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"Fiona." My name stops me the way it always does now, low and certain. "Varrus poisoned me. He used a frightened woman and a false vendor and my own broken skin. You were the instrument he chose because he could not imagine that the instrument would also be the cure." His thumb moves over the pulse in my wrist. "He built a weapon out of your hands. He did not account for what else your hands could do."

"You could have died believing I'd killed you."

"I never believed it." He says it plainly, as though it is the least remarkable thing in the world. "Not for one breath of it. I lay here unable to move my tongue and watched you set the poisoned jar on the table instead of hiding it, and I knew. A guilty woman conceals the evidence. You put it where they could see it and stood between me and their swords."

I have to look away from him. If I keep looking I will come apart, and I have been holding myself together with thread and stubbornness for too many hours to survive it.

"Look at me," he says.

"Give me a moment."

"No." His hand slides up from my wrist to my jaw, turning my face back to his, and there is nothing weak in the touch now, nothing of the man who could not lift a finger days ago. "I spent those hours unable to reach you. I will not spend another second of it with you looking at the floor."

His eyes have gone dark and full, and the gratitude in them is so raw it is almost unbearable, and under the gratitude is something with far more heat.

"You should rest," I tell him, and my voice has gone unsteady. "Your body's barely⁠—"

"My body is mine again because of you." He rises, fluid and controlled now, the movement still more deliberate than it was before the poisoning but unmistakably his again. "I have opinions about how to spend it."

"That is a terrible idea, medically speaking."

"Then it is fortunate I did not ask my healer." I am close enough that his knees almost touch mine, and he pulls me up and into his lap in one motion, and I let him, because I have wanted to be pulled toward him instead of leaning over him for what feels like a year. "I asked my wife."

"They're the same woman."

"I am aware. I married her twice, in a manner of speaking." His mouth is a breath from mine. "Once for a contract. Once for this."

He kisses me, and it is nothing gentle.

There is no patience in him now, none of the slow thorough learning he gave me in the solarium. This is a claiming. This is a man who lay trapped in his own skin and watched death circle him, and now has days of helplessness and terror burning beneath his control.

"You frightened me," I breathe. "I have never been frightened like that. Not once in my whole life."

"I know."

"I kept your breath going by counting it. I sat here and counted your breaths like coins and told myself if I stopped, you'd stop⁠—"

"I know." His hands are in my hair, loosing the ruined braid, the wooden comb gone somewhere I don't care about. "I felt it. Through the bond. Your fear was the last thing I could hold onto when the poison took everything else." He pulls back just enough to look at me, and his voice drops. "You were the tether. Do you understand? I did not follow the law back. I did not follow my magic. I followed you."

The words settle between us like something living. I can still see the faint shadows under his black eyes, the lingering exhaustion in his face that speaks of how close the poison came to taking him. He is recovered enough to stand, to move, yet every line of him carries the memory of that near-death. When he reaches for me now there is no frantic demand—only a quiet, deliberate need.

His hands settle more firmly at my waist, drawing me closer until I am fully straddling his lap on the edge of the wide bed. The soft wool of my shift catching against the dark fabric of his trousers. His thighs are solid beneath me, still powerful despite the recent ordeal, and the heat of him seeps through the layers. He gazes up at me; the asymmetrical sweep is slightly disordered, as if he has been resting and only just risen.

“Careful,” I murmur, palms resting on his bare shoulders. The shirt he wears is only half-buttoned, open so that I see his chest. “You are not fully⁠—”

“I am well enough for this.” His hands slide up my back, slow, mapping the line of my spine through the thin cloth. “I need to feel you living against me. Not through the bond. Here.”

He kisses me then, unhurried, the press of his mouth tasting faintly of the restorative teas I have been forcing on him for days. One hand rises to the ties of my shift. He loosens them with the same measured patience he once used to undo the bindings of my healing satchel, each knot giving way until the fabric slips from my shoulders. I shrug free of it, letting the garment pool around my waist. Cool chamber air touches my breasts; his gaze follows, black and intent.

I work the remaining buttons of his shirt open and push the cloth from his shoulders. The expanse of his chest is warm under my palms, the muscle still solid beneath my palms despite everything his body has endured. A faint shimmer of chaos magic answers the contact—soft sparks that dance along his collarbones and fade. He makes a low sound of approval when I lean in and press my mouth to the place just above his heart.

“Fiona.” My name is rough. “Please keep eye contact with me.”

I do, and he lifts my hips just enough to free himself from his pants, the motion careful, controlled. His cock hard, and thick against my thigh when I settle back down. I reach between us, wrapping my fingers around him, feeling the pulse of him. He exhales through his teeth as I stroke once, twice, three times, and I watch him stare at me. He threads his fingers through my hair and pulls me into him and I sink down slowly. His groan leaving him without permission.

Both his hands tighten on my body, and the stretch is familiar yet still overwhelming. I take him inside fully, cradling my fingers together on the back of his neck. His hands stroke my sides and land on my hips, his thumbs start to stroke in small circles over the soft skin. Our foreheads meet as we break the kiss and we hold each other’s eyes, both mouths parted with his cock and my pussy throbbing and squeezing.

“Move when you are ready,” he says. “I will not rush you.”