Page 41 of Fate

Did not expect to be met with Lucian’s scowl as his eyes drifted over every inch of her. “Why are you wet?”

She glanced down at herself. She wasn’t dripping. Damp, yes. Wet in the thickest parts of her hair, certainly.

Mama stood, coming to give her a proper assessment as she inspected her front and back. “A dip,” she observed, eyes meeting Firen’s.

Firen rolled her shoulders, her mouth drawn tightly as she spoke a great deal without any words at all.

She’d done it before. When she’d felt overwhelmed, or just... sad.

Lonely.

And it would mean something to Mama that she’d done it even with her mate settled at the kitchen table. That he’d come to their home—alone—without an adoring Firen at his arm to make the introductions.

But... he’d come.

He hadn’t turned around and left when she wasn’t there to meet him. He’d... stayed. Perhaps because Mama could press anyone into her kitchen for a cup of something hot. Or maybe because he realised Firen had been treated rather poorly and was owed some sort of consideration.

He looked wrong, sitting there. Too stiff and his clothes too fine. He did not look happy about it, either, his eyes darting about the space and settling on her with greater frequency, expression turning stonier each time he did so.

She glanced down at herself, feeling a few tendrils of self-consciousness take hold as she felt a flood of tangling emotions come through the bond. Perhaps the fabric had grown rather thin now that it was wet. Perhaps it clung a bit more than it had and revealed more than was strictly proper.

But there were far greater concerns than that, surely.

“Sweetling, go up and get changed,” Mama urged. “We’ll still be here when you get back.”

Firen gave Lucian a dubious glance, not believing that in the least.

He stood. “Actually,” he began, and she braced herself for him to leave. He’d seen her home, seen her family, and found it as wanting as he’d feared. “I should like a moment with my mate.”

If her parents found it odd for a stranger to be heading up the stairs with their daughter, they said nothing. If they thought it inappropriate when Firen had clearly been desolate enough for one of her sojourns into the sea, they still allowed them both to retreat.

Lucian first.

Firen...

Da grabbed her hand as she made to follow. He was going to say something. Perhaps in censure of the mate, that was not at all what they’d expected. Or maybe about the state of her andthat Lucian was right to be offended on her behalf that she’d flown and walked through the streets in all her dishevelment.

But he turned her wrist and there was the circlet, still wound about her wrist. “Did it bring you luck?” he asked, his tone as gentle as his fingers as he undid the tiny clasp and laid it out across the table. Just as beautiful as it had been the night before, unmarred by her night or the salt from the sea.

Her eyes welled, if only briefly. “I don’t know yet,” she answered honestly.

He nodded, wrapping his arm briefly about her middle before gesturing for her to follow her mate. “Run along, then. I doubt that mate of yours is much used to waiting.”

She was so certain of that. Not with a room that was much lived in and yet went without visitors.

But she said nothing. Just smiled as best she could toward her parents and saw Lucian on the stairs, looking at the ornaments upon the wall. Most were thin sheets of metal, impressed and shaped to represent each member of the family. It had grown when mates were found. When children were added.

She felt terriblyseenby him perusing her family’s history so openly, and she brushed past him as quickly as she could. Better for him to join her upstairs, even if it would lead to another argument.

Her door stood open, waiting for her. Her bedding was as smooth as she had left it. Everything perfectly ordinary. Except that a man followed her in, closing the door behind him. She hadn’t invited him in, and that rankled ever so slightly, but he was her mate. He’d come after her. Sat at her mother’s kitchen table and—hopefully—been polite during their introduction.

“Explain adipto me.”

She tried not to roll her eyes. Truly, she did. But she was tired and heart-sore, and nothing in his attitude suggested apenitent mate come to apologise and set things right. Instead, he’d fixated on her dress and her moisture levels, and thought that of the most relevance.

“In the sea,” Firen clarified, since it was apparently so far beyond his comprehension. She pulled out fresh clothing. Maybe she would eject him from the room and withhold such an intimacy.

Did mates do such things?