"I'll wait outside," he said, pulling the door closed behind him.
Mab sat in the dim light, her thighs aching, her body still throbbing with the memory of what he'd done to it, and tried to make sense of the last hour of her life.
She had been carried to a privy by an orc warrior who had just fucked her senseless. An orc warrior who was now standing on the other side of a door, waiting for her to finish, so he could presumably carry her back to bed.
The absurdity of it hit her all at once, and she pressed her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound that came out. It might have been a laugh. It might have been something closer to a sob. She couldn't tell the difference anymore.
When she finished and cleaned herself with the cloth beside the basin, she caught a glimpse of herself in the silver-backed mirror above the stand.
The woman looking back was a stranger.
Her hair was a wild tangle of red curls. Her lips were swollen, darker than usual, bruised-looking. Her skin was flushed pink in places, beard-burned in others.
Lower. She made herself look lower.
Her breasts hung heavy, the nipples still peaked and reddened from his mouth. Her belly curved soft beneath them, pale where the sun never reached, and below that—
Bruises on her hips. She could see them already forming, purple shadows in the shape of his fingers. Evidence. Proof that someone had gripped her hard enough to leave marks. That someone had wanted her badly enough to forget to be careful.
She touched one of the bruises. Pressed. The ache that answered was sweet.
"What do you see?"
His voice came from directly behind her. She hadn't heard him open the door, but he was there now, his chest against her back, his chin hovering above her shoulder. Their reflections filled the mirror together—her pale and soft and marked, him green andmassive and watching her with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"I see..." She stopped. "I see a mess. My hair is—and my face is—and I'm—"
"You're what?"
She couldn't say it. Couldn't list all the things she was that she shouldn't be. Too much. Too soft. Too everything.
Varek's hands settled on her hips, directly over the bruises. The pressure made her gasp, but he didn't let go. His thumbs traced the marks he'd left, and his eyes in the mirror were molten amber.
"I'll tell you what I see." His voice was low. "I see a woman who took everything I gave her and asked for more. I see my marks on her skin. I see her body—" His hands slid up her sides, over the curve of her waist, cupping her breasts. "Built to be held. Built to be fucked. Built to carry my children, if she wants them."
The tears came without warning.
She tried to stop it. Tried to swallow it down the way she'd always swallowed everything. But her body wasn't obeying her anymore, and the sob that escaped was raw and ugly and completely beyond her control.
Varek turned her in his arms. She buried her face against his chest and cried.
Not pretty tears. Not delicate sniffles. The kind of crying that came from somewhere deep and wounded, that shook her whole body and soaked his skin and sounded like something dying. She cried for the ribbon Iris had cut. For Hester's hands that would never touch her again. For a lifetime of being invisible and the terrifying, unthinkable possibility that she might not have to be anymore.
He didn't try to stop her.
His arms wrapped around her back and he held her while she fell apart. One hand cradled her head against his chest. Theother pressed flat between her shoulder blades, solid and warm. He didn't say anything. Didn't tell her it was all right, didn't try to fix it, didn't ask her what was wrong.
He just held her.
When the sobs finally slowed, when her breathing evened out into hiccups and shudders, he lifted her. Carried her back to the bed. Laid her down on the ruined silk.
"Stay here," he said. "I'm going to get food."
"Don't—" Her hand flew to his arm, gripping before she could stop herself.
He went still. "Don't what?"
"Don't go." The words came out cracked and pathetic. "Not yet. Please."
