That knocks some of the breath out of me.
He knows. Not that he agrees with the fear. Not that he thinks I am right. But that he knows it hurts.
His gaze stays fixed on my face. “You are female in a horde. Wife to a king. Mate. Children will be spoken of. Often.” He pauses. “But if you think that is all I see, then I have failed to show you otherwise.”
Failed.
The word lands strangely. I had not expected him to place any of this on himself.
I look at him fully now. This close, I can see the small scar through one brow. The hard line of his jaw. The dark marks on his throat. The steadiness in him. He is still frightening in some ways. Still too large. Too male. Too sure. But right now, none of that is aimed at swallowing me. It is aimed at holding still long enough for me to hear him.
He reaches up, very slowly, and touches one finger beneath my chin.
“I wanted your body before I understood anything else,” he says.
The bluntness sends heat through my face.
He sees it and keeps going anyway.
“That is the truth. My kind knows much through body and scent first.” His finger slides away, but his gaze does not. “But I looked at you in the capital and saw hunger. I saw fear held too tight. I saw a female standing straight when easier things would have bent others. I saw you leave one world for another and not break in the crossing.” His voice lowers. “I see all of that still.”
I cannot speak for a moment.
He adds, quieter now, “If you were only a womb to me, I would not care whether you were frightened.”
That one almost hurts. Because it is so simple. Because it is true.
I blink once too fast and look away despite myself.
His hand does not chase my face this time. It settles instead over one of mine, where it sits clenched in my lap. Huge hand. Warm. Heavy. Careful.
“I do not know how human women need to hear these things yet,” he says after a moment. “But I will learn.”
That may be the softest thing he has said to me since I arrived. It does more damage than the harder things.
I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding. Outside the tent, the camp keeps moving. Voices. Steps. A child shouting somewhere before being hushed. Life is not pausing.
Inside, the quiet changes.
I look down at his hand over mine and then back up at him. “I don’t need lies.”
“Good.”
A weak almost-laugh slips out of me then, despite everything. “You really don’t know how to give those anyway.”
This time, the change in his mouth is more visible. Brief. Small. But there.
“No.”
He rises after that and brings the cut fruit from the tray. Sets it closer. Pushes one of the cups toward me. Small practical things again. Not words alone.
“Eat,” he says.
It should feel like a command. Instead, it feels like care in the only shape he knows.
I take the fruit. And for the first time since the women began speaking around the fire, the tightness in my chest eases enough for me to breathe all the way through it.
Chapter 17
