3.3

“Athan, I...” she began, because he wasn’t saying anything, and he realised how damaged she truly was. He wouldn’t want her—not that he ever had. He was kind, that was all. And he’d be kind now. Let her stay, give her a meal, and then he’d escort her back to her parents.

Visit on occasion. Just often enough for the bond to be satisfied.

Then back to his life and his Brum, and the house he’d built for himself without want or need for a mate.

That would be all right, wouldn’t it? More guest than mate.

Why did she ache all over just to picture it?

“I should not have said that,” she insisted, growing panicky just at the memory of what even now hung between them. “Please, I... just forget about it.”

But he couldn’t, just as she couldn’t, and she hated this awful feeling in her stomach. The one that threatened she would sick up what little breakfast she’d managed, but mixed with a curdling sort of pain that radiated outward.

She wanted one of her draughts. The kind to calm her nerves and put her to sleep so she needn’t remember how awful her tongue might be when she did not keep tight control of it.

“I don’t think I will,” Athan answered. Not in a cruel way—there was not a hint of malice in his eyes, in the corners of his mouth. He was sad. Terribly so. And it flowed so steadily through the bond she feared she might choke on it. “You seem to have already decided what I wanted. What I longed for. Did you do that because you watched me longer than you’ve claimed?”

There was no accusation, but she flinched from it all the same.

“I saw you as a child, and I saw you last night. There were no other times.” She was not used to being disbelieved, and she did not wish her mate to think her a liar.

Was it a lie to withhold about her visions? She could not decide, and it added another layer of misery to her potent list of current ailments. “I speak true,” she added, because it mattered. “I...” she swallowed, her hands shaking so hard she twined her fingers together so he could not see. “I want to tell you something, but I also... don’t.”

Her hands were settled on the table, and Athan reached out and covered her joined hands with one of his. “You can share anything with me,” he promised. As if his word was enough. As if she should assume he was trustworthy. That he was as good and kind as he seemed without the benefit of time and consistency to act as proof.

She hummed just a little. Because she wanted so badly for that to be true. But it had ruined everything before, hadn’t it? When she was too little to know any better. To realise there were some things it was safer to keep tucked away.

“No more tests,” she repeated. To herself. To him. She’d consent to nothing. She’d find one of those sea caves she’d read about and hide herself away before anyone else could get to her.

He could.

He had a bond of his own, now.

Which meant putting a great deal more trust in him than she had.

“So you said,” Athan reminded her.

She waited for the bond to take over. To remove her inhibitions and do the work for her. But it cared nothing about such declarations. What did it matter if she could see what others couldn’t? The cords were finally settled, and it was far more interested in reminding her how good his hand felt around hers—that he was warm and strong, and wouldn’t it be nicer if she walked around the table and placed herself in his lap?

The idea was mortifying.

Yet...

She did not want to think about yet. About how parts of her warmed all over at the mere thought of it. To see if it felt different to be embraced by one’s mate instead of a parent.

Except she was not a woman to him, was she? Just a broken girl, more project than mate.

“What sort of healer are you?” she asked instead. Because that mattered, too. His nature, his approach.

He looked surprised a moment, then smoothed his thumb against the back of her hand. It had no business feeling as it did—all warmth and distracting tingles. Did it feel the same to him? Or was it the same sort of touch he might give to any other, a simple comfort and nothing more?

“I could tell you those I studied beneath and the books I studied for so long I had whole passages committed to memory. But that is not what you mean.”

Her lips thinned, and she shook her head. “Do you care for research?”

That was what mattered most, wasn’t it? Anything but to be another specimen. Especially to him.

“Ah. While I respect those that dedicate themselves to that pursuit, I admit my passion is more for the individual. For whatever ails them.” He glanced up at her. “Does that disappoint? Would you have preferred I commit to a specialty?”

She frowned. She would have preferred he was a stonemason or a fisherman. Or one of the sailors that travelled to distant shores and was happy to visit her when he came to port again.

She did not say it. Wouldn’t say it. Not when he was looking at her, as if he had already proven himself a disappointment.

“No,” she assured him. “But...” she took a deep breath, summoning courage she was certain she did not have. Not when her heart fluttered so and her hands trembled. “Imagine... you’re summoned to a little girl. And her parents tell you she can see bonds. As clearly as any other feature on a body—a wing, a cheek marking. A nose. And she used it, no matter how inadvisably, to seek out her mate before it was time, and now she suffered. Greatly. What would you do?”

He was very still. He did not lean back, did not withdraw from her. Just searched her eyes for confirmation it was her, that she was that little girl, and he was sorry, and this was wrong, but he was... curious.

Wanted to know more.

