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I wasn’t surprised Maardok cared for Ewan. I’d known that before we left the croft, and I’d heard him call the lad “son”. I’d watched him feed my son, carry him, answer his endless questions and teach him things with a patience I occasionally lacked. But caring for a child privately and claiming him publicly were very different things, and yesterday Maardok had stood before his chief, his family and half his clan and told them Ewan was his son.

He hadn’t even hesitated.

He also hadn’t understood what the declaration had done to me. I knew that from the way he’d looked down at Ewan afterward, pleased by the boy’s reaction and apparently oblivious to mine.

Your son has a father now.

Only if we stayed…and I still wasn’t certain I could do that. But what were my choices? It frightened me as much to consider taking my green babe back to the human world as it did to consider staying in the orc world where so many things were unfamiliar. What would happen when the gifts suddenly had strings attached and protections were withdrawn?

Because everything in my life had taught me that’s exactly what would one day happen.

By midday, I was exhausted from doing almost nothing, which was humiliating. Maardok ordered me back into bed with Edan, brought me stew someone else had prepared and delivered, then disappeared outside again with Ewan to continue whatever project had occupied them all morning.

I intended to rest for a few moments but woke sometime in the afternoon with no idea how long I’d been asleep. The light coming through the shutters had shifted, Edan was awake and making hungry little snuffling noises beside me, and the cottage was quiet enough that for a moment my heart began to race.

Then Ewan laughed outside, followed by the rumble of Maardok’s voice, and my body relaxed before my mind had time to tell it not to.

That was becoming a problem; if I wasn’t careful, I could forget the lessons I’d learned my entire life about debts and control and obligations.

After feeding Edan, I managed to get myself out of bed without assistance and decided that accomplishment entitled me to sit beside the fire rather than immediately crawl beneath the blankets again.

Except by the time I got there, I’d decided the chair was in the wrong place.

I stood looking at it for several moments. Maardok had positioned it beside the hearth, facing the table, which probably made perfect sense for a male who lived alone and mostly used it to pull on his boots. But if I angled it toward the fire and moved it nearer the window, I could sit with Edan and still watch Ewan outside.

So I moved it.

Only a few feet, but when I straightened, both hands still resting on its wooden back, I suddenly realized what I had done.

You are rearranging his home.

I had moved a chair.

His chair.

I looked toward the door and nearly moved it back, but…well, I’ve mentioned my obstinacy, haven’t I?

The croft had never truly been mine. I’d repaired what needed repairing as best I could, and cleaned what needed cleaning, but I had always known I was squatting in another family’s abandoned home, praying no one noticed us there. Before that, there had been Richard’s house, where every object belonged exactly where he wanted it, whether I found it convenient or not.

I hadn’t arranged a room simply because I wanted it another way in longer than I could remember.

Maardok wanted me here. Could I find happiness here? From a little furniture rearranging?

I was in a thoughtful frame of mind as I released the chair without moving it back. And mayhap because I had already committed one act of domestic rebellion, I unpacked my quilt and spread it across Maardok’s bed.

Our bed?

I was smoothing one corner when the door opened and Maardok ducked inside. I froze, suddenly feeling absurdly guilty as his gaze traveled from me to the quilt and finally toward the chair. Of course he noticed I’d rearranged his home.

Then he smiled.

Not one of his wicked smiles or the smug grin he wore when he knew he teased me, but a quiet expression of satisfaction that made something inside my chest twist.

“It’s better there,” he said, nodding toward the chair.

My throat tightened unexpectedly. “I thought so.”

That was all. He crossed the cottage to kiss my forehead, checked Edan, told me Ewan was helping him build something, then instructed me to rest again before he headed back outside.