The next morning, Cato appeared beside the bed with another bowl of porridge. Eve looked at it, then at him, her jaw set in a stubborn line. She wasn't going to make a scene today. She would eat, because she had to. But she wasn't going to like it.

Cato lifted the spoon to her lips. Eve opened her mouth and swallowed. Perhaps it was the tension in her throat, the way her body still rebelled against accepting anything from him—but the thick porridge caught awkwardly, triggering a violent spasm. Immediately, she started coughing. The angle was fine; it was her own resistance that choked her.

The coughing fit was a disaster. Every hack sent shockwaves through her broken ribs and shattered legs. The pain was blinding, stealing her breath. She gasped, her face turning red, then pale, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.

She glared up at Cato through the tears in her eyes, blaming him entirely for the design of the human esophagus.

Cato set the bowl down on the stool. He stood up, looking down at her for a long moment. Then, without a word of warning, he stepped to the side of the bed and leaned over her.

Eve's heart lurched into her throat. "What are you-"

He slid one arm under her neck and the other under the small of her back, his strength focused in a way that seemed to defy anatomy, completely avoiding the cage of her broken ribs. With a smooth, powerful motion, he hoisted her upper body off the mattress.

"Stop! Let me go!" she yelled, panic making her voice shrill. But her body was useless; she couldn't push him away. His arms were like iron bands, completely immovable, yet somehow avoiding every major injury on her torso.

Instead of propping her against the wall, Cato sat down on the edge of the bed. He shifted her weight, adjusting her body until her back was supported by his solid chest. It wasn't a flush press; he held her with such control that her injured spine and ribs barely made contact, suspended by the strength in his arms and torso. He settled himself against the headboard, creating a living backrest out of his own body.

Eve froze. Every nerve ending in her body fired at once. She was pressed against him. She could feel the hard slabs of muscle beneath his thin shirt, the steady, slow rhythm of his heartbeat against her shoulder blades, and the intense heat radiating from his body. It was like leaning against a furnace.

She could smell him. He didn't smell like the other laborers-no stale sweat or filth. He smelled of pine needles, crushed herbs, and dry wood, mixed with the crisp scent of the outdoors. It was clean. Wild.

A strange shiver ran down her spine, a confusing mix of revulsion and something else she refused to name. She hadn't been this close to another human being in years.

Cato reached for the bowl, his arm brushing against hers as he scooped up the porridge. He brought the spoon to her lips again.

Eve was so stunned by the sheer audacity of the situation that she forgot to argue. She opened her mouth mechanically. The porridge went down much easier this time. The angle was perfect. He held her securely, taking the strain off her neck and ribs.

He fed her in silence, his breathing slow and even. Eve ate, but she couldn't focus on the food. Her entire world had narrowed down to the points of contact between them. The steady thump of his heart against her back was a metronome, slowly syncing with her own frantic pulse.

The heat from his body seeped into her aching muscles, loosening the knots of tension she hadn't even realized she was carrying. The constant, deep chill that had lived in her bones since the Frostbound Abyss began to thaw.

When the bowl was empty, Cato set it aside. Eve braced herself for him to push her back onto the mattress, but he didn't. He just sat there, holding her against his chest in the quiet room.

The exhaustion she had been fighting for days crashed over her like a wave. The pain was still there, but it was muffled, wrapped in a cocoon of warmth and the steady rhythm of his breathing. She didn't feel safe-the very idea was ludicrous. But her body, a traitorous vessel of meat and bone, recognized a source of immense, unshakeable stability. It was not safety, but a forced calm, like a wild animal cornered by a creature so powerful it knows struggling is futile. Her mind was still screaming alarms, but her body had already surrendered to the overwhelming physical reality of his presence.

She tried to summon the energy to struggle, to tell him to let her go, but her limbs felt like they were filled with lead. Her eyelids drooped.

Don't fall asleep, she ordered herself. Don't let your guard down.

But his heartbeat was a lullaby she couldn't ignore. Her eyes drifted shut, and she slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep, cradled against the chest of the silent laborer.

Sleep didn't stay dreamless for long.

The darkness shifted, turning cold and biting. Eve was back in the Frostbound Abyss. The blizzard howled around her, the wind tearing at her skin like broken glass. She couldn't see two feet in front of her face.

"Eve! Fall back!" a voice screamed from the snow. She recognized it as belonging to a member of her squad, but the face was a blur of white and red.

A suffocating pressure clamped down on her chest. Something was watching her from the storm. An ancient, malevolent gaze that made her soul shrivel.

She reached for "Rebellion," but the hilt was coated in a thick layer of black frost. It was so heavy she couldn't lift it. A wet, tearing sound cut through the wind, followed by a spray of hot blood that hit her face.

She tried to scream, but the cold stole her voice. A figure stepped out of the blizzard. The build was familiar-broad shoulders, a commanding stance. Bernardo Rowe? The figure leaned in, its mouth moving, but the words were swallowed by the wind. Then, a hand, cold as a corpse, pressed against her chest, right over her heart.

Eve convulsed in her sleep, a strangled cry tearing from her throat.

Cato felt the sudden spike in her temperature. He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. She was burning up. He gently shifted her off his chest and laid her back on the bed. He grabbed a rag, soaked it in the bucket of cold water by the door, and began wiping down her face, her neck, and her arms, trying to draw the fever out.

The next few days were a feverish haze. Eve drifted in and out of consciousness, trapped in a loop of freezing nightmares and burning reality. Every time she surfaced, she saw him. He was always there, sitting on the stool, grinding herbs, or feeding her bitter, foul-tasting medicine that coated her tongue and made her gag.

