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"No," I say. "I do not suppose you would." It is, I realize even as I say it, the closest I have come in years to admitting that I would rather stand beside a fear I cannot fully control than demand she become someone smaller and safer simply to ease it. She returns her attention to the tunic in her lap, and for a while the only sound in the dwelling is the soft, rhythmic pull of thread through leather and the low crackle of the fire settling deeper into its bed of coals. I let the silence stretch contentedly. I have not often allowed myself to feel such a thing since taking this command, and I watch her work with an attention I do not bother trying to disguise, because I suspect, by now, she is well aware of exactly how closely I am watching her regardless of whether I admit it aloud.

"There," she says eventually, tying off the last stitch and holding the mended tunic out toward me across the small distance between us, her green eyes unreadable in the firelight in a way that makes me wish that I had a clearer sense of what moves behind them. "It'll hold through another skirmish, at least. Longer than that leather deserves, honestly, given how many times it's already been patched."I take the tunic from her without a word at first, my fingers brushing briefly against hers in the exchange, and the fabric is warm from her hands, warmer than it has any reasonable right to be given the chill still lingering in the stone room around us. I turn it over once, studying the neat, even line of her stitching, small and precise and entirely without the crude, functional roughness I would expect from anyone else in this camp mending a torn garment out of simple necessity.

I think, turning the tunic over in my hands, of every warrior's mate I have watched over the years, the easy, ordinary rhythms they build between them, mending and cooking and the small daily rituals of a life shared rather than merely survived alongside one another. I never expected to want any of that for myself, not after 15 years spent convincing this clan that duty and command left no room for softer things. I am no longer certain, sitting here with her stitching still warm beneath my fingers, that I believe my own old conviction the way I once did.

"Thank you," I say, and the words feel oddly insufficient for what has actually passed between us in this quiet exchange, though I have no better ones readily available to offer instead.

"It's a tunic, Rogg. Not a declaration of anything." But there is the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth as she says it, the closest thing to warmth I have seen cross her face since she first stood in this doorway refusing to be anyone's prisoner, and I feel my body relax in these vulnerable marks of time counted by the two of us. I set the mended tunic aside carefully and study the fire for a while instead, aware of her settling back against the wall behind her, her own exhaustion catching up with the adrenaline of the day, and I find myself thinking that this, more than anything the battle demanded of me today, is the moment I did not expect to find so unsettling. Fifteen years I have commanded this camp through siege and skirmish and every hardship winter has thrown against these walls, and none of it has ever undone me quite the way this quiet, ordinary domesticity does: a mended tunic and a woman's steady gaze across a dying fire, asking nothing of me and somehow demanding everything regardless.

I bank the fire lower before we move toward sleep, and in the settling dark I find myself listening to the small, ordinary sounds of my own dwelling, Leo's steady breathing, the soft shift of Audrey finding a comfortable position against the furs, and I think that whatever tomorrow brings, whatever fresh argument Vorka manufactures or fresh threat Grol presses against our walls, I would fight through a dozen more battles exactly like today's if it meant earning another quiet evening like this one, however unfamiliar the wanting still feels sitting in my chest. We don’t say anything further, the fire popping softly between us, and I let the silence carry the rest of what I do not yet have the words to offer her outright.

15

AUDREY

Ibreak the silence first, the way I usually do, because sitting quietly with unresolved things is not a skill I managed to master, and I keep my eyes on the rifle parts laid out across the oilcloth in front of me rather than on Rogg, who has been watching the fire with an intensity that suggests his thoughts are somewhere far from this room.

The wall is still smoking somewhere behind us, past the frozen ruin of the market square, and I can smell it even here—char and blood and the particular bitterness of scorched canvas. Three warriors did not walk away from that line today. I am unaware of all of their names yet, though I recognize two of the faces from the hunting roster, men who nodded to me in passing not five days ago. The camp has gone quiet in the particular way it does after a loss, voices low, doors shut early, and I have spent the last hour telling myself that scrubbing gun oil into steel is a task and not a way of avoiding the conversation I know is coming.

“I’m taking the high ridge tomorrow,” I say, working the cleaning rod through the barrel with more focus than the task strictly requires. “The deer will be sheltering in the old orchards this time of year. Better cover, better browse, and I can be back before midday if the weather holds.” Rogg’s whole body goes still, which immediately puts me on alert, some old instinct recognizing the shift before he has even spoken a word.

“No,” he says, and there is nothing negotiable in the single syllable. “The ridge is too exposed. You will hunt the lowlands tomorrow, with Zog’s party.” The reaction is instant and hot, the years of independence rising against the flat, unquestioning command in his voice before I have even fully processed what he’s said.

“Throk’s scouts marked fresh Iron Tusk sign along the tree line above the orchards two nights past,” he adds, before I can answer, the words clipped and final, meant to close the matter rather than open it to debate. “Grol does not need a war party to kill one woman alone on open ground. He needs one man with a rifle and patience.”

“I have hunted that ridge for two winters running, long before you ever rode back into this camp to tell me where I am and am not allowed to walk.” The old anger, older than him, older than any of this, rises fast and ugly, the same anger that kept me alive through five winters with no one standing at my back at all. “I do not need Throk’s scouts to tell me how to read a tree line.”

