But I’m acutely conscious of every movement he makes. Every breath. The way his muscles shift beneath fabric when he moves. The scars that cross his arms and disappear beneath his shirt—old wounds, well-healed, stories written in flesh.
He’s beautiful in the way that predators are beautiful. Dangerous and perfect and absolutely lethal.
He settles on the bed—which I can see through the archway—and the rope supports creak under his weight. But he doesn’t lie down. Just sits on the edge, forearms resting on his knees, staring into the main room.
Watching me.
The weight of his attention presses against my skin. I sense him looking at me, studying me, and it makes my breath catch in ways I absolutely refuse to acknowledge.
“Go to sleep,” I tell him, pulling the fur higher around my shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“The shackles won’t let you.”
“That’s not why I’m staying.”
His head tilts slightly, expression curious. “No?”
I hesitate, then decide on honesty. The events of tonight have stripped away too many pretenses for continued lies. “Someone tried to kill me tonight. Someone who knows this fortress intimately, knows its people, knows exactly how to move without being detected.” I meet his gaze across the shadowy space between us. “Right now, you’re the only person I trust to keep me breathing until morning.”
The admission costs me. Reveals vulnerability I’d rather keep hidden, dependence I hate acknowledging.
But his expression softens almost imperceptibly. Some of the harsh lines around his eyes ease.
“You’re safe here.” There’s a promise in those words. A vow that goes deeper than simple protection.
I close my eyes and try to settle into the chair, but sleep seems impossible. The space is too unfamiliar, too charged with tension. I’m too aware of him in the adjoining room, alert and watchful.
Protecting me.
The thought should feel more like imprisonment than it does.
Hours pass. The fire burns lower, embers glowing red in the darkness. My body finally starts to relax despite the unfamiliar surroundings, exhaustion warring with hyperawareness.
But sleep still won’t come.
Instead, I find myself studying the maps on the table in the dying firelight. The supply routes marked in careful ink. The patrol paths that web through the wilderness. The pattern of recent attacks marked in black.
My seamstress eye for patterns kicks in—the same instinct that lets me see how fabric will fall, how stitches will hold, how pieces fit together to create something whole.
The attacks aren’t random. They follow a design—targeting specific strategic points, cutting particular supply lines, isolating certain defensive positions. Someone is methodically weakening Ironhold’s defenses in preparation for something bigger.
Something that requires the fortress to be vulnerable.
I slip quietly from the chair and move around the table, spreading the maps under the faint glow from the embers. My bare feet make no sound on the thick pelts covering the floor.
Tracing the marked locations with my finger, I see it clearly now. The pattern emerges like a half-finished embroidery revealing its design.
“There,” I whisper to myself, but in the silence it carries.
“What?” Vlorn’s voice comes from the darkness of the adjoining room, alert instantly. No grogginess, no confusion. He went from sleep to full awareness in a heartbeat.
Ready for violence.
I turn. He’s sitting up in bed, already reaching for the sword he keeps beside him. Amber eyes reflect the ember-light like a wolf’s.
“The attacks. They’re not random raids or opportunistic strikes.” I gesture to the map, excitement overriding caution. “Look at the pattern.”
He rises and crosses to the table, moving silently despite his size. When he reaches me, he stands close beside me, close enough that his heat radiates against my side.
