4.2

“I... see.”

Firen stood tall. Let him look. Let him take in whatever faults and assumptions he liked. She had no shame, not in her breeding and not in her bond with his son, and she would not pretend that she did. She might have wished they’d fetched her trunk first. That she’d braided her hair and perhaps added a ribbon or two.

But they hadn’t. And she didn’t. And they were relations now and he could choose to accept that or not.

“A fair morning to you,” Firen offered, as neither of them seemed intent on proper introductions. “What is left of it,” she added with a rueful glance toward her mate.

He did not look back at her. Continued to look at his father, which was better than glaring at the floor, she supposed.

She did not go so far as to approach him, but she placed her hand on her chest and bowed her head slightly, a sign of respect for his age and position.

He did not offer her one in return.

“Quite a predicament you have found for yourself,” the man continued, ignoring her words, if not her person.

She laughed. It was born of the steady waves of anxiety she felt through the bond rather than anything resembling good-humour, and it was enough to send two sets of pale eyes glaring at her each in turn. She almost placed a hand over her mouth to stem the sound, but that would be foolish. It was there, mingling and settling into the parchment and vellum of the library that surrounded them. And she was certain it was the first bit of laughter they’d heard in a very long while.

“I’ve been called a few things during my years,” Firen said instead, when she got control of herself. “A predicament hasn’t been one of them.” It was offered sweetly, with a smile that was not quite genuine, but wasn’t wholly false either. “Firen, usually,” she added, because she’d rather her name be known. “I am most pleased to have found your son.”

There. Those were the most important elements. She had not actually declared their bond—she would leave that for Lucian to present, even if it was more than obvious to any of them.

Lucian sighed, and the man glared harder across his desk, the heavy pen held tightly in his hand falling against the scroll with a thump, ink splattering at the impact. Blotting paper would help, and she almost suggested it, but Lucian was stepping between them and she supposed that meant she ought to be quiet.

He did not speak, only positioned himself so she was half behind him, and the two men stared at one another for a long while. “Were you not told,” Lucian’s father began at last, “of the consequences that would come should you bring an unworthy mate into this house?”

Unworthy?

She had to bite her tongue to keep from offering a retort to such a claim. This man wrote their laws? Oversaw matters of justice? She had never given much thought to such matters, but it suddenly felt absurd.

“You did,” Lucian admitted tightly.

“So. You ventured out, away from your assigned areas, and you happened upon one another.” He shook his head slowly, and his attention drifted to the splattered ink, which earned her yet another glare. As if she was responsible for his grip and his temper. “If your desires were so strong, there are facilities that could have seen to them.”

Firen’s mouth dropped open.

Suddenly Lucian’s position between them did matter so greatly. Not when there was such a grave insult not only to her, but to her mate. She moved, the better to address him, to tell him to keep such vile inside his black heart and not pollute either of them with speaking them, but Lucian reached out and grabbed hold of her forearm, his grip tight.

“I went to the fete, as you required of me. I wished to remain home.”

A quirked brow, a tightened jaw. “So you are blaming me for your inferior bond?”

It was Firen’s turn to glare at the floor, lest she lose control of her tongue.

“I am suggesting, ” Lucian answered, his grip tightening on her as he struggled with his own temper. She reached up with her free hand and laid it gently on top, reminding him to be careful of her. That she cared for him, and she was sorry, and really, they should just leave and make a life with her family because this man was ridiculous.

Perhaps not all that made it through the bond, no matter how she tried to push it through, but something did. Because his grip loosened and his eyes softened, if only briefly. “It’s not about fault and blame. It happened. I cannot change it.” Nor could his father, but he did not add that part. Firen did not either, although she thought it with all the vehemence she could muster.

“If you think that will save you...” His father did not shout, but there was a coldness that unnerved her. Made her move a little closer into her mate’s side.

The door opened. Not all the way, not until the feminine head poked through and saw them all standing there.

Then it was thrust open with such force that the door hit the side wall with an echoing clamour.

