“Do you feel me, Mabel?” he rumbled, pressing her hand into the hard bulge beneath the layers of wool and undergarments he wore.
Her face flamed. A heavy sort of feeling settled into the pit of her stomach. It was warm and rich and exhilarating.
It was desire in its purest, most intoxicating form.
“I…” Mabel swallowed hard. “I feel you.”
Ignoring her soft sound of protest, he pulled her hand away and set it back on their sleeping mat. Henrik lowered his head to press his lips to the pounding pulse below her jaw. She gasped at that soft touch, the spark of her own magic singing in her veins.
Being bonded was an odd, remarkable sort of thing. She’d never given it much thought, being too young to consider it and then too wrapped up in death to see it in her future. But her body had chosen for her, and what a man it picked.
Henrik, who crossed a battlefield for her. Henrik, who believed his mission was to help her help others. Henrik, who wanted nothing more than to see her thrive.
It was overwhelming at first, and a part of her still struggled to come to grips with it, but after three weeks locked together, sheknewhim. And she liked him. She liked him very, very much.
Whispering into her skin, he told her, “I desire you, my blessing. By all the gods in the sky, I desire you more than I can take. But I’ve made a promise to myself that I won’t touch you until I can give you a proper nest.”
Thoroughly distracted by the way he kissed her neck, it took her moment to catch up.
Blinking rapidly, she gawked at the dark ceiling of their tent. “What? Why would you do that?”
“Because I willnottake my mate for the first time on a floor, or in a tent, or anywhere except the home she is owed.” Henrik skimmed his lips over her jaw to murmur in her ear, “We will stay in the homestead to rest, eat, and fuck until we have our fill of it all.”
“Oh,” she squeaked, toes curling in her thick socks.
His lips curled into a smile against her skin. “And I’ll be sending in my declaration of matehood to the commander of the Iron Chain Forces. No one will drag me back to the fight when I have a mate in my nest.”
Filled with a strange mix of relief, disappointment, and desire, she wrapped her arms around his back. Chest tightening, she asked, “You won’t be arrested, will you? For desertion?”
“No,” he assured her. “Matehood is sacred. If they court-martialed every orc who ran off with a mate, they’d have a revolt on their hands.”
Searching his uncanny eyes, she dared to ask, “We’ll be safe?”
“Yes, my blessing,” he answered, touching his forehead to hers. “We will be safe. And then we will work.”
The homestead was of traditional orcish design, just as he’d explained it to her as they walked for days and days.
But even his vivid descriptions couldn’t prepare her for the loveliness of it.
Snow dusted a sprawling, sloping field and the round structure that made up the turf roof of the main house. Walls of stone only about three feet tall stuck out from the earth, while the rest of the home was buried deep. A short flight of stairs led to a heavy wood door, and a spindly iron chimney stuck out of the turf roof like a broken arm.
Tucked deep into orcish territory, it was miraculously unscarred by the war. To Mabel, the peace of it was almost painful to behold.
Henrik led her down the steps by the hand. He’d boarded up the door during his last mandatory leave period, so he pried them off with his massive, kohl-darkened hands before he unlocked the door with a heavy iron key.
Ushering her inside, he hurriedly explained, “I built this homestead, but when my parents pass, we’ll inherit their ranch in Colorado. It’s much larger and on a good trading road. I figure… well, when we have children, we can give one of them this place.”
Mabel stood silently as he pulled her sugar beet sack off her back and set it on the floor. Her gaze roamed the lovingly decorated space, taking in the tapestries on the walls and the hand-carved furniture. The air was slightly musty, but the temperature was startlingly comfortable. It felt more like a home than anywhere she’d been in… years.
Henrik was all movement and nervous energy. He dropped his own pack before running to the iron stove in the middle of the round living room.
“I’ll get the fire going to heat up some water for a bath,” he babbled, shoving kindling into the belly of the stove. Striking a long match against the flagstones, he asked, “Do you like it? The house, I mean. It’s fine if you don’t. I can change whatever you want, and the nest is?—”
Mabel knelt down behind him. Wrapping her arms around his middle, she pressed her face between his shoulder blades. “It’s wonderful,” she whispered. “It’s so, so wonderful.”
Henrik sat back a little on his heels. Covering her hands with one of his, he sighed, “Good. It’s yours now.”
Summoning her courage, she whispered, “I know you’re exhausted, but…”
