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Galbatorix had stopped trying to break her with pain three weeks ago, and Nasuada had some thoughts about how long it took her to notice.
One day she was chained in the dark expecting another session. The next she was being walked to better quarters with actual light and someone bringing her actual food, and a guard mentioned that a proper chamber was being prepared for her.
"Prepared how," she asked.
"Someone is being relocated, my lady."
"Relocated where."
The guard had not answered that, which told her everything she needed to know about what relocated meant in this castle.
She brought it up with Murtagh that night, sitting on his bed while he leaned against the wall looking like a man who had given up trying to predict his own life.
"He thinks you like me," she said.
"I'm aware."
"Do you?"
"Don't push it."
She grinned. He did not.
"So that's the whole plan," she said. "He's being nice to me because he thinks it'll make you easier to manage."
"Working great so far," Murtagh said, dry as anything, and she laughed weakly before she could stop herself, which surprised both of them a little.
In the meantime, she was sleeping in his room.
This had been his idea, delivered with zero ceremony, like it had not occurred to him that there was a version of this conversation that involved discussing it first.
"You'll take the bed," he said.
"And you'll sleep where, exactly?"
"Around."
"Around is not a location, Murtagh."
He hadn't answered, which she was learning was his preferred move when he didn't want to argue and also didn't want to lose. She never actually saw where he slept. He was just gone when she fell asleep and back before she woke, and she had decided not to interrogate it further, mostly because she suspected the answer involved a floor and she did not want the guilt of that confirmed.
She also, somewhat inconveniently, found herself hoping her real quarters took their time.
His room smelled like him. She would have died before admitting this out loud, but it was true, he smelled like woodsmoke, and she had started looking forward to falling asleep in it more than was probably reasonable given the circumstances.
The dinner with Galbatorix was, blessedly, short.
He talked at her rather than to her, the way he apparently did with everyone, painting a picture of her glorious future at his side like he was selling a particularly good property. The kind of life a smart woman would be foolish to turn down.
"You could be very useful to me," he said, like this was a compliment.
"I'm sure I could."
"You don't sound convinced."
"I'm considering it," she said, which was a complete lie, delivered with the specific blank pleasantness she'd perfected over several weeks of needing him to believe things that weren't true.
He seemed satisfied with that. Men who'd never once been told no hear what they wanted to hear.
Partway through dessert one of his concubines wandered over and pressed her mouth to his neck, and he barely paused mid sentence, just patted her hip the way you'd acknowledge a cat that had decided your lap was its lap now, and a few minutes later he excused himself and left with her trailing after him, and nobody at the table so much as blinked.
Nasuada decided this was simply a Tuesday in this castle.
The second he was gone, the table's manners went with him.
The lord two seats down, several glasses deep, scooted his chair closer under the thin guise of conversation, his hand finding her arm twice in a way that wasn't accidental, his comments sliding somewhere she had no interest in following. She went still, doing the math on how far the door was.
She didn't see exactly what Murtagh did. There was a hand on the man's collar. There was Murtagh's voice, quiet, almost friendly, which was somehow more frightening than if he'd shouted.
"I think you should sit somewhere else," he said.
The lord did not need to be told twice.
Murtagh sat back down like absolutely nothing had happened and resumed eating.
"You alright?" he asked her, not looking up.
"I'm fine."
"You sure."
"Murtagh, I've survived worse than a drunk lord."
"Didn't say you hadn't."
She noticed his knuckles were a little raw later. She had a strong suspicion this was not his first such conversation that week, given the way two of the guards had started giving her noticeably more space whenever he was in the room.
She didn't ask. He didn't explain. This was just how he operated.
She found him afterward in his room, sitting by the window with his collar still loose from dinner.
She sat down next to him without asking, because that was just what they did now, and he made room without comment, his arm settled around her like it was the only sensible place for it to be.
"You really didn't have to do that," she said, head on his shoulder.
"Yes I did."
"You could get in actual trouble."
"I'm aware."
"That's not very reassuring."
"It's not meant to be reassuring. It's meant to be true."