His mother. She was certain of it. For as great a resemblance as there was between the two men, it was her expression Firen recognised. The shimmer in her eyes as she took in the two of them settled so close.

Then the disappointment.

When she did not recognise Firen as one of those approved women with an old family and an important title.

“Oberon,” she breathed, her hands clasping in front of her heart. No... in front of the bond. “We cannot be hasty. Please. Just...”

Lucian’s father—Oberon—stood, and Firen very nearly flinched when that hard look transferred to the woman across the room. Mates should not look at one another in such a way.

“Ellena, I will deal with this matter.” The words were harsh and brokered no refusal, and yet...

This was a mother, so she took a step further into the room, regardless. “Of course you will,” she soothed. “But perhaps... perhaps we might talk a little, first.”

It was a placation. One that Firen did not think was deserved in the least.

But this was not her family. It was supposed to be. Might be in the future.

But the thought was a distant one of earlier dreams rather than the stark reality before her.

She did not want to know these people. Not with their stiff formality and harsh looks that flowed far too readily between them.

Lucian could not forbid her from seeing her kin. And she could not prevent him from having further dealings with them, either.

Oberon would. Any of them could see that. They’d be banished and she would comfort Lucian through the whole of it, and they’d be the better for it afterward.

He made no concession to his mate. They simply continued to stare at one another, and Firen did not know where to look or what to say. Manners drilled into her from her hatchling days insisted she give another bow, offer her name, insist it was a pleasure to meet her mate’s mother. To thank her for his raising and his birth, and might they share tea together when it was convenient?

But this was not a home for niceties.

“Lucian, darling. Please take your mate and wait for us outside.”

Lucian turned, his expression worried. “Mother...”

She moved further into the room so she could touch his cheek and smile at him briefly. “I’ll not lose you,” she murmured so softly that Firen wondered if she had heard it at all.

“Never,” Lucian mouthed back, allowing no sound to accompany the word.

It felt too intimate a moment to be witnessed, even... even by a mate. Something deep and personal and while their bond was bright and true, they were still relative strangers.

She turned her head, lest she see any more of it.

Only to be ushered out soon after by her arm, Lucian’s mouth set grimly as he walked her through the door and out into the atrium. She did not know what to suggest. Back to his room to hide? Or better yet, hers. They’d never find them.

She settled for putting her arms around him. Absorbing his tension, the anger that left him shaking. She worried little about her welcome. She needed him, and he needed her, whether or not he chose to admit it. “Was that better or worse than you imagined?”

It was whispered. She trusted the heavy door that stood between them, but not the echo of a tower and its impossibly high ceiling. “Both, I suppose. If that’s possible.”

Firen nodded, because it was. He did not hold her back, but that was all right for the moment. It was about his comfort more than hers. “Shall we escape to mine? Not... not forever. But maybe we could sort some things out along the way.”

Lucian’s hands found her shoulders, and he pushed her back so he could look at her. “If I run now, I shall lose whatever respect he has left for me.” There was the hardness in his eyes again, and she could not say she had missed it while it was absent. “I’ll not stop you.”

She wanted to chide him for that. Insist that he most certainly was supposed to stop her if she took off for her childhood home. Remind him just as thoroughly that it was custom for them to make parental introductions together.

But his eyes flickered toward the door. Where she could just make out a raised voice and cringed a little inside to hear that it was from his father.

Mates did not hurt one another. That was known.

She would be fine.

And yet...

It was enough to keep her quiet. To keep talk of their future tucked away for later.

“Do you want to go back in?” she asked as gently as she could. “I can stay here.”

He frowned slightly. “Best to leave them to it. I tend to make him angrier.”

She did not embrace him again, but she nestled her hand into his. “I’m sorry.”

He made a sound low in his throat. Not a hum and not a grunt. An acknowledgement and maybe an agreement. That... he was sorry, too. Whether for his father’s attitude or for what he’d said and insinuated, Firen couldn’t be sure. But it was comforting. To be unified, if only for a moment.

