"You are mine."
The fire crackled. On the bed, Annie whimpered in her sleep, and Mab heard Tibbs murmur something, his arm tightening around the smaller girl without waking.
Mab looked at the knife in her lap. At the door. At the orc sitting against the wall, his eyes on her, unmoving. Then she set the knife down on the floor beside her.
She didn't stand. Her legs still wouldn't cooperate, and she wasn't sure she trusted them anyway. Instead, she crawled. It was only a few feet. Across the carpet, past the edge of the firelight, into the shadow where he waited.
Varek didn't move as she approached. Didn't reach for her, didn't grab, didn't do any of the things she'd braced herself for. He just watched her come to him, and when she was close enough to touch, he lifted one hand and held it open. Palm up. Waiting.
Mab stared at that hand. The knuckles were scarred, the fingers thick as sausages, the palm broad enough to cover half her face. Dried blood still darkened the creases.Redhand.She understood the name now.
She put her hand in his.
His fingers closed around hers. Then he tugged, and she let herself be pulled the rest of the way.
He arranged her like she weighed nothing. One arm hooked under her knees, the other around her back, and then she was in his lap with her shoulder against his chest and her hip pressed to his thigh. The heat of him was staggering. Like sitting too close to a forge, except the forge was breathing and its heart was beating slow and steady against her arm.
His hand came up and gripped her jaw, tilting her face toward his.
"Look at me."
Mab looked. This close, she could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the silver threading through his beard at the chin. The amber of his irises was brighter than she'd realized, catching the firelight like a cat's.
"You're shaking."
"I'm cold."
"You're scared." His thumb pressed into the soft skin beneath her jaw, hard enough that she couldn't look away. "You should be. I'm not a kind man, Mab. I've killed more people than you've scrubbed pots. I'll kill more before I'm done." His other hand found her hip through the wool of her dress and squeezed. "But I won't hurt you."
Mab's breath stuttered. His hand on her hip was enormous, his fingers spanning from the curve of her waist nearly to the top of her thigh.
"You don't know that," she whispered. "You don't know me."
"I know enough." His thumb traced a slow line along her jaw to the corner of her mouth. "The rest comes later."
"But what about now?" Mab asked. "What happens now?"
She meant it broadly. Tomorrow, the next day. The shape of whatever life she'd just crawled toward on her hands and knees.
"Now," Varek said, "we sleep."
Mab blinked. "What?"
"Sleep."
"I—" She shifted in his lap, suddenly aware of every inch of herself pressed against him. The soft swell of her belly against his stomach. The weight of her thighs across his legs. The way her hip dug into the hard muscle beneath her. "You can't be comfortable like this."
"Can't I?"
"I'm—" The word stuck in her throat. She gestured vaguely at herself, at the whole of her body taking up space in his lap. "There's no way."
That amber gaze found hers in the firelight, and his expression changed. Not anger. Not impatience. Closer to confusion, as if she'd spoken in a language he didn't know.
"No way," he repeated.
"I'm heavy." The admission burned coming out. "I know I am. You don't have to pretend."
His hand was still on her hip. Now it tightened, fingers pressing into the soft flesh through her dress.
