Page 101 of Bound

He wouldn’t know that. He’d think them inefficient, like a fledgling.

It was an unkind thought. One riddled with old wounds that hadn’t ever meant to be inflicted.

“I am thinking a wood roof,” Braum commented. “Unless it will bother you.”

She peered up at the beams he’d somehow managed to tie into the structure of the house. She’d had to sweep the kitchen floor more often, dust and shavings making their way through the seams of the panelling, but she could not begin to make sense of how it all worked. It was sturdy. Nothing shifted or moved when she’d sneak out at night and poke at the supporting pillars and wonder at the whole of it.

The house had been finished before she’d even been born. A feat, her father called it, full of pride that it had been managed at all. A trial, her mother would amend, her eyes suggesting it was not the warm memory that it seemed to be for her father.

She liked it. The smell of wood freshly cut. A little bit of change that, for once, did not frighten her.

“Bother me?” she queried, wondering how any of this was supposed to be a bother.

“That the roofs would not match,” Braum clarified. “Shingle and thatch. I’d have to ask someone to help with the thatching. Always lived in stone or shingle, myself.”

He’d do it, too. He wouldn’t complain or insist she choose something else simply for the ease of it.

It was a sobering thought to know that... she held some sort of sway over him. Simply by his desire to please her. To be wanted by her.

She swallowed thickly, a little humbled by the realisation.

“Wood is fine,” she assured him. “More than fine.”

He nodded, looking rather pleased. “I would do the roof next, but perhaps it should be the floor if you’re going to keep standing like that.”

She didn’t roll her eyes, but it was a near thing as she dropped back down to the ground. Meagre drop that it was, the boards only two hands wide.

“Satisfied?”

He grunted, which she took as his version of a shrug. It suited him, in a ridiculous sort of way. He possessed plenty of words, yet seemed reticent to use them if he could hum or grunt or growl instead.

Her father had purred for her mother.

Her cheeks burned at the errant thought.

“Supposed to be a wet winter,” Braum commented, and she was all too aware of how his attention lingered on the colour in her cheeks. A remnant of her mother’s kind. A frustrating remnant, although she’d stopped complaining about it once Mama was gone and she was the last to carry any such traits at all.

“Aren’t they always?” she sighed.

“I suppose,” Braum agreed, his wings taking him up onto the new rafters. Or were they different for a porch than a house? Beams? Future shingle-roof supports? “But I’ll feel better that you’ll have a porch over your door all the same.”

She shook her head, her laughter internal rather than external. “As long as you feel better about it,” she quipped.

Teased.

It was a startling sort of exchange, one she was entirely prepared for. He was not quick to answer, and she was grateful that he’d taken himself away so he couldn’t see her dismayed expression.

What was he doing to her?

“I’m... I’ve things to do,” she blurted out, brushing a bit of wood shavings from her skirt and pulling her wrap more tightly about herself. Leave him to his work. Stop blushing and spluttering and being ridiculous.

She didn’t turn back into the house. Not when he was far too near to be anything but distracting.

She’d check the burrow instead. That would be good. Especially if the winter would be as wet as he claimed. Not that she trusted whoever they were that had suggested such things.

Thorn greeted her as always. The younger grimbles looked to their mothers for directions, while the oldest nudged at her hands as she passed them. They had seen too many seasons with her to think her any sort of threat—even if she did bother them on occasion with tumbling them about as she removed their heavy coats for the summer heats.

She’d been silly to forget a lantern if she meant to give a proper inspection. But the portion not trudged into the hillside was clean and well trampled. The overhang was sturdy, although she picked a few errant roots that dangled down and would prove a tempting treat to those tall enough to reach. Then the embankment would collapse and they’d be trapped, and she’d have to dig them all out in the middle of a rainstorm.