Page 22 of Fate

Lucian groaned. “Would you...” His jaw tightened. “Stop trying to leave. Please. Just...” He tugged at his hair, and his pacing resumed.

She would. She dearly wanted to. “If you can make me feel, even the smallest bit, that you want me here.” Her throat was too tight, and she needed some water, but she did not know how to ask for even that. What sort of mate had she got for herself?That did not know how to sense her most basic needs? “Could you try,” she continued, and maybe she would cry a little. Just... because. “To use this,” she pressed her fist against her chest where the bond felt strongest. “And feel that I am hurt as well? That I had dreams and hopes and you...” she stopped herself short of calling him a disappointment. She wasn’t cruel. Shewasn’t.And even if things were difficult at the start, she knew that their pairing was meant for something. Something great, if they could only sort out the rest of it.

“You are my mate,” she said instead. “And those obligations, thoseprivileges...” Firen waited, trying to let her emotions settle so she might continue. “They should matter to you.” She rubbed at her face tiredly. “But I come from a family that isn’t so old, or so important. So maybe I’m wrong and got filled up with too much romance, and your books tell the proper way of it.”

She wanted a blanket. Wanted tea. Wanted her mother.

But she had... him.

Who was stiff as he approached her.

Who ignored the chair—or she thought he did. As he knelt down beside her and glared at the floor.

But when he looked at her, it wasn’t a scowl as she expected. He’d shifted it to something near to neutral, and she supposed that meant he was trying. “You are not wrong. It should matter. You should matter.”

The words should warm her, but she was waiting, she realised. For him to finish it with a biting remark that she should... but she didn’t.

And it hurt. A throbbing, twisting knot in her chest that was foreign and horrid.

And he sighed. “I do not know how to do this,” he admitted, hanging his head briefly.

Firen sniffed, some of the anger seeping out of her. “And you think I do?”

He grimaced. Or maybe it was a smile. She was uncertain she could tell the difference with him, not when there was such a stiff, unnatural quality to his expressions.

He stood. And he really was quite tall when they were positioned so. Maybe he’d fetch water for her, if she asked. Or...

He held out his hand for her to take. And if it appeared to shake ever so slightly, it was just the flicker of the firelight, surely.

She took it. She did not have to think, did not have to wonder. It was as natural a reaction as it was to draw her next breath. For him to want for her touch and for her to give it. For his hand to grasp hers and to pull so that suddenly she stood next to him. But not for long.

Not when he sank back into his chair, and this time he pulled her with him. And it took some shifting to be comfortable, and her wings had to open and resettle to accommodate the plush arm, and they still were not talking. Had accomplished little.

But his arm was about her waist, and the fire was warm, and the bond was a quiet, pulsing thrum that said this was better. That they needed this first. To touch and be still.

“This is nice,” she murmured after a while. When she found that if she shifted just so, she could place her head near to his. To feel his hair against her cheek and it was softer than she’d expected.

He needn’t agree with her. She hadn’t wanted to prompt them to conversation—not when those were going poorly thus far.

But when his grip tightened about her, when his head turned slightly and his eyes were a little softer than they’d been before...

Her heart swelled. The bond too. “I suppose it is.”

Everything would be all right. It had to be.

3. Sleep

Lucian fetched her water.

She’d been afraid to ask him for it, but he’d rolled his eyes and grumbled something about what sort of home she thought he had if there was no water to be had.

Which there was. Because a door opened beside the hearth and she saw taps and a full bath and if that wasn’t the most over-indulgent thing for a single person she had ever seen in all her days...

But there was a cup, and the water was cool and fresh when he handed it to her, and she would not complain that he hadn’t been forced to fly down to the kitchens—up to the kitchens?—and leave her alone.

It made it easier still when she could make use of the adjoining suite to relieve herself and wash her face and even brush her teeth with her finger and the bottle of salts she found neatly on the shelf.

The same sort she used. The pot was even familiar, and she wondered if he frequented the market himself or if his mother made such purchases.