Page 73 of Fate

They both knew it.

So he let her withdraw, her breath tight as she struggled to shove down the feelings he’d elicited. “Talk to me. Please. I don’t want to get this wrong.”

He huffed out a breath and raised his arm to hold over his eyes. Hiding from her as best as he was able when they were situated so closely.

She should move.

Give him space and the time he needed to collect himself. Perhaps it was wrong to mingle affection and difficult talks, but she had not known that it wouldbea difficult talk.

He sighed deeply.

Then took hold of her waist, and while he did not move her off him, he did lift her up enough that he could sit up fully, leaving her to wriggle and decide if she was going to keep on his lap or move to her own side of the bed.

“You want to be liked. By mycircle.”

She would not fret about the way he said that. As if it was so far removed from the realm of possibilities.

He reached for her, and it was his turn to cup her cheek and hold her steady while he looked at her. “You want to charm them and be accepted, and then everything will sort itself out. Yes?”

Her mouth was dry, and this was mean, twisting her words and making them sound manipulative rather than genuine. “Iwant to be a help,” she clarified, proud of the way her voice was clear and did not waver. “To you.” The rest mattered, but only in the vaguest sense. If he was willing to forsake them, she would not give them another moment’s thought. Her sleep would not be plagued with worry over their opinion of her. They would simply be the horrid lot in their high towers, that happened to birth and raise the man she held dear.

But he wasn’t.

Not yet, at least.

Not for good.

He smiled, but it was not a particularly happy thing. Just the twist of his mouth, and she wanted to rub it away, either with her own lips or the touch of her finger. But she didn’t.

“I think what you do not understand,” he continued, picking up the ends of her hair and playing with it between two fingers. “Is that they do not even likeme.”

Firen’s mouth opened, but she closed it again, uncertain what she meant to say. That could not be true.

“Those people. The ones at the fete. You knew them. They were your friends.” She remembered the way he’d stepped between them. Hid her from them. She’d thought it protective at the time, but she wondered at it now. He knew all of them. Just as she knew the ones at her own fete. Her friends and neighbours from the district. They’d grown up together, even if some could be considered merely acquaintances instead.

“Yes,” Lucian agreed.

She huffed and shook her head. “I do not understand.”

He brought the tendril upward and tickled it across her cheek. The line of her neck. The slight dip of her throat where her collar went low. “I know. Because you think about things like happiness and liking, and think that it matters.”

She swallowed thickly, realising they were navigating a game she was not at all prepared to play. “Because it does.”

He nodded, but it was indulgent rather than a true agreement. “Here, maybe. But I will admit the concept is... strange to me. That it should matter to you.”

She thought the strangeness quite the reverse, but she did not say it. Not when he suddenly glanced up at her, his mouth pulling downward at the edges. “Do you like me?” He blinked once, but he did not look away from her. “Since you think that matters.”

Firen stared at him. That he had to ask. That he looked as if he already knew her answer, was already beginning to nod and sigh and his hands were coming to her waist to move her away from him.

Which was all manner of wrong.

It was not a question she had ever imagined having to answer. There were grievances she could so easily call upon. Moments when no, she had not liked him in the least. Moments when the bond had itched and chaffed and felt a shackle rather than the most precious tether she would ever possess.

And he expected her to name them.

Expected her to tally them all against him. That she could accept the pleasure he gave her but not crave his presence. His affection. A cool transaction that perhaps one day would begrudgingly lead to children.

Because he expected her not to like him.