Soft. Beautiful. The most fragile thing I've seen in years.
He cut the thoughts off.
"—you are injured and cold and alone. And I am offering shelter. Nothing else."
She stared at him. Her shaking hadn't stopped, but her expression had shifted. It was still terrified, but with a thread of something else underneath. Exhaustion, maybe. The kind that made people do desperate things because they'd run out of strength for caution.
"Why?" The question was barely a whisper. "Why would you—"
Because you call to me, and I don't understand it, and I don't trust it, but I cannot walk away from you.
He didn't say that.
"Because no creature should die alone in the cold," he said instead. "Human or orc."
It was true enough. It was also the smallest fragment of what he was feeling, but she didn't need to know that. She didn't need to know that her scent was flooding his senses, that her fear was making his protective impulse in him scream, that everything about her was triggering something primal and unfamiliar.
He'd heard other orcs talk about this. The pull. The bone-deep certainty that came when you found someone who fit against your bones like they'd been carved from the samestone. He'd never experienced it himself. Had assumed, after so many years alone, that he wasn't built for it.
He'd been wrong.
Not now, he told himself firmly.She's terrified. She's freezing. Deal with what matters.
"I have a shelter nearby," he said. "A watchtower. There is a fire, and food, and warm furs. You can rest there until the storm passes and decide what you wish to do next. I will not touch you without your permission. I will not prevent you from leaving when you choose."
She was still staring at him. Still trembling. But she wasn't screaming anymore.
"The men who had me—" She stopped. Swallowed. "They'll look for me. They'll—"
"Then we should not be here when they arrive."
He didn't move. Didn't reach for her, though everything in him was straining to scoop her up into his arms and carry her somewhere safe. She had to choose. She had to come to him willingly, or not at all.
That was the only way this could work.
This.As if there was athis. As if anything could exist between an orc captain and a human runaway beyond a single night's charity.
But the instinct didn't care about logic. The instinct only knew what it wanted.
Her.
Chapter 4
The orc was still kneeling.
This massive creature who could probably tear her apart with his bare hands, who had blood on his knuckles and tusks that gleamed like polished bone in the darkness. He'd lowered himself to the ground like a man trying not to spook a frightened animal, and he was watching her with those strange bright eyes, waiting.
For her.
For her to decide.
The absurdity of it nearly made her laugh. Or sob. She couldn't tell which urge was winning.
"You're shaking."
His voice rumbled through the hollow, low and rough-edged but strangely gentle. Like he was trying to make himself smaller with his words in the same way he'd made himself smaller with his body.
"I know," she managed through chattering teeth. "I c-can't stop."
