He could feel her. Not just her location, but her state. The way she'd been uncertain when he left her, then curious, then still. And now—
Varek's hand flattened on the desk.
"—eight casks of wine, though most of it's that Valdaran swill that tastes like vinegar and regret. You want me to—" Drogga stopped. "Varek?"
Varek was already moving toward the door.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
He was down the corridor before Drogga could ask another question. His boots echoed against the stone, too loud, too slow.He wanted to run, but a war-leader didn't sprint through a conquered holding because his blood was telling him something had shifted in a woman across the holding.
But he walked faster than he usually would.
The servants' passage was empty. The kitchen was empty. He could smell her, though. That scent he'd been breathing since the pantry, the one that had nothing to do with soap or sweat or the borrowed nightgown.
The yard door stood open. Varek stepped through.
She stood in the center of the kitchen garden with her palm pressed flat against her chest and the sun turning her hair to copper fire.
Varek stopped in the doorway.
The nightgown was thin, and the light came through the linen and showed him everything.
The full sweep of her thighs. The shadow between them. The way her waist curved inward and then flared out into hips that could cradle a man, could bear the weight of him without breaking.
His mouth went dry.
She was built for him. Built for survival and softness and the kind of endurance that had nothing to do with muscle.
Mab turned at the sound of his boots on the packed earth. Her eyes went wide, then wider, and color rose in her throat.
"I felt you," Varek said.
"What?"
"I felt you," he said again.
He crossed the yard and stopped an arm's length from her. Close enough to see the pulse jumping in her throat. Close enough to smell the shift in her scent, the one that had pulled him out of Cresswick's study.
"I was thinking," she said.
"About what?"
The flush spread from her throat to her cheeks. She held his gaze anyway, which cost her. He could see the effort in the set of her jaw.
"About you."
Varek exhaled. The pressure behind his ribs eased, not because it was satisfied, but because it had found its target.
"I was thinking about what you said. In the hall. About what you wanted to do to me."
"And?"
"And I want you to do it." She looked up at him, and her eyes were clear. No fear. No hesitation. Just the steady burn of a woman who had made a decision. "I want you to touch me. I want to be awake for it. I want—"
He kissed her.
