The words hit her differently than they should have.

She heard "strong." She heard "woman." She heard the way he said it—not dismissive, not mocking, not the way the knights said it, not the way Dorn said it, not the way the world said it. He said it the way one states a fact. The way one says the sky is blue or the stone is cold. Without judgment. Without agenda. Without the underlying implication that "strong" and "woman" were contradictions.

She broke.

Not broke—opened. The shell that had held her together—the fighter’s shell, the knight’s shell, the sixteen-year shell of callouses and silence and refusal to be anything other than what she had decided to be—cracked. Not shattered. Cracked. Just enough to let something out. Something that had been behind the steel since she was three years old and swinging a stick at a fence post.

She heaved. Her chest expanded against his. Her breasts pressed into him. Her nipples—stiff, aching, sensitized by the drug—dragged against his coat. The sensation shot through her. Her back arched. Her breath hitched.

She pulled back.

Her hands went to his chest. She pushed herself away. Not far—just enough to see his face. Just enough to look at him. Her dark hair fell around her face. Her eyes were red. Wet. Her cheeks were stained with tears and blood—his blood, the knights’ blood, smeared on her cheek from where she had pressed against his coat.

She looked at him.

His violet eyes looked back. Calm. Still. The same eyes that had assessed the room. The same eyes that had erased a man’s shoulder. The same eyes that were now looking at her—not at her body, not at her breasts, not at her exposed nipples or her hairy pubes or her soaked panty. At her. At her face. At her eyes.

"Thank you," she whispered.

The words were small. Inadequate. The kind of words that people say when the actual words—the real words, the true words, the words that carry the weight of what has happened—do not exist. She had been saved. She had been pulled from a room where three men were about to destroy her. She had been pulled by a man who had erased body parts without moving. And all she could say was "thank you."

She could feel her body.

It was heating up. Not from the cold stone. Not from his proximity. From the inside. The warmth was spreading from her stomach. Into her blood. Into her muscles. Into her skin. Into places she did not want it to go. Her nipples ached. Her pussy throbbed. Her skin tingled. Every nerve ending was amplified. Every point of contact—the cold stone under her knees, the rough fabric of his coat against her nipples, the air on her wet skin—was a spark.

"They have fed you an aphrodisiac," he said.

His voice was the same. Quiet. Unhurried. The statement of a fact.

Sera blinked. The word was foreign. She had heard it—once, maybe, in a passing conversation, a rumor, a whisper in the market about women who were given things. Things that made them...

"What— what is that?" she said. Her voice was still broken. Still hiccuping. The sobs were subsiding, but the hiccups remained. "Hic— what is— what did they— give me—?"

"It will make you a horny woman," he said. His voice did not change. He said the word "horny" the way one says "feverish" or "nauseated." A symptom. A condition. A medical fact. "A bitch."

Sera trembled.

"What—?" she whispered. Her eyes widened. "No— I would not— I cannot— I am not—" She shook her head. Her dark hair whipped. "Why— why do men do that? Why would— why would anyone—"

He leaned forward. His lips touched her forehead.

The kiss was light. Brief. The pressure of a butterfly landing. His lips were cool against her hot skin. She felt them for a long time after they lifted. The impression remained. A circle of cool on her fevered brow.

"That is how nature is," he said. "To reproduce."

She trembled.

She looked down. At her own body. At her bare chest. At her breasts—full, firm, the muscles of her chest pushing them up, the nipples dark and stiff and aching. Her pink nipples were poking. Long. Hard. The areolas were tight. Puckered. The skin was flushed. Red. Not from cold. Not from embarrassment—well, not only from embarrassment. From the drug. From the chemical working through her blood. From the aphrodisiac that was making her body respond in ways her mind did not consent to.

Her handful of boobs were visible. Bare. Exposed. The nipples were the hardest she had ever seen them—stiff, elongated, the tips dark and swollen. She could feel them aching. She could feel the air on them. She could feel the moisture between her legs—not the wine, not the sweat, her own slick, her own wetness, forced from her body by a pill she had not chosen to swallow.

Her face turned crimson.

She covered her boobs. Her hands came up. Her arms crossed over her chest. She pressed her forearms against her nipples. The contact sent a shock through her—the drug made her skin so sensitive that even the pressure of her own arms was almost too much. She gasped. She pressed harder. She tried to hide herself.

"No— wait—" she stammered. "My bra— where is my— I need— I need to cover—"

He chuckled.

It was a small sound. Low. Warm. Not mocking—amused. The sound of a man who has seen something and found it endearing despite everything. Despite the blood on his face. Despite the screaming men in the room he had left behind. Despite the end of the world.

"They are like cute," he said. He looked at her covered breasts. At her hands pressed against them. At the nipples poking between her fingers, too stiff, too swollen to be hidden by her palms. "Now I know why men are..."

He trailed off. He did not finish the sentence. He did not need to. The implication hung in the air.

"...completely insane after those tits."

Sera trembled. Her face was the color of fire. Her ears were red. Her neck was red. Her chest was red—the flush spreading from her cheeks to her breasts, the skin mottling with heat and shame and the drug and the impossible, conflicting, overwhelming sensations that were crashing through her body like waves against a cliff.

She looked at him.

At his face. At his blood-streaked cheek. At his violet eyes. At his dark hair. At his jaw. At his lips—the lips that had just called her nipples cute. The lips that had kissed her forehead. The hands that had rubbed her back. The arms that had held her. The voice that had said "you are fine, you are okay, I am with you."

He had saved her.

He had walked into a room where three men were about to rape her, and he had saved her. He had erased a prince’s shoulder. He had removed two men’s legs. He had killed two knights without moving. He had done all of this—for her. Because her grandfather had sent him. Because Old Tomas had known. Because the old barber who massaged shoulders and pulled splinters and told her the world would try to break her had, somehow, from somewhere, sent this man.

She looked at his face.

She looked at his blood-streaked cheek, at his violet eyes, at his dark hair, at his jaw, at his lips.

She felt her chest tighten. Not from the drug. Not from the sobs. From something else. Something she had never felt before. Something that was not fear. Not relief. Not gratitude. Something deeper. Something warmer. Something that started in her chest and spread outward, through her blood, through her skin, through her nipples and her fingers and her toes.

’Why is my heart thumping?’

Thump.

Thump.

Should I help you relax your body?" Raven asked, his hand going to button his shirt. She trembled as she could see his muscular abs; she gasped and looked at him. It felt strange.

She asked, "How?"

He relaxed himself, slowly pushing her back, and said, "You just have to do nothing." His hand rested on her knees, spreading her legs. Placing her hand over her pussy, she heard a grunt as he nudged her finger in her panty, pulling it. She did not even feel embarrassed looking at him, confused, as he said, "You just have to hold it."

As he unzipped his pants, he said, "while I clean the effect of the medicine from depth of your belly..."