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“I wanted to see how you were settling in.” Those heavy eyes tracked her as she stepped back to let him in.

“It’s nice to have a bed again and clean clothes.” She’d spent much of the afternoon cleaning the house and putting away supplies.

So much had been lost. They had found the chests where the formal clan armor was stored, but her formal dresses were destroyed. They hadn’t found the rest of her clothes, so she only had what she’d carried all the way to the caves, and now the extra pieces that had been donated. The gray dress she wore was faded and simple, but it was soft and warm. Plenty to be thankful for. She still had everything that mattered: her sisters, her clan, her friends, and of course, Pyetar.

“Are your sisters here?” Pyetar shut the door behind him, looking around the house.

She shook her head. “Misha is at Shahn’s. His sister is giving Misha some clothes and boots to borrow.” They were becoming very close friends. “And Hadima is setting up her own workshop by the infirmary.”

Her clan had found homes throughout the fortress, temporary ones at least until they figured out a more permanent solution. She was staying with her sisters in Pyetar’s old home.

“So we’re alone then?”

Iryana laughed. “Yes, we are.”

He swept her off her feet, and Iryana grinned as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Which room is yours?”

She pointed at the largest room, which Hadima had insisted she take for herself.

Pyetar smirked. “My old room.”

Her stomach jumped. “I hadn’t realized.”

“You would not believe how many nights I spent laying in that room thinking of you,” he said, voice deep, as he carried her toward the back of the house.

She chewed on her lower lip. “Oh?”

Pushing the door open with his shoulder, Pyetar carried her inside the room. His eyes scanned the place, which still looked much like it had before, with only a few small changes she’d made since taking it over.

“Almost every night.” He laid them down on the bed, over the soft quilts. Gently spread her hair out above them so it wouldn’t get her bed wet. “I’d lay right here and play through every time I’d seen you. I—fantasized about you.”

“Is that all you did?” she asked, breathless. “Fantasize?”

“No.” Pyetar nestled his face in her neck. “I imagined it was your hand instead of mine.”

Gods, the image of that sent fire deep into her core. “When did you start?”

He pulled back, his eyes dark. “The first day I met you at the Dovaki Post, when you leaned into me and told me about that storage room.”

“No!” she gasped.

“I was very lonely back then,” he reminded her. “You saw me—even if it was only for a moment before you were blinded by your hatred for the 18th. It made quite an impression.”

“I was so mortified after that,” she chuckled.

He hummed with amusement, pressing a kiss to her jaw.

“Were you still… thinking of me last Mud Moon? When you had to bring me here?”

“Not really, not until I watched you fight that dakya in the pit,” he said between the kisses he slowly trailed down her neck. “The memory of you facing the beast down, that look you get on your face when you’re about to fuck something up—gods, it was erotic.”

He leaned back, bracing himself on one elbow, finger trailing down the side of her face.

“That early?” she scoffed, but her eyes were glued to his mouth, watching his lips move. “I thought you didn’t want me here.”

“You were so infuriating.” He shook his head, chuckling deeply. “It was always a contest between whether I wanted to throttle you or kiss you. But when I wasn’t out on missions, and slept here alone in this big house, your presence haunted me the most. I pictured you in your bed in the barracks, in your nightgown.”