"It is what I want more than I have words to say." His hand came up to cup her face, thumb brushing across her cheekbone. "But the choice is yours. It will always be yours."
Delia thought about the outpost waiting over the mountains. About the orcs she'd meet tomorrow, the stares she'd face, the new world she'd need to learn to navigate. About the guards still somewhere behind them, hunting her for a contract signed without her consent.
And she thought about this orc beneath her. The one who had carried her through the dark. Who had told her his worst wound. Who had wept in her arms and then loved her like she was precious.
"I'm staying with you," she said. "Not because I have nowhere else to go. Because there's nowhere else I want to be."
The smile that spread across his face transformed him. Made him look younger. Lighter. Happy in a way she suspected he hadn't been in a long, long time.
"Then stay," he said simply. "Stay with me."
She kissed him again, sealing the promise.
Chapter 15
Dawn came pale and cold through the cave's entrance, painting the stone walls in shades of gray and gold.
Ralvar lay awake, Delia's warmth pressed against his side, her breath soft and even against his chest. She'd fallen asleep with her hand fisted in his tunic—the one he'd pulled back on during the small hours—as if afraid he might disappear. He hadn't slept. Hadn't wanted to.
Every moment with her felt borrowed. Stolen from a world that had spent a lifetime teaching him that good things ended in blood.
But Northwatch was close now. A few hours' travel. By midmorning, she would be under clan protection, and no human contract would be able to touch her.
He allowed himself one more moment. Then he eased himself from beneath her, moving with the silence his training demanded.
She stirred but didn't wake.
He checked the cave entrance first, scanning the forest below. Nothing moved. The birds were singing their dawn chorus, undisturbed. If the guards had tracked them through the night, they'd left no obvious sign.
But they were out there. He could feel it in his bones, the same instinct that had kept him alive through fifteen years of border command. They wouldn't give up. Delia was valuable. Not to them personally, but to whoever had paid for her contract. And they would be punished if they returned empty-handed.
He coaxed the fire back to life, added a rabbit he'd snared, and let it cook while he kept watch. The smell of roasting meat eventually drew her from sleep.
"Ralvar?"
He turned. She was sitting up, the borrowed tunic slipping off one shoulder, her hair a tangled mess around her face. Even rumpled from sleep, even with shadows under her eyes, she made his chest ache.
"Food," he said, nodding toward the fire. "And then we move. Northwatch is close."
She shifted, and he watched her test her ankle. Her eyebrows rose.
"It feels better." She sounded surprised. "The swelling's down."
"Of course it is." He pulled the meat from the fire, dividing it. "The plants worked."
"You sound offended that I doubted them."
"Mountain Clan remedies do not fail."
She smiled.
Ralvar went still, the meat momentarily forgotten. He studied her face, cataloging every detail of the expression he'd never seen before.
"What?" she asked.
"You're smiling."
"Is that not allowed?"
