"I have men in the corridor."
"Your men."
"My men," he agreed. "Who have orders not to enter this room without my leave." He crossed to the hearth and crouched, feeding wood onto the embers. "You're cold."
It wasn't a question. Mab was shivering and couldn't remember when she'd started.
"The fire burned down."
"I can see that." He didn't look at her. Just arranged the wood with that same unhurried precision, waiting for the flames to catch. "You could have added more."
"I didn't want to move."
"Why?"
Mab's fingers cramped around the knife handle. "Because if I moved, I might miss something. Someone coming for them."
"No one is coming for them." He sat back on his heels, watching the flames lick up through the fresh wood. The firelight caught the war-marks on his neck, turning them into rivers of shadow.
"And me?"
He turned his head then, and the weight of his gaze pinned her to the bedpost.
"For you," he said, "there is only me."
Mab's breath caught. The knife felt suddenly useless in her hands, a child's toy against whatever was coming.
"I don't understand."
"Yes, you do." He rose from the hearth, and the room seemed to shrink around him.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm talking about the way you smell." He crossed the distance between them in two strides and crouched in front of her, close enough that she could feel the heat rolling off his skin. "I'm talking about the fact that I walked into that pantry to clear a room and walked out with my blood telling me you're mine."
Mab pressed herself harder against the bedpost. "That's not—you can't just—"
"I can." He leaned closer, still not touching her but so, so close. "I want you in my bed. I want to know what sounds you make when I put my mouth on you. I want to feel you come apart under my hands."
Mab's face went hot. Her whole body went hot.
"I don't even know your name."
"Varek," he said. "Varek Redhand. Now you know."
Her mouth had gone dry. "And that's supposed to—what? Make this okay?"
"No." His eyes held hers, unblinking. "Your choice makes it okay. I'm telling you what I want. What you do with that is yours."
Mab's heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. "And if I say no?"
He tilted his head, nostrils flaring slightly. "You won't."
"You don't know that."
"I know what I smell." His voice dropped lower, rough as gravel.
Mab's face burned. She wanted to deny it, but her body was betraying her in ways she couldn't hide from a creature who could track scent the way a hound tracked blood.
