It really was remarkable. I sat down next to him, tucking my feet beneath me. “You’re worried about food supplies.”
He smoothed down the paper. “Always. War and food. But they’re not new problems. Ongoing. Are you tired?”
I wasn’t, but he clearly was, and I’d bet he wasn’t going to sleep unless I did. I moved the paper to a side table and pulled the blanket up, taking a moment to admire his naked chest. He was strong, sculpted, and beautiful, even covered in scars. “Won’t you get cold?”
He’d given me warm shirts and pants to wear to bed.
Torrin shook his head. “I like the cold at night. Harder to get cooler than it is to get warm. If I get chilled, I’ll cover up.” He paused. “Does it bother you?”
“No.” I smiled at him.
This Torrin, soft spoken, slow moving, caring, he wasn’t nearly as intimidating as the version I’d met on that throne of bones. He extinguished the light and climbed in next to me.
“I understand I have a lot to thank you for,” I said. “Marking me made me safe. Thank you.”
Beneath the blanket, he took my hand in his. There was no light in the room, and his gentle squeeze anchored me when I might have felt lost in the darkness. “You’re welcome, but I admit that wasn’t the only reason I did it.”
“To secure me if I was a weapon or threat of some kind, then.”
His laugh surprised me. “I never thought you were that. I’m pretty good at reading people. I saw who you were right away. A lost, beautiful woman. Not a weapon to be used or something like that. Although, I admit I love that you can read and that you knew about the burrs and how to heal Nox from them. Smart and beautiful.”
“Then what was your other reason?” Talking in the dark was easier than in the light. It was like we were cocooned away from the rest of the world.
“Maybe Dreama isn’t the only one who didn’t want to bond with someone so familiar they were practically relatives.” His lips met mine, and I blinked in surprise. Torrin didn’t push, didn’t try for anything else. Just held me like that for a long moment before he kissed the end of my nose. “I probably won’t sleep much. I never do. But stay right here with me, I will take care of your heart. I take care of everything.”
He did. He took care of everything for everybody. “Does anybody ever take care of you?”
I asked the question before I thought about it, and for a minute, I wondered if he even heard me. His breathing didn’t change, he didn’t move, and his reply was a long time coming. Finally, he said, “How do you mean?”
In the brightness of day, those words and the voice that made them would have been absolutely innocent. They could have referred to the people who cleaned his clothes or fueled his transport or cooked his food. Here, though, I allowed myself to believe in a deeper, more intimate meaning.
“Turn on to your stomach,” I told him.
Torrin obeyed. And the universe did not even stop its motion. Stars didn’t fall out of the sky. Wonders.
“Your subjects behave as if you have a shell of invulnerability around you. You cannot be touched by harm. But also, you cannot be touched.” Sighing into the dark, I rolled toward him, giving into the yearning and pressing the heels of my hands into his hard-muscled back. “And touch, I’ve learned, is kind of a big deal around here. So who touches you, the untouchable leader? Who cares for the man who cares for everyone else?”
The bedclothes muffled his voice when he said, “See what I mean about you being smart? You see too much, girl from the sky.”
I chuckled low and continued my kneading, working up his spine and digging deep into the knots in his shoulders near his neck. “It’s dark. I see only what is in my mind, my memory. I’ve had thoughts.”
His body moved beneath my hands, but I couldn’t tell if he answered my laughter or groaned. Was it possible to do both? Despite my core disbelief that I could make a man like him groan in pleasure—the feeling of exclusion and lack of worth went deep—I realized that I wanted to believe. I wanted to comfort him.
“You are too good at this,” he said, his voice a rumble that I felt as much as heard.
My mouth was