4.4

“Lucian,” she began again, her voice strained, but low. Raised voices served only to further raised tempers. That’s what Mama would say when she would brawl with one of her brothers, tugging and pulling at feathers until she’d finally come in, ready to pluck a few more herself for all the racket they were making. “What did you come here for?”

“I came,” Lucian answered, coming far too close to her back, where she stood in front of her wash table. She could see him in the looking glass Da had hung there. Rippled in places, pitted in others. Hers. A gift, and one she treasured. “Because my mate ran out of a conversation with my mother.” Her mouth twitched but she kept from pressing her lips together. “I came,” he continued, his hands coming to settle on her shoulders. “Because she said I might find her here. Only I did not find her here at all, did I? Not when you were out drowning yourself in the sea.”

This he whispered into her ear, his head leaning close so it was solely between the two of them.

Firen blinked once, her brow furrowing. “I was doing what?”

She turned, disregarding the grip he tried to keep on her, wanting to face him properly. “When I get overwhelmed,” she answered as clearly as she could manage. “Or angry,” although she could not properly recall that being the cause before now. “I like to take a swim. To dive and hold my breath and when I surface, everything feels... better.”

She shoved at his chest, and if it hit where the bond was settled, then she hoped it jangled just a little bit for even suggesting something so wretched. “I might be disappointed. I might be upset that your parents find me so distasteful.” Then, for good measure, she reached into the washbasin to wet her hands and flicked water at him so he too could be a little damp. “I might have wished that I had a mate that adored me from the start, that looked at me with a modicum of happiness that I was his, but that doesn’t mean...” she cut herself off before she said something she would regret. “You do not know me,” she reminded herself. Reminded him.

“I am more than aware of that,” Lucian agreed, wiping away the dribbles of water that had found purchase on his cheek. “You do not know me, either.”

He reached for her.

Kissed her.

Tried to kiss her.

His mouth wanted hers, but she turned her head and shoved away from him, and yes, the bond gave a half-hearted pull that she wasn’t doing things properly.

“No,” she stated firmly. “No,” she repeated, because her pulse raced and she hadn’t finished washing—had scarcely even begun.

His arms crossed, and he huffed low in his throat.

“Why not?”

Brooding might become him, but sulking did not.

“Because you thought me so desolate a moment ago that you thought I was attempting to drown myself. And while perhaps I shall allow that you are relieved and wanted to celebrate that I am, in fact, in control of my own faculties, I do not believe those to be your motives.” She shoved at her hair, and she wished she was bold enough to shove him out the door so she could comb it out in peace. “You wish to distract me.”

Lucian snorted before shaking his head. “We are good at distractions. The rest is abysmal.”

It hurt. It shouldn’t. She should agree with him. But she had liked parts of it. When he talked to her. Brought her pastries. When he curled about her before they slept so that she would sleep.

“Firen...”

She shook her head. “Just... maybe you should go home. If... if you’re not here to set things right.”

He sank down onto her bed. Not Eris’s. It had either been happenstance or some innate sense that had him at the foot of hers.

“What does that look like?”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head tilting up to look at her. “Do you know? Because I do not.”

She had ideas. Of ripping him out of a life and a family that seemed strange and miserable. Of letting her mother go to work at him, plying him with recipes plucked from generational cookery books that could put his old family to shame.

“I know,” Firen answered with as much patience as she could muster. “That there were glimmers. Last night. Even this morning. Of how good we might be together. When... when you let us.”

His head turned and yes, there was his glare, and she would not cry about it. Not when it was expected.

Which made her want to cry for wholly different reasons.

“I was perfectly clear about how you would be received. It is not my fault you chose not to believe me.”

Is that what she’d done? But thinking that there were families with grace and love between them rather than... whatever foreboding and absurd expectation seemed to ooze from his.

He loved them. She reminded herself of it as she took another breath and wrenched off her dress. The one that she’d donned with such care—then with such haste only a few hours before.

“I do not know where I will launder this dress,” Firen observed when it was off of her and instead between her hands. As unsuitable for the trunk as it was for the hamper, damp as it was. “I have no home but this one. Not until you give me another.”

He got to his feet so quickly that it startled her. “And you think it is different for me? When my entire future hangs on the success of a single supper. On a mate I do not know, who I do not trust not to flee the moment she hears something not to her liking!”

They stared at one another. And which anger was hers and which was his, she couldn’t tell. Not when it flowed so freely in such mutual agreement through the bond.

“You are upset,” Firen began after a moment of too-long silence. “That I left.”

“ Yes,” he hissed, turning his back to her.

Not to leave. But to rest his forearm against the door, before his forehead came against his arm as well.

“You are upset that I left your mother?”

