“I can’t lie. Truth-speaker, remember?”
Something breaks behind his eyes. The wall he’s been holding up, the distance he’s been trying to maintain—it crumbles. His hands find my waist. Pull me closer. Onto his lap, straddling his thighs, my chest pressed against his.
“Say it again.”
I cup his face. Trace my thumbs across his cheekbones, his jaw, the hard line of his mouth. “I love you.”
He kisses me.
Not desperate this time. Not fueled by fear and adrenaline and the certainty of death. Slow. Deliberate. His mouth movesagainst mine with devastating patience, tasting me, learning me, savoring every moment.
I melt into him. Let my fingers thread through his hair. Let my body press against his, feeling the heat of him through our clothes. His hands span my waist, thumbs tracing circles against my ribs. Gentle. So achingly gentle from hands that have killed more people than I can count.
When he finally pulls back, we’re both breathing hard.
“Not here.” His voice is rough. Strained. “I want—” He stops. Swallows. “I want time. With you. Real time. Not stolen moments between fights.”
∗ ∗ ∗
We find a room in a building near the healer’s ward. An inn, or what passes for one—clean beds, quiet hallways, a proprietor who asks no questions and accepts coin without comment. The kind of place that exists in every city, catering to those who need privacy.
The room is simple. A bed. A washstand. A window that lets in the afternoon light, painting gold across white sheets. It smells of soap and clean linen. Nothing like the ink and blood and terror of the last few days.
Rathok closes the door behind us. The click of the latch sounds unnaturally loud.
I turn to face him. Watch him cross the room with that predator’s grace, each movement controlled and deliberate. He stops in front of me. Close enough to touch. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his massive frame.
“We don’t have to?—”
“I want to.” I reach for the clasps of his ruined armor. “In the catacombs, it was desperate. Fear and adrenaline and notknowing if we’d survive the night. I want—” I fumble with a clasp. His hand covers mine, helping. “I want to choose you. Without fear.”
And I want to let myself be chosen. That’s the part I don’t say out loud. The part that terrifies me most. In the catacombs, I could pretend it was just physical. Just need and release and the desperate comfort of another body. But this—choosing to be here, choosing to be vulnerable with him—this is something else entirely.
This is letting someone take care of me. Letting someone see the parts of myself I’ve kept hidden since childhood. The lonely parts. The scared parts. The parts that have been aching for someone to hold them since I was nine years old and crying in the dark.
His armor falls away. Piece by piece. Revealing the body beneath—scarred, massive, a map of violence written in flesh. The wound where the contract-heart tore free is bandaged, white against green skin. I trace my fingers along the edge of the bandage. Feel him shiver.
“Does it hurt?”
“Everything hurts.” His hands find the laces at my back. Begin working them loose with surprising dexterity. “I don’t care.”
My dress pools at my feet. I’m left in my shift—thin cotton, worn soft from years of use. His hands hover at my shoulders, not quite touching.
“You’re beautiful.”
I laugh. Can’t help it. “I look like I’ve been through a war.”
“You have.” He pulls the shift over my head. Lets it fall. His eyes trace my body—the bruises, the scrapes, the scars, both old and new. “Still beautiful.”
The way he looks at me—like I’m something precious, something worth protecting—makes my throat tight.
He sees more. He sees the woman beneath the armor. The girl who lost her mother too young. The person who’s been so tired for so long.
I reach for his trousers. He helps me strip them away. And then we’re both bare, standing in afternoon sunlight, nothing between us but air and the truth of what we feel.
He lifts me. Easy as breathing, his hands spanning my waist, carrying me to the bed. He lays me down on clean sheets and follows—his weight settling over me, supported on his arms, his face inches from mine.
“Tell me if it’s too much.” His voice is strained. “Tell me if you need me to stop.”
