"You won't stop until you're warm. And you won't get warm here." He kept his hands exactly where they were. "The watchtower is not far. Perhaps a quarter mile. Can you walk?"
Could she walk?
Her ankle had gone from screaming to a dull, ominous throb somewhere in the last few hours, which probably meant it was worse than she'd thought. She'd felt it swell inside her shoe, felt the terrible pressure of flesh meeting leather with no room to give. She'd been trying very hard not to think about what that meant.
"I don't—" She stopped. Swallowed. "My ankle. I hurt it. When I ran. I don't think I can—"
She gestured vaguely, hating herself for the admission. Hating the weakness in her voice, the way her body had failed heragain, the way she was sitting here telling a monster that she couldn't run from him even if she wanted to.
As if he couldn't already tell.
His expression shifted. She'd expected pleasure, expected the predatory satisfaction of knowing his prey was trapped. But that wasn't what she saw. What she saw looked almost like... concern.
"May I look at it?"
The question was so unexpected that she didn't answer for a moment. He wanted tolookat her ankle? The orc with blood still drying on his hands wanted to examine her injury?
"Why?"
"To know how serious it is." He tilted his head slightly, and the movement made the war-marks on his shoulders catch what little light there was. "If it's broken, carrying you will require more care."
Carryingher.
"You can't—" The protest came out before she could stop it, automatic and instinctive. "I'm too—you can'tcarryme."
He looked at her, those strange amber eyes moving over her face like he was trying to read something written there.
"Why?" The question was simple. Almost curious. Like he genuinely didn't understand.
Delia wanted to scream.
Because I'm too heavy, she wanted to say.Because I'm too much. Because my whole life people have told me I take up too much space, need too much, weigh too much, and you can't possibly—no one could possibly—
But the words stuck in her throat.
She was too tired for shame. That was the truth of it. The cold had leeched everything out of her—the fear, the anger, the energy required to hate herself properly. All that was left was the raw animal need to survive.
And he was offering survival.
"Fine," she heard herself say. The word came out thin and defeated. "Fine. Just—don't drop me."
Amusement flickered across his face. "I won't."
He moved then, slowly, giving her time to track every motion. He rose from his knees in a fluid surge of muscle, and gods, hewastall. He blocked out the darkness behind him. Blocked out everything.
Then he was beside her, crouching again, and his presence was overwhelming in a different way, not just size, butheat. She could feel it radiating off him, impossible warmth in the cold, wet night. Like he was a furnace wrapped in green skin.
"I'm going to lift you now."
His hands hovered near her—one at her back, one beneath her knees—waiting. Not touching. Not until she gave permission.
She didn't know what to do with that. With any of this. With the fact that a creature she'd been taught to fear since childhood was asking her consent before he touched her.
"Okay," she whispered.
His hands slid beneath her.
And then she was rising, the world tilting, her stomach dropping, and she was pressed against a chest that felt like warm stone, cradled in arms that didn't shake, didn't strain, didn't do any of the things she'd expected.
