She left.
Ralvar pulled a chair close to the bed and sat.
He didn't sleep. Not yet. Not while the afternoon light still slanted through the windows and the distant sounds of Northwatch filtered through the walls. Not while his blood still hummed with the aftermath of nearly losing everything.
But he watched her.
Watched the slow rise and fall of her chest. The flutter of her eyelids as she dreamed. The way her face relaxed by degrees, smoothing into something peaceful.
And somewhere in the quiet afternoon light, watching this impossible woman who had stopped him mid-strike and claimed her freedom with nothing but words, Ralvar Stonefang realized what he'd been circling for days.
He loved her.
Not the urgent pull of blood and instinct, though that was there too. But the deeper kind. The kind that made him want to build her a life where she never had to fight for her worth again. The kind that made her voice cut through his rage like a blade through silk. The kind that made "next time" feel like a promise instead of a threat.
She was safe.
She was his.
She washome.
And for the first time in six years, Ralvar Stonefang allowed himself to believe that he deserved to be happy.
Chapter 26
Delia woke slowly, surfacing through layers of exhaustion like rising from deep water.
The room was dim—evening light, she thought, though time had lost meaning somewhere between the confrontation at the gates and Ralvar carrying her through these doors. She remembered fragments: Thessaly's voice, the soft click of the door closing, the creak of a chair being pulled close.
And his presence. Always his presence, steady as the mountain itself.
She turned her head on the pillow and found him.
He was stretched out beside her with one arm flung across his eyes. His chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of deep sleep. His other hand rested on his stomach, fingers loose and relaxed. He looked younger like this. The tension that lived in his jaw, the watchfulness that never quite left his eyes—all of it softened by sleep.
Carefully, she shifted on the bed. The furs whispered beneath her as she moved, and she held her breath, but his arm stayed draped across his eyes, his breathing unchanged.
Delia rose onto her knees beside him, letting her gaze travel down the length of his body. He'd removed his boots at some point, though he still wore his trousers and tunic. The fabric stretched across the broad expanse of his chest, rising and falling with each breath.
She thought about the first time she'd seen him. The terror that had clawed through her when he'd emerged from the darkness, blood-spattered and enormous and everything the stories had warned about.
She thought about his hands, gentle on her wounds. His voice, low and careful, offering safety when she'd expected death.
She thought about the pull.
Instinct, he'd called it.Biology. Choice.
And she'd chosen him. Again and again, in a hundred small ways and several enormous ones. She'd chosen him in the watchtower when she let him hold her. In the cave when she gave him her body. In the courtyard when she stepped into his path and called his name.
Now she wanted to choose him like this.
She leaned down and pressed her lips to his stomach, just above the waistband of his trousers.
He stirred. A small sound escaped him, and his hand shifted from his eyes, reaching blindly.
"Shh." She breathed the word against his skin, felt the muscles beneath jump at her touch. "Let me."
"Delia—" His voice was rough with sleep, confused. "What—"