He moved her limbs for her, bending her knees and elbows, massaging the muscles to keep them from wasting away. His hands were relentless, professional, and completely impersonal.

On the fifth day, the fever broke.

Eve opened her eyes. The light from the cracks in the roof no longer stabbed into her brain. She took a deep breath, and while her ribs ached, they didn't scream. She wiggled her fingers. They obeyed. She tried her toes. They moved.

A strange sensation emanated from her legs and arms-a deep, intense itch beneath the skin. It was the feeling of bone knitting back together. She knew what that felt like. But this was too fast. Even for a Paladin with a full reservoir of Aether, recovering from shattered bones took weeks, if not months. Without Aether, it should have been impossible. This wasn't healing; it was regeneration.

It had been five days. Not weeks. Not months. She lay there, watching him, feeling her body rebuild itself at a rate that defied all natural law. A faint, earthy warmth pulsed from the herbal poultices on her limbs, a feeling she didn't recognize as simple medicine. It felt like... life. Raw, potent life force being poured directly into her broken flesh.

She slowly turned her head. Cato was sitting in the corner, a whetstone in one hand and a rusted, broken dagger in the other. He was dragging the stone along the blade with slow, deliberate strokes, his eyes focused entirely on the metal.

He wasn't a healer. He was a menial laborer. But the herbs he used had worked a miracle. His medical knowledge was flawless. The questions piled up in her mind, heavy and sharp, but her throat was too dry to ask them.

She lay there, watching him, feeling the impossible mend of her own skeleton. The fever was gone, the nightmares had retreated, and she was wide awake.

Cato stood up, putting the dagger aside. He walked to the hearth and ladled some broth into a bowl. When he turned around and saw her staring at him, clear-eyed and focused, he paused for a fraction of a second.

He walked over and held out the bowl.

Eve looked at the broth, then up at his face. "How long was I out?" she asked. Her voice was hoarse, but it was steady.

Cato didn't answer right away. He set the bowl on the stool and looked at her, his dark eyes assessing her condition. Finally, he spoke, his voice a low, rough rumble, like rocks grinding together.

"Five days."

The shadows in the shack lengthened as the sun set. Cato lit the small oil lamp on the table, casting a flickering yellow glow over the cramped space. He went through his routine-checking her splints, applying a thin layer of fresh ointment to her healing wounds, and taking the empty bowl she had finished.

Eve watched him move, her mind sharper than it had been in days. Now that the fog of fever had lifted, the reality of her situation was impossible to ignore. She scanned the tiny room. The four walls were close enough that she could almost touch both sides if she stretched out her arms. There was a hearth, a table, a stool, and the bed she was lying on.

The bed. The only bed in the shack.

A cold knot formed in her stomach. She had been unconscious for five days. Where had he been sleeping?

Cato finished his tasks. He pulled his rough linen shirt over his head, tossing it over the back of the stool. He stood there in a thin, sleeveless undershirt that did nothing to hide the thick cords of muscle across his back and shoulders. He walked toward the bed.

Eve's breath caught. "Wait."

He didn't wait. He lifted the edge of the blanket and sat down on the narrow strip of mattress beside her legs. The wooden frame groaned under his weight. He swung his legs up and lay down on his back, leaving barely a foot of space between them.

The mattress dipped toward him, and Eve felt herself slide slightly in his direction. Her pulse hammered in her ears.

"What are you doing? Get out!" she snapped, pushing herself up on her elbows, ignoring the pull in her healing ribs.

Cato didn't even look at her. He folded his hands over his chest and closed his eyes, his breathing instantly slowing into the rhythm of sleep.

"Are you deaf? I said get off this bed! Now!" Her voice rose, trembling with anger and panic. "Don't you dare touch me!"

He didn't move. He didn't flinch. He might as well have been a stone statue.

Eve was shaking. She wanted to shove him off, but her arms were still weak, and her legs were bound. She was trapped in a bed with a man she didn't know, a man who had barely spoken ten words to her. She felt incredibly vulnerable, her skin prickling with awareness of every inch of his large body next to hers.

"This is where I sleep," she yelled, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. It was a ridiculous claim-she was the intruder here-but she was desperate.

The words seemed to hang in the air. Cato opened his eyes. He turned his head on the pillow and looked at her. The lamplight caught his irises, making them glow with an intense, quiet focus. There was no lust in his gaze, no anger, no mockery. It was just a flat, unyielding statement of fact. This is the only bed. Deal with it.

Eve stared back, her chest heaving. The fight drained out of her as quickly as it had flared. He was right, and she knew it. This was his shack. His roof. His food in her stomach. She had no right to demand anything.

Humiliation, thick and bitter, rose in her throat. She turned her head away, presenting him with her back, and stared at the rough wooden wall. She wouldn't sleep. She would stay awake all night and make sure he didn't try anything.

But the bed was warm, and her body was still exhausted from the healing. The steady sound of his breathing was annoyingly soothing. Hours passed. He didn't move an inch. He didn't roll over. He didn't reach for her. He just slept.

The next night, he did the exact same thing. And the night after that. Eve's protests devolved from screaming, to angry muttering, to sullen silence. She lay there, stiff as a board, acutely aware of his presence, until her body simply couldn't stay awake anymore.

By the fourth night, she stopped resisting. She closed her eyes and let the silence of the shack wash over her, accepting the bizarre, unspoken truce of their shared bed.