"What?"
She met his eyes. "Relief. That someone finally thought I was worth fighting for."
Something in his expression shattered and reformed. His grip tightened.
"Finish the stitches," he said roughly. "And then I need to tell you something."
She worked faster after that, feeling somehow steadier than before. The wound was long but clean. When she tied off the final stitch, she sat back on her heels.
"It'll scar," she said.
"Good." His voice was still rough, but heat had crept into it now. A promise that made her pulse quicken. "I want to remember. Every time I see it, I'll remember that you were the reason. That protecting you gave me this mark."
"Ralvar—"
"Let me speak." He caught her hand again, drew her closer until she was kneeling between his spread thighs, his wounded side carefully angled away. "What you just said—that no one thought you were worth fighting for. That ends now. It ended the moment I found you in that hollow."
"It's only been three days." The words came out before she could stop them. "We've known each other for three days, Ralvar."
"I know."
"In Valdara, people court for months. Years, sometimes. They get to know each other's families, their histories, their—" She shook her head. "We've never known each other in peace.We've been running, fighting, hiding. How can you be so certain about any of this?"
He was quiet for a moment, studying her face.
"In your kingdom," he said slowly, "how do people know they've found the right one? After months of courting. After years."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. "I... they just know, I suppose. Eventually."
"How?"
"I don't—" She faltered. She'd never been courted, but she'd watched others go through the motions. "They feel it. They feelrighttogether. Safe. Like they belong."
"And you think time creates that feeling?"
"Doesn't it?"
His thumb traced circles on her palm. "Or does it just take time for humans to trust what they already feel? To let themselves believe it?"
Delia went still.
"From the moment I scented you in that hollow," Ralvar continued, "my blood knew. Not my mind. That was suspicious, trained by years of human betrayal. But something deeper than thought looked at you and saidher, she's the one, protect her, keep her, never let her go." His grip tightened. "Three days. A hundred days. A thousand. The feeling would be the same. The certainty would be the same. Time doesn't create the pull, Delia. It just gives you permission to stop fighting it."
Her heart was pounding. "That's—orcs are different. You have the pull. Humans don't—"
"Don't you?"
The question hung in the air between them.
She thought about the hollow. About terror so complete she couldn't breathe. And then a monster kneeling before her, making himself small, offering safety. She thought about being carried through the dark, about warmth she'd never known, about the way her whole body had relaxed against his chest like it recognized him.
She thought about watching him weep for his lost warriors, and how she had touched his face without thought, without decision. How natural it had felt to hold him. Howright.
She thought about the cave. About giving herself to him completely, without reservation, without the hesitation that should have come from three days instead of three years.
"I..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "I feel it. Something. When I'm with you, I feel—" She struggled for words. "Like I've been cold my whole life and didn't know it until I found warmth."
His eyes blazed. "Yes.Yes.That is the pull. That is what I feel when I look at you, when I scent you, when I touch you. It doesn't care about days or months or proper courtship. It knows what it knows."
