They made camp beneath a sky painted with brushstrokes of pink and purple and dusky blue, the air heavy with looming daybreak. Although the ground was mostly flat, as the light came up Mara saw that there were hills here and there—little rumples in the earth that seemed sad and puny after so many days amidst the striking, rocky landscape of Ashfall.

Small as they were, the hills were scored by draws, deep grooves in their sloping sides carved out by time and flowing water.

They bedded down in one such draw, the ground loose and sandy.

“This is a creek bed” she noted, picking up a handful of earth. She’d never felt anything like it–the uniformity of the course grains hypnotic as they ran through her fingers.

“It never rains this time of year,” Eli told her before she could voice her concerns. She didn’t want to go swimming twice in one day. “The safety of high ground isn’t worth the risk of being sighted. If weather does come, we’ll move.”

That was all the reassurance Mara needed. Not bothering with the cumbersome shelter, they merely rolled out their sleeping rolls in the sand. As soon as Eli confirmed that Nick would sleep through the day, his body exhausted by the ordeal of the river although he hadn’t been awake to endure it, Mara tumbled after her son into sleep.

She woke in the four-poster, alone and not alone. Davy sat across the room by the window, shoulder against the wall, peering through the glass at the vista beyond. The window, she knew, overlooked a stunning valley—steep, pine-studded mountains plunging down into a sky-blue lake.

She pushed herself upright and leaned back on her arms, studying her husband. He was pensive, dark brows drawn down over his eyes, arms crossed, jaw clenched.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, and he started, turned towards her. Usually he wore sleep clothes. Or nothing. Today, he wore his Order uniform and boots. A pair of leather gloves were tucked into his sword belt, and his eyes were serious and hard, glinting emeralds in the sun-drenched room. She knew this version of her husband. It was the one she’d sent off on dozens of missions, including the one from which he hadn’t returned.

“I hate this,” he said, taking a step toward the bed, and then stopping. “I hate walking out that door.”

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“So don’t,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm and sweet despite the acid suddenly burning in her belly. “Come back to bed.”

His face twisted, fists clenching. He took another step toward her. “Mara,” he breathed, anguish dripping like bitter honey from each laden syllable. “I’m useless, here. I can’t stay.”

“You can.” The words came out like darts as she scrambled to toss off the covers and clamber from the bed. “You can, love.” She reached him, took his cold, trembling hands in hers, and raised them to her lips. “You can stay with me here,” she said, pressing a kiss to the back of his right hand, then his left. She stepped forward, sliding the balls of her feet over the slick toes of his boots and shifting her weight just enough to show that she would hold him here with her body if she had to. “You can stay as long as you want.”

In a single move, he tugged his hands free from hers and wrapped his arms around her, face buried in the crook of her neck.

“I love you,” he murmured into her skin, hot and wet.

“I love you,” she crooned back, her hands trapped between them. She pushed back and began working at the straps of his leather armor, and he stood beneath her attentions like a weary child, shoulders slumped, eyes misty and fixed to her face, adoring and intense. “Stay.”

She removed the armor, tossing it onto the armchair by the window, and pressed a kiss to the center of his chest. “Stay.”

Dropping to her knees, she tugged off first his right boot, then his left. Then she stood and unclasped his belt, dropping it and the sword unceremoniously to the ground with his boots. “Stay.”

He raised his arms as she pulled off his shirt, and she ran her hands up over his skin until the little hairs rose to prickle her palms. Sliding her hands to his shoulders, she squeezed the knotted muscles there and rose onto her toes, capturing his mouth in a kiss. “Stay,” she whispered against his lips, and then he was walking her back to the bed, tumbling her onto it.

Davy, ordinarily an attentive, gentle lover, devoured her like she was his last meal. He tore her nightgown in his effort to move it aside, his hands bruising where they gripped her thighs, his kiss plunging and insistent.

Mara, for her part, lay beneath the welcome onslaught and let him use her until thoughts of his leaving had been driven from both their minds. When he speared into her–abruptly, without any warning or preparation–the pain was a blissful relief and she dug her fingers into the warm, living flesh of his back and drew him harder against her.

“Stay,” she moaned, as he lifted her legs and pounded out the last of his doubt into her body..

“Stay,” she gasped when he finished and slumped over her, sweaty skin sliding against sweaty skin, his head heavy on her chest.

“Stay,” she whispered, wrapping her legs around him when he moved to pull out.

He stayed.

She, of course, did not.