“Come along,” Lucian urged. “We’ll go to Mother’s room and wait for her.”

It should not surprise her they did not share a chamber, yet it did. Mates... always shared. How could they sleep otherwise?

Except the room he took her to held no bed. It was a parlour, instead. Or... might have been. If there were not so many easels and canvases spread about, the shutters open wide, the suns streaming through and illuminating the space. Despite its clutter, the brushes were all clean. The palettes as well. Cups of murky water were the only thing that could be considered untidy. Even the paints in their bottles were wiped clear at the sides. She took care of her things.

“The painting in your room. Your mother did that?”

Lucian eased onto a long sofa beneath the largest of the windows. The suns made his hair shimmer slightly, and it was such a contrast to how she’d seen him thus far. Shadowed and severe. He was not relaxed—nothing in his countenance suggested that he was. But it was a glimpse of how he might look in her mother’s kitchen. Stiff perhaps, but... normal.

“Yes.”

Just that. But it was something. More than she’d pulled from him the night before. Not strictly true... there was the mating bit.

“Why are you smiling?” His tone was almost accusatory, which she supposed was fair given the abysmal introduction they’d just endured.

“I was thinking of last night, if you must know.”

A grunt. Which was not a flattering appraisal, and might have stung if he was not so... Lucian.

“Oh, come now,” she countered, determined to ease some of the tension from him. It was over. There would be more—she was not so deluded as to think that Oberon would leave them be without consequence. But they needn’t dwell solely on it. “You cannot tell me you can’t think back on it with some fondness.”

She sat beside him and placed her hand on his leg as she leaned closer.

“You are not to seduce me in my mother’s room.”

Her eyes widened, and her hand retreated. “I wasn’t!”

Another huff, and he shifted away from her.

Which... did sting.

Quite a bit, actually.

“Lucian,” she murmured, closer to tears from his movement than she was from his father’s upset. “I was only...”

He glared at the floor, which was an improvement from sending his ire toward her directly. “I cannot shift my feelings as easily as you do,” he managed to get out from between gritted teeth and the urgency she felt welling in him to either pace or run away entirely.

She clasped her hands tightly together to keep from reaching for him. Wanting to rub at his shoulders. The sensitive spot between his wings he’d liked so much the night before.

“All right,” she agreed. Eris had often complained of much the same. Da said that Firen burned brightly. Fast and fierce, and then she was ready to move on. Back to smiles and pleasant matters. Eris liked to simmer. To brood.

Lucian must like the same.

She took a deep breath and tried to let the hurt pass through her. She should have taken the pastries back to his bed. Cared nothing for the crumbs they might have left, but indulged herself and him until they were both full and wanted only for kisses and the feel of one another moving together instead.

But she hadn’t.

She did not bring up her parents. Or her trunk. Or where they might sleep tonight.

Instead, she allowed the silence to settle over them. To work on feeding calm and peace through the bond until she actually felt it in herself as well.

Eventually, he looked at her. And though he frowned slightly, it lacked the undercurrent of anger it had before. “I take it that your parents are not like mine.”

It was the most invitation he’d offered her to speak of her own life, and she brightened considerably. “I should hate to make judgements after only one meeting, but I think I am safe to say that no, they are not.” The chatter came easily. Of Da and his creations. Of practical Mama and her firm, yet loving manner. Chimes in her market stall, some made by her, others by her father. The way they tinkled merrily in the breeze, inviting more custom.

She hadn’t expected the sadness to come. The one that reminded her that those days might be quite behind her. Would be. If Lucian had his way and he continued as apprentice to his father, his future one of law rather than craft.

“And you’ve... siblings.”

“Oh yes. All mated now. And me, the last of them.”

She’d an elder brother, but she was the one that had to wait longest. A pity, Da would say. Since she was the one that wanted it most.

She wanted to pry into his family, in turn. That was the nature of a conversation, wasn’t it? To give and receive. Until at the end, everyone knew each other a little better for it.

But she didn’t.