater and rage, and the tiny noise she makes when my tusk scrapes her neck could end empires.

Her teeth sink into the meat of my shoulder—sharp reprimand, sharper need. I grip her hips hard enough to leave thumbprints, her soaked skirts hiked around her waist and panties discarded on the floot. Rain lashes the windows as I slide home, my cock stretching her pussy with ease.

"Still want to argue about foliage?" My groan rumbles against her throat.

Her nails carve rivers down my spine. "Just move !"

I do. Slow. Torturous. Dragging out every inch until her curses melt into whimpers. Her walls clench, demanding, but I trap her squirming against the counter. The scent of crushed lavender erupts between us.

"You used to beg sweeter." I bite her earlobe, tongue tracing the curve of her tusk marks.

She arches, breasts pressed to my chest. "You used to demand it harder. "

Laughter rips from me, dark and ragged. I hammer into her, the counter creaking with each thrust. Her head knocks a jar of calendula petals—golden dust snowing across her collarbone. She tastes it when I kiss her, bitter and floral, her moans hot against my tongue.

"Harder—"

" Demanding. " I yank her leg higher, angling deeper. Her gasp fractures into a scream I swallow whole.

She rips my shirt open—buttons ping against copper kettles. Her palms map every scar, every ridge earned in her absence. When her thumb brushes my nipple, I snarl, pinning her wrists above her head.

"Cheat all you want." Her heel digs into my ass, urging me on. "Still won't... outlast me. "

The challenge ignites my blood. I let go, fucking her in earnest now—the wet slap of skin echoing through the shop. Her ankles lock behind me, pulling until every thrust grinds her clit against my pelvis.

"Tessa—"

Her back bows off the counter, curls sticking to her flushed skin. "Don't you dare... stop ..."

My thumb finds her swollen clit, circling rough and fast. She comes with a shattered cry, her cunt milking my cock in ruthless waves.

She clenches around my cock like she’s trying to wring the soul from me. I drive deeper, my calloused palms framing her flushed face. She sucks in a breath as my thumb strokes the damp hollow beneath her earlobe—that spot that always makes her shiver.

Her legs tighten around my waist. A bitten-off moan escapes as I shift angles, the swollen head of my cock dragging over that sweet ridge inside her. The counter groans beneath us, jostling jars of yarrow oil that spill their sharp, peppery scent into the air.

“This—” I pant against her mouth, hips snapping in brutal rhythm, “—isn’t the half of what I’d raze for you.” Her back arches, crushed petals catching in her curls. Lightning flares through the window, gilding the sweat-slick valley between her breasts.

I hoist her off the counter, her startled gasp dissolving into laughter as I carry her toward the worktable. Jars scatter—dried sage, chamomile buds, the acrid tang of valerian root erupting around us. Her thighs tremble when I set her down, her pussy glistening around my cock.

“Quit stalling,” she breathes, hips canted up to take me deeper. Her fingers knot in my beard, tugging hard enough to make my tusks ache. “Or are you as rusty as your diplomacy?”

I snarl, slamming her hips against the edge.

Her cry splinters into gasps, the table shuddering with each thrust. She’s tight, desperate, inner walls fluttering as I grind the base of my cock against her clit.

Her heel digs into my lower back, urging me faster, but I slow—savoring the way her breath hitches, the wildflower flush creeping down her neck.

“Drogath—”

I catch her wrists, pinning them above her head. Her pulse thunders against my palm, a frantic bird caged beneath her skin. “Say it.” My mouth finds the scar on her shoulder—three claw marks from a wolf she wrestled off my flank a lifetime ago.

I release her hands, sweeping an arm under her back to crush her against me. Her breath stutters as I stand, her legs locked around my hips, my cock buried to the hilt. Rain lashes the windows, but her heat drowns out the storm. I walk us toward the hearth, each step jolting her body against mine.

“Slow,” she whispers, lips skimming the notch of my throat.

“Glacial.” I lower us onto the rug, her spine curving into the hearth’s warmth. My hips roll in slow, deep circles, stretching her with every tortuous lift and fall. Her fingers trace the tribal marks along my shoulders, slick with sweat and rainwater.

“Here.” She guides my hand between her legs. “Again. Just— there , yes— Drogath! ”

Her climax crests in waves, her cries muffled against my chest. I swallow her name, thrusting through the convulsions until my own release tears through me—hot and primal and hers. Her teeth sink into my collarbone as I spill, the sharp pain a brand I’ll wear for days.

We lay back sideways, her sweat-damp curls sticking to my chest. Her fingertip traces the edge of my mother’s pocket watch denting her hip. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to. The fire crackles, our ragged breaths syncing as the storm grumbles its retreat outside.

Her palm settles over the scar above my heart. “You’re trembling.”

“You’re lethal.”