“You put my name on the hunting roster, Rogg. In front of the camp, in front of Vorka, like it meant something.” I set the rifle parts aside and rise to my feet, needing the height even though it doesn’t close the gap between us. “You don’t get to hand me that and then treat me like a child with a toy you can take back the second it suits you.”

“This is not about the roster.” He rises too, and the small dwelling seems to shrink around us as it does when the full breadth of him fills the space, watching me with an intensity that has nothing gentle left in it. “I watched three warriors fall on that eastern wall yesterday to arrows they never saw coming. The high ridge sits in open ground with a clear line back to Iron Tusk territory. I saw you on that field today, Audrey. One stray arrow, one moment of bad luck, and my son is motherless before the winter is finished. This is not a request.”

“And what happens to him if you decide every risk I take is too great to allow?” My voice comes out sharp, but I do not soften it. “What happens to the boy I raised alone if his mother becomes someone who waits behind your walls asking permission for every step she takes?”

“That is not what I am asking of you.” His jaw works, some old frustration surfacing beneath the command, and briefly I see past the immovable wall of him to something rawer underneath. “I am asking you to hunt somewhere I can actually protect if Grol’s scouts decide tomorrow is the day they test that ridge instead of merely watching it. That is not a cage, Audrey. That is a man who has already lost warriors this winter trying not to lose you as well.”

“Then let me be a warrior you lost fighting for something worth losing, not a woman you wrapped in wool and set behind a door.” My voice breaks on the last word despite my best effort to keep it steady, and I hate that he hears it, hate that some old fear far larger than this argument has cracked open beneath the anger. “Leo needs a mother who still knows how to hunt when the rabbits run out and the grain stores are empty. He does not need one who forgot how the moment a man decided he loved her.”

Something moves through his expression I have not seen before, not in five years and not in five days — something closer to grief than command. “I have not asked you to forget anything,” he says, quieter now, the anger banked into something rawer. “I am asking you to let me keep both of you a little longer than one reckless morning on an exposed ridge.”

“You don’t get to decide that unilaterally every time fear gets the better of you.” I hold my ground, chin lifted, refusing to let the low, rough edge in his voice soften the argument I still intend to win. “I’ve survived worse ground than that ridge without anyone standing over my shoulder deciding where I’m allowed to walk.” He crosses the floor in two strides, close enough now that I have to tip my head back to hold his gaze, close enough that the heat of him reaches me even through the layers separating us.

“What happens,” he says, low and rough, “is that I won't have to bury either of you.” His hand comes up, roughly catching my chin between calloused fingers, tilting my face further toward his. “I have already buried enough this winter. I will not add either of you to that count for the sake of your pride.” The words should make me angrier. Some part of me registers that they probably do, somewhere underneath the sudden, overwhelming awareness of his hand against my skin, the rough pad of his thumb brushing once, deliberately, across my lower lip. I shove at his chest, more instinct than real intention, and he does not move an inch, immovable as the stone walls around us, and something in the collision of my anger against his unyielding presence ignites into a heat that I can’t pass off as fury.

“Rogg—” His name comes out half warning, half something else. There is no softness in it. Unspoken hunger and an afternoon’s worth of argument collide. His hand stays locked on my jaw while the other hauls me against him hard enough that the air leaves my lungs. I fist both hands in the front of his tunic and kiss him back with equal force.

He turns us without breaking the kiss. My back hits the edge of the table. He lifts me onto it in one motion, steps between my knees, and drags my trousers and underclothes down in a single rough pull. The cold air of the stone room hits my bare skin for only a second before his body blocks it. He doesn’t undress fully—just frees himself, shoves my shirt higher, and takes one breast into his mouth hard enough to make me arch.

I reach between us. He doesn’t wait for more guidance. He drives in while I’m still half-sitting on the table edge, one long, deep thrust that forces a broken sound out of me. The stretch is immediate. He doesn’t pause. He grips my hips, pulls me tighter to the edge, and sets a hard, upward rhythm that rocks the table against the wall. Every impact is audible. My legs lock around his waist; my hands brace behind me so I don’t slide.

The scent of cedar smoke and the metallic tang of want fill the small space. I feel every inch of him, the sheer size of him filling me until the friction turns white-hot. He is relentless—short, powerful strokes driven by the same fear that made him forbid the ridge. No tenderness, only the need to claim and be claimed. Sweat slicks the places we touch. The fire throws moving shadows; our joined silhouettes look almost violent against the wall.

He shifts his grip, one arm under my lower back, lifting me slightly off the table so the next thrust hits deeper. My vision whites out for a second. I dig my nails into his shoulders and hold on. The pace stays brutal, almost angry, every stroke a continuation of the argument we never finished. My body tightens around him in hard, involuntary pulls. I turn my face into his neck and bite down as the climax hits—sudden, sharp, almost painful. My legs shake against his sides.

He follows a handful of strokes later with a deep, guttural sound, driving in to the hilt and holding there while his body shudders. Only the fire and our breathing remain.

Eventually he shifts, still inside me, and carries me the two steps to the furs without pulling out. One heavy arm stays across my waist. The argument, the ridge, Vorka—all of it feels distant, burned out by the force of what just happened. We lie there in the fading light, listening to the wind howl outside, knowing that for now the only thing that matters is the heat of skin and the weight of his body.

I rest my forehead against his chest. After a while I murmur, almost against his skin, “I should still take the lowlands tomorrow.”