I forced my fingers to get to work on the lacings of my boots. Vidanric seemed to be busy rummaging through one of the baskets, so I took full advantage of his distraction to twist my face into a pained grimace while I pulled my boot off. But of course it was the stocking that betrayed me, for, fearing that I had only seconds remaining before he turned around, I impatiently yanked at it from the toe.

As anyone who has ever tried to remove a wet sock in such a fashion will guess, all it accomplished was tweaking my ankle hard enough to unleash a sharp gasp. Both hands blindly flew to the floor to brace myself while, eyes screwed shut and teeth gritted, I waited for the worst of the pain to pass.

Vidanric was kneeling in front of me by the time the haze cleared enough to notice. Taking my foot in one hand, he murmured an apology and slid his fingers up under my trouser leg to gently remove my stocking. It was unclear exactly which pardon he was asking for, considering the injury was my own fault from start to finish. The whole thing was just an uncomfortable reminder of the first time he'd looked after me, on our way to Athanarel so long ago. My cheeks threatened to burn at the memory, fingers practically twitching to cover the scars, though it was senseless considering he had already seen my ruined foot a hundred times by now.

"Thank you," I said, endeavoring to prevent another downward spiral by forcing those thoughts away.

He let out a pleased noise and remarked, "The sky must have fallen, for Meliara has graciously accepted help."

"Maybe it'll be your lucky day, and I'll let you wait on me hand and foot." A pathetically hollow threat considering my ankle was still cradled in his hand.

He adjusted his grip, allowing a thumb to massage the tired muscle on the side of my foot and drawing an undignified groan from me. "My tender heart cannot bear such cruel, false promises."

"How about a compromise? I dress myself, and then you continue doing that."

"What a good idea."

Vidanric deposited my clothes next to me with suspicious enthusiasm, as if he'd merely been waiting for the right moment to do so. I tried to devine his intent while I worked off my damp outer things, but of course his face gave away nothing. He merely settled back in a pile of straw, one arm propped atop a knee, watching me undress as if it were the most natural pastime in the world.

To most people, I suppose, this would be considered a strange or even uncomfortable situation. But we had spent enough vulnerable nights together that I understood the significance of these moments. So much of his life was spent keeping a careful guard over every glance and expression for fear of watching eyes and loose tongues, so this, heedlessly allowing his gaze to drift wherever he wanted, was luxury that could not be purchased.

After many an awkward wiggle I was out of my wet things, and comfortably garbed in a thick wool sweater that went past my hips and smelled faintly of the cinnamon sticks that Mora always laid in the bottom of my travel trunk. But it wasn't until then, reaching blindly back down to the empty hay beside me, that I realized the rest of my clothes were still lying next to Vidanric, conveniently out of arm's reach.

"No stockings just yet," he confirmed, seeing my peeved expression. He slid himself over to kneel before me once again and wrapped the largest blanket around my shoulders, making sure it was snug and tight at my hips before flipping a small jar out of his pocket.

"Oh, is this what you've been hiding?" I crowed, congratulating myself for my own observance.

"I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific," he replied, throwing me a cheeky wink and then laughing at the scowl on my face.

I caught a glimpse of some sort of green salve before he began to warm it between his palms, and my sarcastic response was whisked out of my brain at the first glorious press of fingers into my foot. It only took a few seconds to understand what was so special about his secret jar . That salve had the most— oh, stars above, magical effect on me. A pleasant warmth began to radiate across every nerve in my ankle and seemed to soak all the way down to the bone, loosening each tight muscle in its wake. Forfeiting my dignity entirely, I fell backwards into the hay and let out a long, loud groan of pleasure. Vidanric chuckled and worked a thumb firmly into the middle of my foot, earning himself another obscene noise.

"What is this stuff?" I asked dreamily, now perfectly content to lie there in my mollified stupor.

"Something from across the sea. Many more— ah, affluent— warriors use it after battle, for sore muscles and interior wounds."

I cursed softly, unfocused eyes gazing up at the dark rafters. "It's amazing."

He smiled down at my punch drunk expression, fingers somehow finding the perfect amount of pressure over my throbbing ankle. It was suddenly easy to ignore the odd poke of hay when I could feel the tension leaving my body minute by minute, with the rain beating a calming rhythm somewhere above our heads.

"I had it in my bag," Vicdanric remarked unexpectedly, "all those days I spent trying to find you before Debegri. My mother was able to procure some in the hopes that, though there wasn't much I could say that you would believe, it would at least give you a measure of comfort on the journey to Rensalaus. You should have never–" he stopped and let out a regretful sigh. "You should never have been made to cross the kingdom with that injury."

