“Did Oshara frighten you?”
She blinks at the shift in subject. Then, to my surprise, something like tired honesty touches her face.
“Yes.”
I could laugh at that if the answer were not so reasonable.
“She frightens many.”
This time, a real small smile appears and disappears too quickly for me to do more than feel it straight through the center of my chest.
“She did not reject you,” I say.
Her eyes sharpen a little through the sleep. “It felt like she did.”
“No,” I say. “She takes time before she accepts someone.”
“Will she accept me?”
I look at her for a moment. “If you do not give up.”
Her face changes at that. Not full understanding. But something in the answer makes sense to her.
Good.
It is the best truth I can offer. Oshara will not be won with softness or pleading. She will accept her only if she proves she can stay standing inside the life she entered. The horde will follow the same path.
I can command obedience. I cannot command affection. And forced affection would be worth nothing. I can, however, make clear that disrespect has a cost. That much I have already begun.
She shifts under the furs again, slower this time. Sleep is taking her in pieces now.
I lower myself beside her once more and turn the lamp lower. Not out. Low. Enough that she can wake and still know where she is. Enough that the tent does not feel like a trap built of darkness and unfamiliar scent.
When I settle, she hesitates only one second before allowing the space between us to shorten. Not fully against me. Not trust. Not yet. But close enough that her warmth reaches my side through the blankets.
The permission in that nearly undoes me more than any part of the night before.
I stay still. Another discipline. Not everything my body wants should be taken the moment it appears.
After a while, her breathing evens fully. Real sleep now, not the strained drifting from before. Good. The salve, the food, the heat, the closing of the rite, all of it has finally given her body enough to stop fighting for a few hours.
I lie awake longer. I watch the tent shadows move. Listen to the wind shift beyond the hide. Feel the settling of my own blood around the simple fact of her weight in the bed beside me.
My mate. My tirash.
Even in my own head, the word no longer feels like instinct alone. It feels like recognition. Like truth that would remain even if no one else spoke it aloud.
Tomorrow the camp will see her marked, and the real work will begin. I will teach her, feed her, watch her, and protect her. Make a place for her that is real enough to hold.
I should sleep.
Instead I turn my head slightly and look at her one more time in the low light.
No triumph moves through me then. Nothing like the shallow pride I have seen in other males after taking a female to bed.
What settles in me is quieter. Heavier. Closer to peace than anything I have felt since first scent. Not because I have won something. Because something that was raging inside me has finally found where it belongs.
Chapter 15