She huffed a sigh. The fire was low. The whole castle outside the door felt like it was holding its breath, the way it always did at night.
"I'm going to get you out of here," he said, quieter now. "I don't know how yet. But I will."
She lifted her head to look at him.
He looked back steady, none of the flat careful nothing he wore for everyone else in this place. Just him, looking at her like she mattered more than the very real danger of saying so out loud.
"Thank you," she said.
She didn't really decide to kiss him so much as it simply happened, her hand finding his jaw before her brain caught up, and he went still for half a second before kissing her back like he'd been waiting for it without ever planning to say so.
His mouth trails down her throat, slow and deliberate, pressing kisses to the hollow where her pulse flutters. She's still catching her breath from the kiss, from the weight of him above her, from all of it. His hand slid down her side, over the curve of her hip, and then under the edge of her skirt.
Nasuada tensed for half a second, instinct, old habit, but then his palm settles on her thigh, warm and steady, and she exhales.
"Murtagh," she says, and it's not a question, not really.
He hums against her collarbone, and his fingers start moving higher, trailing up the inside of her thigh. He took his time. The fabric of her skirt bunched around his wrist, and she can feel every brush of his knuckles against her skin. Her thighs part without her telling them to.
When his fingers find her through her smallclothes, she gasps. He's gentle, so gentle, rubbing slow circles through the damp fabric. Her hips shift into his hand before she thinks about it.
"This okay?" he murmurs softly against her skin.
"Yes, just, slow."
Murtagh slows down. His touch turns featherlight, teasing, and Nasuada makes a sound of frustration that makes him huff a quiet laugh against her shoulder. But he doesn't speed up. He works her open with his fingers, patient, until she's pressing into his hand, until she's wet enough that his fingers slip easily when he pushes her smallclothes aside and finally, finally touches her directly.
She's slick and hot against his fingers, and he groans low in his throat.
"Murtagh."
"I've got you."
He slides one finger inside her, and she feels it everywhere. It's just one finger, but she feels full, stretched in a way that makes her gasp and break the kiss they'd fallen back into. Her forehead presses against his, her breath coming in short, sharp pants. She's so sensitive, so aware of every millimeter of him inside her.
"Okay?" he asks, voice tight.
She nods, can't quite get words out.
He pulls his finger out slowly, deliberately, and the sensation of it dragging against her inner walls sends a shock of pleasure through her. She moans, it's loud, embarrassingly loud, and her cheeks flush even as she gasps.
He pushes back in, and she moaned again, louder this time. She claps a hand over her own mouth, eyes wide.
"Hey," he says, pulling her hand away and lacing his fingers through hers. "Don't. I want to hear you."
"But Galbatorix."
"Don't care."
She searches his face. He's serious. He's watching her with that dark intensity, like there's nothing in the world outside this room, like the king and his castle and all his spies might as well not exist. She swallows. Nods.
He curls his finger inside her, searching, and when he finds the spot that makes her gasp, he holds there, rubbing in slow circles.
She doesn't hold back this time. She lets the sound out, a broken moan that echoes in the quiet room. His eyes darken.
"That's it," he murmurs. "Let me hear you."
He finds a rhythm, slow and deep, his finger sliding in and out with wet sounds that fill the space between her moans. She can hear it, the slick, intimate noise of his finger moving inside her, and it makes her hotter, wetter, makes her grip his hand tighter.
He pushes a second finger in, and she cries out, her back arching off the chaise.
"Too much?"
"No," she pants. "No, it's, fuck, Murtagh."
Murtagh watches her fall apart with that reverent focus, adjusting his angle when she gasps, easing off when she trembles too hard. Every sound she makes, he matches with a murmur of encouragement, a kiss to her jaw, her throat, her mouth.
When she comes, she doesn't hold back. Nasuada lets him hear it, lets him feel it, her body clenching around his fingers as she moans his name loud enough that she knows, they both know, Galbatorix could be listening.
It doesn't matter.
Nothing matters except the way he's looking at her, like she's something precious, like protecting her means this too.