"A day. Maybe two." He rose in a fluid motion that shouldn't have been possible for something so large, all that mass moving with a grace that made her think of predators again—lions, wolves, creatures built for hunting. "We have time."
We.
The word snagged in her head, caught there like a thread on a rough nail.
Wehave time. As if they were a unit, a pair, as if her fate had somehow become entangled with his.
Ralvar crossed to his pack and returned with something wrapped in cloth. He set it beside her on the furs—more dried meat, more of the dense bread, a waterskin—then stepped back again, maintaining that careful distance.
"Eat," he said. "And let me look at your injuries."
There was no demand in the words. No command. Just a simple statement of what needed to happen, delivered in a voice that somehow left space for her refusal.
She didn't refuse.
The food was easier this time. She still ate quickly, but without the desperate, animal edge of the night before. Her body had stopped shaking at some point, and the warmth of the fire's embers, the dryness of his tunic against her skin, the solidity of ground beneath her, all conspired to make her feel almost human again.
Almost.
Ralvar waited until she'd finished, then crossed to her side and lowered himself to one knee.
Up close, he was even more massive. His knee was level with her shoulder. His hands, when he lifted them toward her, were easily twice the size of hers, the fingers thick and blunt, the knuckles scarred.
"Your arms first." It wasn't a question, but he still paused, still waited, until she gave him a small nod.
Then he touched her.
His fingers were warm. That was the first thing she noticed—warm against her chilled skin, impossibly gentle as they turned her arm to examine the scratches she'd earned in her flight through the forest. She'd barely felt them at the time, the adrenaline blocking everything out, but now she could see them clearly: thin red lines crisscrossing her forearms where branches had whipped at her, darker scrapes where she'd fallen.
They weren't deep. Nothing serious. But Ralvar examined them like they mattered, turning her arm this way and that.
"These need cleaning."
He reached for his pack, pulling out a small clay pot and a roll of clean cloth. The pot contained some kind of salve—sharp-smelling, herbal, cool when he spread it over her scratches.
Delia watched him work.
She shouldn't have. Should have looked away, focused on the wall, the fire, anything except the massive orc warrior kneeling beside her, his attention fixed on her arms like they were the most important things in the world. But she couldn't stop watching.
His face, in concentration, lost some of its ferocity. The hard lines of his jaw softened slightly. His amber eyes, fixed on her scratches, held something that looked almost like—
Concern.
"Why are you helping me?" The question came out before she could stop it. Too abrupt. Too raw.
Ralvar's hands paused. He didn't look up. "I told you why."
"The pull."
"Yes."
"But—" She struggled to find the words, to articulate the thing that kept snagging in her thoughts. "You said it was instinct. That it just... happens. That you don't choose who you feel it for."
"I didn't choose." His hands resumed their work, wrapping clean cloth around her forearm with precise, efficient movements. "But I chose to act on it. I chose to offer you shelter instead of leaving you to die. Those choices are mine."
"But if you hadn't felt the pull—"
He finished wrapping her arm and sat back slightly, though he didn't rise. "The Mountain Clan does not leave helpless travelers to die in the cold. Regardless of species."
