She was solid in his arms. Real. The weight of her in his lap was grounding and maddening at the same time, and when she shifted just slightly, adjusting her position, he felt the press of her thighs against his hips and had to swallow a sound that would have terrified her.
Control.
The word was a drumbeat in his skull. Decades of discipline. Years of mastering his body, his instincts, his responses. He'd faced down war parties without flinching. Had taken wounds that would have killed lesser warriors and kept fighting. Had buried friends and burned enemies and never once lost his grip on himself.
And now a human woman was kissing him, and he was shaking.
Delia made a small sound against his mouth, and Ralvar's control slipped another notch. His fingers curled into the fabric at her lower back. He could feel the curve of her spine beneath his palm, the softness of her flesh, the way her body yielded against his harder edges.
Mine.
The thought rose unbidden, primal and absolute. He wanted to pull her closer. Wanted to press her down into the furs and learn every inch of her with his hands and mouth and tongue. Wanted to hear her make those sounds louder, wanted todrownin her scent—
He broke the kiss.
It took everything he had. Every shred of training, every year of hard-won discipline. His hands stayed on her back but his mouth pulled away, and he heard himself breathing like he'd just run from the border to the mountains without stopping.
"Ralvar?" Her voice was dazed, her lips swollen from his attention. She looked wrecked. She lookedperfect.
"We need to stop."
He watched confusion flicker across her face, followed by something worse—doubt.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No." He said quickly. "No. You did nothing wrong."
"Then why—"
"Because you are injured, and tired, and have been through more in the last two days than any person should endure."
She stared at him as she processed his words.
"Do not doubt that I want this. I have wanted this since I found you—" He cut himself off, jaw clenching. This was more than he'd meant to say. More than was wise.
But she needed to understand.
"The scent of you is in my blood," he said quietly. "Every breath I take is full of you. When you move, I am aware of it. When you speak, I feel it in my bones. And right now, with you in my lap, smelling of warmth and wanting..." He closed his eyes briefly. "Right now I am holding myself in check through will alone, and that will is not infinite."
Silence stretched between them.
When she spoke again, her voice was less certain. "I've never... I don't know how this works. Any of this. I've never even—" She stopped. A flush crept up her neck. "No one has ever wanted me before. Not like this. Not... at all."
The admission hit him like a blade between the ribs.
He'd known, intellectually, what her life must have been. The fragments she'd shared—the shame, the invisibility, the way she made herself small to survive. But hearing her say it aloud, hearing the raw truth of it in her voice—
"Their blindness," he said, "does not diminish your worth."
"You keep saying things like that."
"Because they are true."
She laughed, but it was a small, broken sound that wasn't really laughter at all. "You've known me for two days. How can you be so certain?"
"Because I see you." His hand came up to cup her face again, tilting it toward the firelight. The flames cast shifting shadows across her features, highlighting the uncertainty in her eyes, the tremble of her lower lip. "And what I see is worthy of far more than you have been given."
Her eyes went bright with tears. Then she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against his chest, and the fight went out of her all at once.