Another mate—a better mate—would have gone to him. Placed her hand upon his back and soothed him as she struggled with his own feelings on the matter.

But unfortunately, he was bound to her.

So she wrenched off her shift, the one that had felt so delightful in its sensuousness when they were undoing knots and ties together. When she could tease and nibble and delight in the only part of their union that was not abysmal.

If he turned, she did not care. Not when she wiped over her skin as quickly as she could, trying to get a hold of her own flaring temper. It was too hard, when she had his to contend with as well.

If he was another mate, he would have come over. Taken the cloth from her. Smoothed it against her skin and followed it with his lips. Would have dried her with just as much care and then, when he asked for the claim of her mouth, she would not have dreamt of refusing him.

But Lucian sulked.

And she did her best not to cry as she drew out fresh clothing and situated her damp things on hooks along the wall.

Where trinkets had once been held, but were now carefully situated in her trunk. Because... she’d wanted this. Sought it. Like the naive girl she’d been.

She saw to her underthings. Then the soft leggings. The tunic overtop with its fiddly straps to accommodate her wings. Eris had always helped with those, as Firen helped her dress. Lucian was supposed to do it now, but he had forsaken his position at the door in order to stare out the window instead. It was not a very important view, but it was hers. Not the street—her brothers’ rooms got to see the bustle of neighbours. Hers looked out at Da’s workshop. With its continual stream of smoke out the chimney. To the room above, she’d offered to Lucian only that morning.

Ludicrous, to think he would have ever accepted.

Dressed. Armoured. Calmer, too, although she couldn’t think why. Her hair was next. Thorough strokes that saw every knot and tangle teased apart. Interspersed with little fantasies about mates and care and stolen kisses along with nicked combs.

Three braids. Then those plaited together. Twisted and tied with ribbons because that was her custom.

He wouldn’t know that.

Another pang, another ache. And those were becoming so wretchedly familiar that she wanted to cry again.

“She fought for us,” Lucian said at last. “And asked us to wait so we could meet with her properly. And you ran off nearly at the first moment.”

Firen swung her thick plaits over her shoulder and out of the way. “She fought for you. As a mother should.” She could allow that. Eyes shimmering with tears as she took in the both of them, standing in that horrid man’s library with all the coming threats of laws that Firen did not know and chose not to believe existed. “It does not follow that she thinks any better of me than your father does.”

Lucian snorted. “As I told you. Which does not explain why it would bother you so when faced with it.”

Firen’s brow rose and if her hands settled on her hips in a startling similarity to her mother’s posture when affronted then...

“Because I have a heart. Because I am a living, breathing woman. One whose mate merely tolerates her. Who would gladly lie with me again because that at least is not abysmal, even with my parents awaiting us downstairs, but does not have the decency to consider that perhaps it is his family and their prejudices that are what are wrong and not me .”

He sank down onto her bed again, his eyes glaring upward at the ceiling.

And it was almost enough for her to storm out of the room once more. To leave him to his thoughts and his sulks and let her find some comfort in the people dearest to her.

“I did not say they were right,” Lucian admitted, and it was enough to still her going, if only for a moment. “I only shared what I knew they believed.”

Firen’s throat burned along with her eyes. “And that is supposed to make it easier for me?”

He sighed, and when his attention settled on her, she could see that some of his anger had leeched out of him. “I do not want to lose everything I know,” he continued, rolling his shoulders as if there was a very great weight pressing down upon them. “Not for a girl I have only just met.”

“Your mate,” she reminded him, her voice quiet as she sat across from him on Eris’s forsaken bed. Made with clean linens, simply because Firen hadn’t known what to do with it after she’d gone.

“Yes,” Lucian agreed, but his smile was rueful. “You are that.”

It should make her feel better. For acknowledgment when he could have hurt her with denying it.

She shifted slightly, glancing at her trunk rather than look at him any longer. “Did you follow me simply to chastise me? Or was there another reason?”

He stood.

Walked closer to her.

Reached for her chin and cupped it with a surprising gentleness as he bade her look at him. “You think this thing in my chest could let you leave in such a manner and not follow? That I could feel just how upset you were, followed by an icy plunge and a sudden nothingness that could do nothing but terrify me?”

He... cared. Or... the bond made him care. Firen could not decide if there was a difference between the two, not when he was looking at her that way. Resentful, certainly. Begrudging to the extreme.

But there was something else. Something warm and... possessing. It should bother her. Should trouble her greatly. She was a woman grown, after all. She could take care of herself and her home and the family she loved, and yet...

“I know what it is to hold a bond with a mate against his will,” she answered, her heart hurting and her throat aching, and she wanted to kiss him and shove away from him in equal turn. “And I think I am lonelier now that I have ever been before.”