I raised myself to my elbows to look at him. Even after everything that had happened, it still seemed incredible that he could have possibly been thinking about me, worrying over my pain while I lay in this loft cursing him to the depths of hell.

The back of my throat gave me a warning prick of emotion, so I quickly deflected with a weak crack, "And consequently you carry it around everywhere with you, waiting for the lucky day that I stomp on another trap."

"Yes."

The smile I'd manufactured fizzled away. His eyes were fastened on the motion of his hands working over my foot.

"Danric." I said quietly, and waited until his gaze flicked over to me. "I love you so much."

He smiled back ruefully. "I love you too, Mel."

"Folk knows we've already wasted enough time regretting the past. Let's not waste tonight, too."

"Alright," he agreed, giving my leg a friendly squeeze and then sliding a soft wool stocking up my foot.

I waited the torturous ten seconds it took to attach both socks before grousing, "Come down here before I have to hobble over to get you."

He laughed a real, deep laugh. "As frightening as that would be, I'm not quite done with you. Nessaren tells me your shoulders will be sore as well."

"May as well drain the royal coffers now and put that salve on every inch of me."

"You think I won't," he teased, finding a supporting beam to lean against and arranging me back between his legs. He cocooned both of us as best as he could in the blanket, and I thought his body heat was heaven until his hands met my neck.

"Lands," I exclaimed, dropping my chin immediately to my chest. I hadn't realized quite how strained my muscles were until the salve began to sink into my skin.

"Just relax."

"You're really not going to let me do a single thing for myself tonight, are you?"

"A queen and a seer. Impressive."

I should have left it there. After all, he was being incredibly nice. But of course I had to retort, "It's a gift. I wouldn't expect you common people to understand."

An amused huff sounded behind me before I felt his hands lift to my hair. With practiced gentleness he removed the pins to take down my damp braid, and instead of draping it across the dusty floor, he carefully tucked it into the blanket beside me. His fingers soon returned, finding their way under the hem of my sweater to massage the bare skin of my lower back.

Lips pressed themselves against the side of my neck and I offered no resistance, leaning my head to the side in order to give him better access. A rumbling, happy sound came from behind me before he remarked into my skin, "There are some things we common folk understand quite well."

A wave of goosebumps rolled over my skin because damn him, he did understand, and the knowledge that I was bare under the sweater suddenly pushed itself to the forefront of my mind.

"Such as?" I asked, failing to sound coy thanks to my suddenly shallow breathing.

"How to stay warm." He probably intended his voice to sound casual, but the low, rough quality that it suddenly carried turned my entire focus towards the warm hands sliding around the front of my ribs.

"So, it's this kind of hayloft, is it?"

"What other kind of hayloft is there?" He asked innocently, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts while I arched back against his shoulder.

"The kind where we both get a good night's sleep and wake up rested tomorrow."

"And yet, you led me to this one." He tsked under his breath, and I would have retorted if his hands hadn't chosen that moment to slide right up the front of my breasts, callouses brushing over the sensitive points so lightly that the sensation made me gasp.

Lips found my neck again and he spoke against my skin, "Let me take care of you tonight, you vicious, pretty little thing."

"Alright," I agreed quickly, my insides already beginning to mash themselves into an aching pulp, "so long as no one can hear us."

"The guards are at a safe distance." Vidanric reached a hand down to pick up the back of my knee and drape it up over the side of his leg. "But I can't vouch for the sheep."

He slid a warm palm down the inside of my spread thigh, and I cursed again. I was no stranger to the feeling of his hands on my body, but it was simply unbelievable that such a simple brush of a hand was connecting straight down to my core, tingly and hot and almost too intense to bear the contact. It wasn't until he finally took pity on my desperate noises to stroke his fingers between my legs that understanding finally hit me, from the way my thigh sparked with heat long past the loss of his hand.

"Is that the same salve? Fr-from before?"

"Yes. Does it feel different right here?" He dipped his fingertips down and then rubbed a wet, teasing circle somewhere wonderful.

My lungs sucked in a conspicuous breath at the explosion of warmth suddenly shooting through my pelvis. Lands, it was good, even with this miniscule amount of whatever residue remained on his fingers. I vaguely recalled that he had asked me something, but the will to respond was lost to the overwhelming tide of sensation. The fingers left me without warning and I did try to speak then, though it only came out as a wordless whine of disappointment and a frustrated lift of my hips.

