Page 118 of Bound

He dropped the pretence.

And with a growl, he opened the door.

He’d break his own rule and spend the night with her hesper. Maybe then he’d be granted an hour’s rest.

???

His mother was right.

It was not the speed and exhilaration he’d imagined as a boy. Instead it was inky black, with rain too near to ice, wetting his wings and keeping him far lower than he should have meant to be.

It was good he had gone so many times to be with her—the way imprinted on his wings so he could focus instead on maintaining any altitude at all. Each gale was a punishing push downward, and before long he was close to exhaustion.

Except he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Not when he needed to see Wren’s house, a low light coming through the shutters, where he might picture her tucked away, warm and safe. There were prickles beneath his skin that had nothing to do with the cold winds. An urgency that kept him pressing on, an anxiousness that... felt a little bit like her.

How often had she complained of that? How she wanted his calm. Wanted to sit and be still when she said her insides were a tangle of too many feelings, none of which were compatible with one another.

He wished he knew what he could do for her. How he could give her some of the peace he felt when he was with her. The niggling worry suddenly gone, the ancient instincts that stressed that all wasn’t—couldn’t—be right unless she was within his eye line.

He swiped at his eyes, squinting hard into the dark. He could just make out the outline of the house, the new jut of the porch he’d made for her.

There was the glow of the light from her room. Not the subtle glow about the edges from a window properly shuttered, but wide and flickering. As if... as if the window itself was open, the lamplight struggling from the winds pushing inward.

Something was wrong.

Had to be.

Wren perhaps did not always possess the greatest judgement when she was upset, but even she would not open her window in a storm like this for no reason.

He did not give thought to politeness. He flew straight through the window, certain he would find her unconscious in her bed. Perhaps even...

Perhaps that was the nature of her mother’s kind. Simply to slip away in their sleep without cause or warning. He’d never considered it before, but now...

There was no form in the bed. The blankets and linens were flung back, but she was not amongst them. There was a damp, heavy air to the room, and he wanted to linger, wanted to look and see the little bits and baubles that were his mate’s, but he couldn’t allow himself.

He needed to find her. Needed to see her.

He shut the window. Bolted it tightly.

And went down the stairs to the front door. He would apologise later for his forwardness. Would insist on helping her to banish the puddles that had formed nearly everywhere.

He paused as water dripped on him from above.

A hole. In her roof.

Patched with one of his tarps.

He swallowed, bolting through the front door and almost taking to the skies again. Up onto the roof. Anger raged through him. At himself, at her. It was only a house. He would build her a new one if it drowned in this storm. Anything if it meant that she wasn’t out in it.

Then came the panic.

Because before he could make his tired wings take him upward, he nearly stepped on... on her.

Prone. Entirely too still.

He dared—he dared—to consider himself her mate? When he rolled about in his bed while she tried to battle with the winds and the rains, when she took to the roof without even the aid of a proper set of wings to help her?

Without... without him to help her.