Page 135 of Maksym

I paused before returning.

The mirror showed me nothing I did not already know. A fighter’s body maintained by discipline older than many nations. Lean muscle. Scars silvered and pale across skin that had known blades, claws, fire, sanctified steel, and the teeth of creatures long dead. The double scar on my jaw. A mark across one rib from a battle I never discussed. Other damage history had failed to make beautiful but had made mine.

I did not put on a shirt. This was not accidental.

I could have told myself it was comfort. I could have claimed haste. I could have wrapped vanity in practicality and called it restraint. I did not insult myself that way. Grace had seen monsters take. She had seen bodies used as weapons and appetite called entitlement. If she looked at me, I wanted her to look because she chose to. But I also wanted her to look.

A man could be honorable and still wish his mate to want him.

I returned before she emerged.

The suite remained quiet except for the muffled sound of water in the en suite and the small shift of firewood settling in the hearth. I took a blanket from the carved chest at the foot of the bed, then a pillow, and carried them to the sofa.

I had nearly finished smoothing the blanket when the en-suite door opened. Grace stepped out.

For one moment, my blood fell silent.

She wore a soft gray cotton nightdress that fell to mid-thigh. Nothing elaborate. Nothing designed for seduction. Its simplicity made it more devastating. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, dark red in the lamplight. Her bare legs looked steadier than they had any right to be. The marks on her throat had faded but not vanished. Her body had been restored by blood and death and my desperate refusal to let her go, yet there remained something new-made about her.

Her gaze found me. Then dropped.

Chest. Abdomen. The old scar over my ribs. The line of muscle disappearing beneath black silk. Her breath caught.

I heard it.

Her eyes snapped back to mine, pupils widened before discipline narrowed them again. Prosecutor. Survivor. Woman. Mate.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I looked down at the blanket under my hand. “Preparing a place to sleep.”

“On the couch.”

“Yes.”

She stared at me. I kept my expression solemn.

“You left the room,” she said.

“I did.”

“And came back like that.”

“Like what?”

Her eyes narrowed. Color warmed her throat. “Do not start. You know exactly what you’re doing.”

The laugh escaped me before I could convert it into something more dignified. A real laugh. It startled both of us.

I had laughed with family many times over the centuries, dryly, sharply, in those brief ways men like me allowed when humor passed through armor without requiring removal. This was different. It moved from somewhere unguarded and left me lighter in its wake.

Grace stared as if I had performed a magic trick.

I spread one hand slightly. “Look, can a man help it if he wants his mate to think he’s attractive?”

Her mouth opened. Closed.

The flush became more pronounced, and desire threaded through the room in a scent so subtle I would have missed it if my entire being had not been tuned to her.