"Shh, don't fret, I'm just getting more."

His fingertips returned, now slick with salve. I probably should have protested at our shameless misuse of the stuff, but my mental capacity was quickly deteriorating under his talented hand. Throbbing heat wrapped around my insides and squeezed them together, far, far too soon. That damned salve was sending sharp waves of blood between my legs, dragging me out and presenting me all hot and swollen for Danric's fingers to play with. I could only flex my feet, one on the floor and the other dangling helplessly in the air over his knee, and attempt to catch up with the rising intensity.

I must have made some excessively pitiful noise, because his hand stopped moving suddenly and he asked, "Does it hurt?"

I vehemently shook my head and gasped out, "No, it's f— hhhuh— it's fine. Better than— Danric, oh, please don't stop."

He stroked me again and I cried out, for in truth it did hurt. He'd only been touching me for a few minutes, and it wasn't normal to feel like this already, like my pulse was a discernible throb under his fingers. Like it was the worst, cruelest thing imaginable that he was not pushing himself inside me then, right at that moment, so I would have something to clench down onto. That was the hurt, the aching, empty place inside me which was all but weeping for something to hold.

The pressure was soon inescapable, as one of his fingers discovered a particularly blissful spot and capitalized on it, and my belly curled and dipped until I was sure I was beginning to leak down to the floor below. If I wasn't careful, I was going to reach my destination humiliatingly soon, right there between his legs, with my body scorchingly hot and struggling to acclimate to the release.

"Does that feel good, little Countess?"

My eyes sprang open at the warning burn of sweet lightning his words wrought within me. I clamped my hand onto his forearm, whimpering and grinding myself into his fingers and simply unable to form words with how close I was to relief.

Vidanric's other hand was suddenly there on the back of my thigh, pressing it up against my chest to keep my legs wide open while his finger relentlessly tended to that devastating spot. "Relax for me, Mel. Let me give you this."

I couldn't tell if my hips were trying to chase the release or fight it, but within the space of a few rapid pants it didn't even matter. I was launched off that cliff, body clenching and releasing through each wave, falling down and down through thin air even though Vidanric's strong arms still held me fast. His fingers continued to work me through every shudder and wet spasm while he nuzzled contented, pleased noises into my hair.

It took me some time to pick myself up again, slowly coming into awareness with my head lolling back against his chest while his hand slowed to a faint caress between my legs. He'd released my leg at some point, and was using his free hand to stroke a palm up under my sweater, over my belly and between my breasts and along the sensitive skin of my collarbone.

That wasn't the astonishing part, for I could feel him hard and hot against my backside from the moment he first brought up the subject. No, the thing that had me blinking incredulously and shuffling my hips in discomfort was the fact that I was still smoldering. Burning low and deep in my belly, like the incredible release that had just occurred was still not enough.

That salve was going to murder me.

But I could practically hear the gears turning in Vidanric's head, looking around and trying to figure out how he was going to bed me with no available surface but the dirty floor. I was in such a state where I wouldn't have minded in the least, but I took pity on him and suggested that he spread out his cloak like he did for the picnic.

I felt his muscles tense in hesitation behind me, and in a moment of inspired genius I added, "Or will that be a problem for you, Your Majesty?"

Instead of the grumbling huff I expected to hear in response to my obnoxiousness, he pressed me tightly into his chest by way of a rough hand on my breast, and pushed two long fingers into me. "Feeling playful, Countess?"

Oh, no. That intrusion felt like the opposite of a punishment, and his words only sparked a competitive, impish side of me, resurrecting it as surely as a firestick flaming to life. I rolled my hips forward to get him a little deeper and murmured, "Perhaps you could lay yourself down on the ground, to give me something convenient to sit on."

He sucked in a breath through his teeth and I smiled, confident enough in his regard for me that he wouldn't take it as anything but the shameless flirting it was. He rolled his fingers up into me, forcing me to clamp my jaw closed to suppress a rather undignified groan.

"Are you in need of something to sit on, Countess? I find that I have something readily available, which should fit you exquisitely."

"I suppose," I drawled between panted breaths, "that I'll have to try it and judge for myself."

"I'm afraid you're wearing far too many clothes for that."

"So undress me," I replied, sounding far more like begging than commanding.

"You'll have to pardon me on that front, for I find my hands quite occupied with other matters." Namely driving me insane with a slow roll of my nipple.

