There’s not a hint of teasing or pity or even surprise. All there is is Varek and warmth and a kind of quiet certainty that makes the air feel gentler.
“You may ask this of me whenever you wish.”
The bond goes warm and soft all at once, like something in it has been waiting for exactly those words.
I can’t think of anything useful to say to that, so I don’t try.
Varek helps me down onto the bed with absurd care, guiding my broken arm so nothing jars, then arranges the furs around me before lying beside me on top of the blankets at first, as if waiting to see whether I’ll change my mind.
I don’t.
So he shifts in behind me, one arm curved carefully around my waist, the other braced so he isn’t putting weight where I’m bruised. His body is a line of steady warmth at my back. Protective without caging. Close without taking more than I’ve asked him for.
It shouldn’t feel this safe, and yet I exhale, slow and deep, and let my eyes close.
The scent of him is everywhere. The rise and fall of his breathing a quiet rhythm behind me. One hand rests lightly over my ribs, not pressing, just there.
My body gives up almost immediately.
The last thing I’m properly aware of is Varek’s fingers moving slowly through the thinner dreadlocks at the nape of my neck—careful, like he’s learned their weight and texture already. The touch is grounding and steady. It’s devastatingly gentle in a way I’m still not used to.
Then sleep takes me, and this time, I don’t fight it.
CHAPTER
NINE
I wake slowly,aware first of warmth before anything else.
It surrounds me in a way that feels deliberate rather than accidental, a steady heat pressed along my back, an arm curved around my middle that holds without trapping. For a few seconds, I stay exactly where I am, eyes closed, breathing evenly as I let my mind catch up with my body. There’s no panic waiting for me this time, no cutting edge of remembered pain dragging me fully awake. There’s only the quiet awareness that I am safe, held, and—strangely—comfortable.
That alone feels unfamiliar enough to make me hesitate.
I shift carefully, testing the limits of my body just like I’ve learned to do over the years. I expect the usual response: the quick, immediate protest from my ribs, the deep ache in my arm, the reminder that I’m still very much injured.
Instead, the pain comes softer.
It’s there, but dulled, as if someone has taken the worst of it and turned the volume down. My ribs complain rather than scream. My arm aches, but it does not burn. I take a slightly deeper breath just to be sure, and even that doesn’t punish me the way it should.
“Well,” I murmur under my breath, more to myself than anything else, “fated-mate shit for the win.”
Behind me, Varek makes a low sound that vibrates through his chest and into my back. It’s not quite a growl, not quite a word, but it is enough to remind me exactly where I am and who I’m lying against.
I open my eyes slowly.
The soft glow of Dathanor’s living stone spreads across the ceiling above me, faint blue-green light shifting in slow pulses. The room is quiet, still wrapped in that strange sense of separation from everything outside it. For a moment, I let myself stay in it, grounded in the steady rhythm of Varek’s breathing and the warmth of his body behind mine.
Then my body decides to make itself known in a completely different way.
I go still.
Because my cock is hard, and there’s nothing subtle about it. It’s not something I can ignore or pretend away. It presses firmly against the fabric of my clothes and, more importantly, barely a centimetre below where Varek’s hand rests just above it.
I let out a slow breath, staring up at the ceiling. “Fuck,” I mutter quietly.
The shift in me must be obvious, because Varek stills almost immediately. His arm tightens fractionally around my waist, not enough to restrain me, but enough to signal that he’s noticed.
“What are you doing?” he asks. His voice is low, controlled, but there’s something in it that I’ve not heard before. It’s not uncertainty, exactly, but it catches my attention.
