The boy's jaw tightened. He didn't lower the knife, but he didn't swing it either. Smart.
The girl came next, half-pushed by the woman behind her. She was younger than the boy, her face blotched and swollen from crying. She scrambled out of the gap and pressed herself against the boy's side.
The woman came last.
Varek watched her twist, watched her shove herself through the gap with her elbows, watched the rough wood of the shelf scrape against her back through the worn wool of her dress. She got herself through without his help, which was good, because if he'd touched her right then he wasn't sure he could have let go.
She straightened slowly, her back against the shelving, her eyes still on him. The gray kitchen light fell across her in slants and shadows, and he finally saw her properly.
Red hair bound tight under a kerchief that had come half-loose in the crawlspace. Pale skin dusted with freckles across her nose and cheeks, down the V of her throat where her chemise gaped. Green eyes watching him warily.
And her body.
The dress was shapeless, the apron stained, the wool rough and poorly dyed. None of it mattered. He could see the curve of her beneath the fabric, the fullness of her hips where they'd caught on the gap, the soft swell of her belly, the generous weightof her breasts.Abundance.The word rose up from somewhere old, somewhere his grandmother had spoken of when she'd told him what to look for in a mate.
His grandmother had been wrong about many things, but not about this.
His hand moved before he thought about it. Toward her face, where a strand of red hair had come loose from the kerchief and was clinging to the sweat on her temple.
The boy came at him like a terrier at a wolf.
Varek caught the movement in his peripheral vision. The flash of the blade, the desperate lunge. The knife sliced through the air where Varek's wrist had been half a heartbeat before. He stepped back, letting the blade pass, and watched the boy stumble forward with the momentum of his own swing. The knife clattered against the shelf behind him. The boy caught himself, spun, and put himself squarely between Varek and the woman.
Feet planted. Knife up. Shaking like a leaf in a storm, but up.
Something shifted in him. Not anger. Closer to recognition.
"Tibbs, no—" The woman's voice cracked on the word. The girl was still standing to the side, but now she was crying into her hands in choked little gasps.
The boy didn't move. His breathing was ragged, his face white as bone, but he held his ground. Thirteen years old, maybe. Barely tall enough to reach Varek's chest. Holding a boning knife against a warrior who'd killed six men before breakfast.
Varek could have taken the knife. Could have broken the boy's wrist with a flick of his hand, disarmed him before his next heartbeat. He didn't.
"Brave," he said instead. The word came out rougher than he'd intended. "Stupid, but brave."
The woman moved around him, putting her body between the boy and Varek. One hand caught the boy's shoulder and pushedhim back. The other came up, palm out, not a weapon but a barrier.
"Don't." Her voice was steadier than her hands. "He's thirteen. He didn't know what he was doing."
"He knew exactly what he was doing." Varek watched her face as he said it. Watched her jaw set against whatever was coming. "He was protecting you."
The boy tried to push past her. She held him back with that one hand on his shoulder, her fingers digging into the rough fabric of his shirt. The girl had pressed herself against the shelving, her sobs muffled now but her whole body shaking.
"Please." The woman's voice dropped. Not begging. Bargaining. "He's a child. Whatever you're going to do, do it to me. Not to him."
Varek had seen humans beg before. Had seen them offer gold, secrets, their own kin. Had seen them grovel and weep and promise anything to save their own skins.
"Who is he to you?" he asked.
The woman's chin came up. "He's mine."
Not by blood. Varek could smell that much. But the way she said it carried a weight that had nothing to do with blood.
"And the girl?"
"Mine too."
The girl made a small sound against the shelving. The woman didn't turn, but her shoulders shifted, angling her body to cover more of the space between Varek and the children. As if she could shield them both with nothing but flesh and bone and the stubborn set of her jaw.
