Kip grinned. For some reason, being called the Mighty’s heart was far more meaningful than if Cruxer had called him the head. “I would have called you the heart, Cruxer. Maybe you’re the spine or the guts of us, then.”

“Well, if neither of you is the head, I guess I must be,” Ben-hadad said.

“I’m obviously the left hand,” Winsen said. “I’ll come outta nowhere and slam ya.”

“That makes me the right,” Big Leo said. “You might be on the lookout for me, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna stop me.”

“Well, what’s that make me?” Ferkudi said. “A foot?”

The Mighty looked around the circle at each other, and then they all answered in unison: “The ass.”

“The ass?!” Ferkudi said.

“So what’s Tisis?” Cruxer asked.

Oh shit. Kip remembered the nickname, apparently at the same moment a blushing Cruxer did. Teats Tisis. Cruxer opened his mouth to apologize.

“Well, obviously—” Winsen said.

“—she’s the charisma,” Kip interjected.

“And… Winsen gets to live,” Tisis said flatly.

They grinned. Crisis averted.

Maybe the wine had gone to Kip’s head, but he wanted to say this: “I came from all that. But now—” He choked up, but no one said a word. Tisis squeezed his thigh, being a support. Kip said, “Now I have this? I’m risking my life to do something that matters with people I love? This is the best night of my life.” He spoke through the tears, and looked at them each in turn. A few eyes glimmered with tears in return. “Thank you. I love you all.”

Then he shot a wink at Sibéal. “Except for you. I mean, I’m sure you’re nice, but I barely know you.”

They all laughed, and Kip looked down at his hands. “What the hell, why are my hands empty? Can’t any of you bastards share with a thirsty man?”

“Hear hear,” Ferkudi said, reaching out an empty hand enthusiastically, trying to grab a wineskin from Big Leo, who was pointedly guzzling it so as not to share. Ben-hadad grabbed it away from Big Leo and handed the skin across, ignoring Ferkudi, but Tisis intercepted the skin.

“Uh-uh,” she said. “You come with me. I’ve got something better for you than wine.”

There were cheers and hoots as she took him by the hand and led him into the woods.

He wasn’t drunk—he’d been enjoying the stories and the camaraderie too much to want to dull it—but the wine and fellowship and the good-natured teasing made all the world warm for the fifty paces it took for Tisis to lead him to where she’d set up their tent.

“You set up our tent away from the others on purpose?” Kip said.

“Uh-hmm. That was… one helluva kiss this morning,” she said.

And that snake in his guts was back.

Orholam knew he wanted her, but every time they tried, she ended up furious or crying or both and then apologizing and then offering to pleasure him. At the top of Kip’s list of things that filled him with erotic desire was not a weeping, furious, guilty mess of a woman.

Although if things went on this way much longer, it was going to have to do.

Pained, he said, “You want to try again?”

“I want you…”

It took Kip a few moments to realize that maybe that was a complete sentence. “Oh, well, yes, I want you, too—”

“… to shut up.”

“Oh, I thought that was a full—”

“And kiss me.”

“Ah. That. That I can do!” Kip said.

“Kip.”

“Yes?”

She stripped off her tunic and chemise together. “The lips?”

As she slid into his arms, her skin warm and the night cold, it took him a moment to process the words. “Yes?” Kip the Lips? No, it was Kip the Lip. What did she—

“Are not for talking.”

He had no idea what she meant, but found he didn’t mind much as their lips came together.

The moments blurred in the welcome haze of intertwined fingers and intertwined limbs and the cold night driving them into their tent, where they made their own warmth.

And damn, it was a small tent. He was giddy, laughing aloud as she struggled to strip off her trousers and belt and underclothes and nearly knocking over the tent poles—she hadn’t ever set up a tent before. Not that Kip was so dumb that he was going to criticize how she’d set up the tent.

And then with a flapping of her feet like a fish on the shore, she finally kicked her trousers off her feet. Her long blond hair had fallen over her face, but Kip’s giggle died in his throat as she rolled up on her side toward him and brushed her hair back.

She sidled into his arms, and he bifurcated: part of him kissing, caressing, enjoying—and another part pulling way, way back into fear and cognition.

Orholam, are you out there? I know some men beg for a favor when they’re in terror of dying. This is way more serious than that. Look. Here’s the deal: I’ll serve you forever if you’d just Please Don’t Let Me Trigger a Card Now.

Blacking out or blanking out would be the quintessential Kip maneuver. With his luck, there was no way he could just enjoy himself like a normal man. No, Kip always had to do things backward. He was the one who’d gone to battle not having had sex with his bride. He was the fat kid who’d somehow made it into the Blackguard. He was the privileged bastard. He was…

Not paying attention.

Until she pulled his trousers down and pulled her lips away from his, kissing down his chest, lower.

One half of him took over all of him, utterly.

The wrong half.

He froze up. All mental. All awkward. All fear. It was all going to go sideways. Again. Another failure. He knew it.

She paused and looked up at him. But her gaze was patient, not frustrated. “Let me do this.”

“I want to, but…”

“Let me do this,” she said firmly. “Not just for you. For us. We need this.”

“It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Oh, my husband, you beautiful soul. It’s not fair, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good. A marriage breathes, and every exhalation is giving, and every inhalation is taking. It can’t live without both, Kip. So… just… breathe.”