Which was reasonable, she reminded herself firmly. It meant nothing. Or at least... it did not have to mean what she feared it did.

“I would listen,” he said at last. Which was not at all what she was expecting. “To all she had to say about it. Every bit. And then I would go to my books, even though I knew none of them described anything like it.”

Not true. Some did. Ancient ones. She’d seen the crumbled tomes for herself, the pages worn with time and water damage.

They’d been forgotten, after all. Shoved into a room at the top of the Hall, because they weren’t relevant any longer, were they?

He huffed out a breath, and his hand went to his hair, pushing through the dark strands, his wings tucked down low. “And if those failed me...” Which they would, and he’d grow frustrated, and reach the same conclusions as all the others. Experiment. Probe. Take meticulous notes to add to those crumbling tomes for healers in the next century to marvel at. “I’d do my best to see to her comfort. So she wasn’t scared and aching for the rest of her days.”

She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t.

Even so, he got up from his seat, and suddenly she was standing, too.

And was pulled into his arms. Not to carry her anywhere, but just... to be held.

Because perhaps her eyes were dry, but something else in her wept. For the girl she’d been. For the woman she’d longed to be. And he felt it. He knew.

He smoothed her tangled hair. Let her bury her face in his chest, which really was inappropriate, wasn’t it? Except the bond promised this was right, this was what she needed, and it was her right to receive it from him.

She did not trust the bond. Not in the least. Somehow, along the way, it had become her enemy. The source of too much grief, and now it was wheedling impossibly deeper inside of her. Urging and whispering.

She shuddered.

Felt his arms tighten about her. “You can trust me, Orma. I swear to you. I would not have done what they did.”

He couldn’t know that. Hadn’t seen her huddled and small and poisoned from the bond that now was supposed to be her comfort.

His hand came to the back of her neck, to the knot where she carried so much of her tension. His thumb pressed inward, and she had to fight to keep back her moan of appreciation. “Will you believe me?”

He was not being fair. He shouldn’t be trying to coax responses from her, vocal or otherwise. These were her queries to him, so she might judge more of his character. “I want to,” she allowed, because that was as much truth as she could offer.

He was too close to her, and they were improperly dressed. A mistake on her part. They should be properly buttoned and laced during their interactions, otherwise it made the bond do strange and cajoling things. Wasn’t it nice to be so intimate? To feel his arms about her? She should stay there. See what it felt to place a kiss where the bond glowed brightest beneath the too-thin fabric of his sleeping shirt. It was what made him hers, and she’d sheltered it, nurtured it for so long...

She shook her head, muzzy-headed and feeling far too strange. How many of these desires were her own? Long-buried and held strictly under her control?

And how many were his?

It weighed on her. How little she’d asked of him. So preoccupied with her own protection, her own mistrust, she’d neglected to offer even the small courtesies.

“What did you want of a mate?” she asked, muffled as her voice was because she hadn’t brought herself to move. To wriggle out of this first embrace, born of comfort rather than moving her from one place to the next. “Or, at least, what were you looking forward to the most?”

He hummed, his cheek brushing against the top of her head as he considered. Or was he breathing her in? Relishing the way the bond flared and pulsed. Warmed them all over.

This was important. They should have started with this. No flights in the dark.

Just this.

“That would have to be shown, I think,” Athan murmured at last. Which set her pulse racing, because if he thought it too indecent to speak it aloud, then she would well imagine the turn of his thoughts.

She did not want to mate. Not now.

He’d be gentle with her.

He would be slow, and careful, and mindful of her scars. The too-tight ligaments that made some movements painful. He was a healer, after all—he would understand her body better than she did. How to touch, where to press.

How to make her feel so much better than she ever had before.

Orma frowned.

And his hand curled about her cheek as he prompted her to look at him. “I do not think it is what you are imagining,” Athan answered, his small smile betrayed by the line between his eyes. Worried. For her. Because she did not respond as she should, did not know how to be easy, even with her mate. “Although I will not be dishonest and suggest I had not looked forward to that aspect as well.”

His thumb pressed more firmly into the knot at her neck, and she squirmed. It did not hurt—or if it did, it was the sort that also felt deeply right. That if he just worked a little harder, a bit longer, she might unravel. Might melt into his arms, and all the terrible thoughts and doubts would simply disappear.

“I do not want it without you,” he promised her. “Not until you want me, too.”

It was the sort of thing that should never need to be spoken. What sort of mates did not want one another? But it was a relief, a gift meant solely for her. Because she needed to hear it. Needed that sort of oath.

Even if it shamed her.

It felt wrong to talk about such things so soon—never mind that she was certain many couples would not have waited even half so long to satisfy the bond. That was its purpose, wasn’t it? To keep the lines going.