I feigned annoyance and stripped my own sweater off, glad for it because I was growing quite hot and sweaty with the combination of my body's excitement and him still enveloping me under the blanket. I settled back against his chest, my gaze falling down my naked body through the opening of the blanket, watching his fingers slowly slide out of me and worry that sensitive area between my legs in wet, lazy circles.

The hand on my breast slid up, the inside of his palm sliding lightly along my throat and urging me to arch my neck backwards to look up at him, so of course, I did. I was blissfully compliant, blinking up at his familiar, lovely face, soaking in the warmth of his rough hand on my jaw and the sparkling flame of his fingertips stirring me to ache below. I watched his eyes rake over me, taking in the sight of my chest working up and down with each breath, my body soft and wet with every continued touch. And then his gorgeous grey eyes traced back to my face, warm and sure, and full of desire in a way that only I knew.

"Please," I whispered, "let me tend to you as well."

It had nothing to do with the salve still scorching need through me and squashing my self consciousness down to nothing. That part was temporary, just the night's distraction. The strength of what I felt for him, my heart swelling with the knowledge that he'd dropped every responsibility to comfort me tonight, is what guided me to drag his hand away from my body. I twisted in his arms, turning and kneeling between his legs, and I kissed him. Tenderly, conveying my gratitude with gentle lips, while one hand wrapped around the back of his neck and the other unfastened his trousers.

"I do not care about the hay or the dust," I murmured against his lips, "when I have you, Danric. You cannot comprehend how much you matter to me. I may be silly and little, and prone to arguments, but I hold within myself a love for you which surpasses any physical limitations."

"Mel," he breathed, tugging my mouth down to his, and his tongue softly met mine.

I let my hand wander into the opening of the laces, skin humming with pleasure at the rumbly noises my touch drew out of him. This was forever my favorite moment, when my hands turned him into the rustic and me into the benevolent lady, reducing him to groans and twitches under my fingers. He had been right to choose his queen so carefully. This power was a heady, dangerous thing, a thing that shocked me the first time I felt it swell through my chest, when his body trembled against mine.

It was a marvel, every time he trusted me enough to surrender to it. I'll admit it heightened my self estimation. Made me hold my chin a little higher in court, and kept my voice steady when I addressed people whose station terrified me. We practiced this game together in our chambers, trading surrenders over and over until my body began to remember him. I could wake debilitated from a nightmare and feel his arms tighten around me, and instantly know I was safe. His smell, his touch, the tickle of his unbound hair across my shoulder, they were all becoming as dear and familiar to me as my old riding hat.

Which is why I still felt those icy fingers of guilt low in my gut, swelling up each time I thought about my lapse of sanity earlier that day. It was inexcusable, spit on the shoe of how carefully he had worked to earn my trust. I should have fought it. Should have resisted the crazed notions of my mind, should have slapped myself until I could once aga—

"Meliara."

I yanked my eyes open, suddenly aware that we were no longer kissing, and my hand had ceased moving in his pants.

"S-sorry," I stammered.

He took my face in both of his hands, holding me there and staring me down. "It's not your fault."

The ache of tears immediately pricked up my throat, but I stubbornly swallowed them back.

"What happened to you," he continued, running his thumbs across my cheeks, "the way you grew up, the injury and the ridicule you suffered, none of it is your fault."

A rogue tear spilled down my cheek before he easily swiped it away and leaned forward to press a kiss to the tip of my nose. "It won't always feel like this, Mel. Some day it shrink and weaken, and you will be able to overcome these feelings. But until then, you have me, and I am willing to keep you steady."

I pushed past his hands, burying my face in his neck and wrapping myself around his middle. He held me to him, and surprisingly I didn't cry any more. I let the calm inhales of his chest and the strong beat of his heart soak into my body, and eventually I was able to match them. I tilted my mouth up to kiss him again, and was able to lose myself in it, a new sense of safely melting into my chest.

When he laid me down on his cloak and sunk himself into me, it didn't feel like we were the king and queen, indulging in a silly game of past memories. It felt like I was Mel, and he was Danric, and we understood each other far past the point of comfort.

That infernal salve kept me lit from within, though Vidanric pushed me past my breaking point over and over, with heart wrenching precision, until I was a sticky, breathless puddle beneath him.

"Mel," he mumbled, licking into my mouth. "Mel," he breathed against the skin of my breast. "Mel," he said with a curse, palm planted somewhere beside my head while he lost himself.

And when I was finally reunited with my clothes, and we fell asleep on that bed of straw, I stroked my hand over his stubbly cheek and my heart replied, "I'm here."