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His eyes never left mine as he wove through the crowded room, casually avoiding the brush of his body against the gatherings of men here and there. His bow strapped over his back, his tomahawk hung from his waist, and his hair stuck up in messy ruts from his raking fingers.

When he reached me, he braced a forearm on the wall beside my head and put his mouth at my ear. “You want to fuck these guys?”

His muscular chest heaved against me. It had been so long since I’d seen a shirt on him or Roark, I wasn’t sure either man owned one anymore. Two months of sleeping against all that skin had reduced me to a one-second-from-exploding bundle of aching need.

I closed my eyes and whispered, “I want to fuck you.”

His breath rushed out, fanning across my neck.

“She’ll settle for your fingers.” Roark’s brogue shivered through me, flooding more warmth between my legs.

I opened my eyes, locking on his beside me. “You left Shea upstairs alone?”

“She kicked me out.” Roark leaned against the wall, facing us, his eyes glimmering like polished emeralds. “Where can we find some privacy around here?”

Fuck privacy. I was soaking wet. Fucking throbbing. Fingers would finish it. Just a quick fondle, round and round my opening. Then slide those circular strokes around my clit, and sweet mother…

I hummed and it sounded like a moan.

“We’ll find a place, darlin’.” Jesse breathed, his southern twang caressing the words.

I almost came. “Now? Or two months from now?”

The gap between Jesse’s chest and mine gave Roark just enough space to reach up and pinch my nipple. A golden dreadlock fell across his eyes, that heated gaze fixed on me. “Go upstairs and check on Shea.”

They were torturing me, and they knew it. I needed an escape from this testosterone-choked room, so I slipped around Jesse and walked a direct path to the stairs.

The upper floor had become an infirmary, every bed and inch of floor space piled with blankets and pillows and bedrolls to hold recovering women. The sight of so many skeletal bodies was a cold wash of reality, instantly blasting away my arousal.

Shea bustled around her sleeping patients, tucking them in and checking their vitals. As she hopped from room to room, she shooed the men out. When the last guy descended the stairs, I followed her into one of the bedrooms.

“I’m going to stay up here with them, okay?” She smiled at me, her fingers gently combing the tangled hair of the tattooed woman.

She was a natural care-taker, evident in the way she moved from woman to woman, fussing over their bedding, cleaning their bodies, and humming as she went along. She practically glowed with the need to nurture. I envied that.

I’d survived by shedding the warmer, softer parts of myself and rebuilding something colder, harsher. I was no longer the gentle, loving mother of two beautiful children. I was the acid that filled my stomach whenever I thought of them. I was the colorless ash left beneath their cremated bodies. I was a shadow that carried the excruciating memories of the day they died.

I felt uncomfortable and useless up here with Shea, surrounded by soft bedding and tender touches. I could cure the women. I could kill their enemies. But I didn’t know how to comfort them.

I shoved my hands in my back pockets. “Do you need my help?”

“Nope.” She blew out a content breath, her eyes shining in the dim glow of a candle. “We’re going to be okay, Evie.”

She wasn’t just talking about the women. She meant me and her and the whole damned world.

Given everything we’d endured the last two months, this was the first time I’d seen hope on her face. It softened her brown eyes, lifted her bowed lips, and colored her cheeks. She wore it beautifully and powerfully, emitting it from her pores and lifting the very air I drew into my lungs.

I inhaled another breath of her hope and let that invigorating feeling settle through me. “I love you, you know.”

I hadn’t intended to say it. I wasn’t even sure I’d said those words to my guardians, but once they were out of my mouth, I heard the truth in them. It terrified me, knowing I could lose her in so many horrific ways, but it also strengthened me. I loved this woman, who exemplified all the good that still existed in the world.

She studied me with perceptive eyes. “You’re having a moment, aren’t you?”

I shrugged awkwardly, unsure what to do with myself. “It was bound to happen.”

“I love you, too.” She blinked rapidly, her chin quivering. “Now go on. Get outta here.” She shooed me with a hand. “Go tell those men downstairs your badass story.”

And so I did. Back in the living room and squished between Jesse and Roark on the couch, I talked until the candles dripped to shallow stubs and my voice rasped with overuse.