Why would he want her to carry his young?

He adjusted his hold and urged her face up to look at him. “Why are you so worried about this?” he asked as gently as he was able.

She gave him a look. She didn’t mean to, but it slipped out before she could think better of it. As if he was slow, and a little bit foolish not to realise the importance, the significance. “Because that’s what this is all for, isn’t it? Which means you’ll have expectations about it. Ones that I can’t, or don’t want to fulfil.”

“Orma,” Athan stated firmly. More firmly than he’d been with her thus far, and it startled away her sardonic expression. “Find something else to worry about. Please. I will not grow impatient with you.”

He said that now. When they’d known one another for less than a full day, and he was still full of hopes she’d get better. Be better. And all would work out and her worries were for nothing.

“It’s not like I get to choose,” she bit out. “Worries come on their own.”

He smiled at that. Moved his hand from the back of her neck to cup her cheek. “I suppose they do. So maybe we can distract you from them.”

She did not ask how. Did not let him be the one to decide on the method he intended—not when there was something weighing on her.

Made far more prominent when that very being gave a mournful wail, suggesting he had not listened to Athan’s command to go along in the garden, but was waiting for the door to open so he might reside at his rightful cushion, as expected.

“See? You found something.”

He gave a little tug to the bond, and it was a strange, lurching sort of feeling in her chest. She could not help her hand rising to rub at the spot, a frown settling on her features.

“I should meet the Brum,” Orma declared. “Properly,” she added. Because she was going to delay matters of her parents and Athan as long as she could. Until guilt became so tangible, it was like a cloak she wore about her shoulders, intolerable in its weight.

But this...

Brum was a living being, evicted from his home because of her.

Which wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. And she did not think she could tolerate that guilt for very long.

“Really?” Athan asked, giving her a dubious look as he glanced between her and the door. “You do not seem ready.”

She rolled her shoulders and took a breath, his hand falling away from her.

She didn’t miss his touch. She didn’t.

Her skin was sensitive, that was all. So the newness of gentle brushes and firm massages was... tantalising.

It certainly didn’t mean anything.

“You also ate little.” This he added with a hint of disapproval, and she rolled her eyes at him.

“So did you.”

Which earned her a smile, which had no business being as disarming as it was. He could convince anyone to do anything with a look like that, most especially when the bond warmed and settled so sweetly with his good humour. “Fair enough.”

He picked up the plate and took a large bite, and gave her a pointed look. She certainly was not so ill-mannered that she would shovel large quantities into her mouth simply to appease him, but she took up her bread and walked over to the door.

She wasn’t so brave she would open it without his presence, but she could peer out the window down to the beast below.

He’d shoved his enormous frame as close to the wood as possible, his too-large head lolling to the side to look up at her.

Had he sensed her? Smelled her? She knew nothing of the quality of their senses, but it was more than apparent he knew to look for her.

His mouth hung open, his tongue lolling out strangely.

Perhaps he was sick.

Surely he would not do that otherwise.

She felt Athan come up behind her. “Would you like to go out to him, or have him come inside?”

If she was willing to venture out, she could escape into the house if necessary. She glanced down at herself, remembering her state of dress. Was she really going out in such attire?

Her mother would be horrified.

Which didn’t bring her pleasure. Didn’t send a thrill through her that she was doing something brave and more importantly, different.

Wasn’t that what drove her to visit the fetes in the first place? Something, anything, that might distract from the endless monotony of her own life.

“I’d like to go out,” she insisted, although it was his hand rather than her own that settled on the latch.

“Right,” Athan said to himself. Then repeated it. Then pulled the door inward, the Brum getting to his feet immediately.

And pushed his way to the kitchen, ignoring her declaration entirely that their meeting should take place out of doors.

She had feared he might leap at her, might topple her over with his weight, but instead he came to her side, pushing his head into her hand as if fully aware he could manipulate anyone into anything. In between the great tufts of fluff were hard nubs of... horn? Either shorn low, or just beginning to grow in.

Athan followed, giving her an anxious look.

Waiting for her to run, she realised.

While the Brum seemed satisfied with the touches he’d forced, and went to his cushion and settled with a great huff.

Because he should have been there from the start.

And Athan was cruel for having ejected him.

She did not know how such dark eyes could express so much, but it was all plainly evident on his features.

She couldn’t lie—her heart was pounding. But it was harder to be afraid when it was lounging so, his attention drifting between her and Athan, before reaching his head up to bump against the table itself.

Athan rolled his eyes, and rather than scold him for the rattling cups and sloshed tea, he reached over and passed him a crust of bread.