He grimaced, his thumb coming to her cheekbone where he pressed against it softly. “I am sorry for that.”

There was no biting comment at the end of it. Nothing that twisted back to him and his own disappointment in the arrangement. Just... he was sorry.

And there was no more burning in her eyes and throat. Not when she was suddenly crying in earnest. For all the hopes, all the sudden changes.

And she wasn’t the one that sought him out. Not in the embrace, at least. It was him that pulled her upright so he could wrap his arms about her. He did not murmur little promises in her ear, did not stroke and press kisses to the top of her head. But he held her. Strong and certain, while he let her cry.

“My mother... she tried. Once. Not to drown herself, but... there were other means. She’d been quarrelling with Father for an age and then suddenly...”

Firen looked up at him, full of horror and her own apologies, but Lucian shook his head. “He knew. The bond, I suppose. And there were healers, and she mended, and things were more peaceful for a while. But it is... difficult. Not to remember. How... bad things can get.” He skimmed his fingers about her ear, touching the touches of lavender markings that swirled there. From her mother’s side. Not everyone possessed the trait. Her siblings didn’t. But she was fond of them. A bit of history to wear upon her skin.

“I wasn’t doing that,” she insisted. More gently this time. With less offence and more sadness than she knew what to do with. “I’ll... I’ll not do it. Next time. When I am vexed, I will...” Her brow furrowed, trying to decide what could possibly offer the same sort of comfort to her. Some liked to buy things. Little baubles to decorate their homes. But she did not know where she would sleep that night, let alone where the coins for her purse might come from. “Well,” she added at last. “I’ll try to think of something.”

She did not suggest that they would suddenly be so agreeable with one another that she would never be cross enough to need such a respite. She wished it might be so. That she could bottle the feeling of peace she felt when his arms were welcoming, when his heart was calm beneath her ear as she huddled there. Safe.

Wanted.

The bond flooded with warmth. How much was real, she did not know. But she craved it.

That was what seduced her the night before, and she feared what it might encourage now. They’d sorted nothing. Decided nothing. And she couldn’t go on pretending that was all right.

“I will attempt to believe you,” Lucian answered, and maybe it was not a kiss, but he placed his cheek on top of her head and it was... lovely.

They couldn’t stand there forever. But the thought of parting, of what might come after, made her even more reluctant to let him go.

“I like when you are kind to me.”

Her arms had found their way about him of their own accord, and she squeezed him tightly to punctuate her declaration.

“I am the reason you cried,” Lucian reminded her, and there was something in his tone that suggested it bothered him a very great deal.

“Sometimes a person needs a good cry,” Firen countered, wishing to comfort him. But... there was also the need to be honest with him. To not cover over her hurts simply to reassure him. “But yes, you were.”

Even if he did not kiss her, she placed a kiss on his covered chest, wet through by her tears. She would not apologise for them. He should be more careful of her feelings if her upsets troubled him so.

His hands left their place about her waist to settle on her shoulders. They were to talk more, then. Necessary, but she found she hated it. “I love my mother.” He said it gravely. Almost as a warning.

She did not ask what sort of child did not. She did not allow her mouth to twist at talk of beauty and silence and proper mates and birthright. Strangers, the lot of them. And she could be gracious.

But she would not pretend she had no feelings, no needs. “As I love mine,” Firen said instead. “I hope...” she paused, reminding herself that insult would help neither of them. “I am sorry I was not there to introduce you.”

And it was true. Had she known he would follow so quickly, she would have allowed nothing to delay her. Another piece of her fantasies that did not come to be. Of bringing him home and showing him off, beaming with pride at what was hers.

But those were daydreams. And Lucian was real, and so was their bond—messy as it was.

“They were very polite. As was I, in case that was your true question.”

Firen gave a sheepish sort of smile. “Maybe,” she hedged. “We should go back down.”

His hands fell away from her shoulders as he nodded, but she took one between hers before he could get too far away. If contact was what they needed to keep from quarrelling, so be it.

She made for the door, her arm reaching out behind her as Lucian remained stationary.

“Firen,” he began, his expression serious. “I do not know what home I have to offer you. I do not know where your dress will be washed, whether by you or by the service we employ.” A service ? Her heart raced a little just to imagine it. “I expect all will be made perfectly clear this evening. If... if you will attend with me.”

He was asking. Not assuming. He was looking at her as if he was already expecting her answer to be no. That she would keep to her pride and what remained of her dignity and allow him to attend without her on principle.

She squeezed his hand, because...

That was the sort of mate she was.

“All right,” she agreed. Mind racing with thoughts of clothing and deportment. Mama would help. Mama could fix anything. “Tea with my family, first.”

And he didn’t grumble.

Which, Firen thought, counted for rather a lot.