Page 124 of Bound
“A broken wing is a serious injury,” the healer chided. As if she’d chosen to slip. To fall. She needed onto the roof, and there was nothing else for it. She’d not apologise for keeping her house from drowning. “No less for you just because you cannot fly with them.”
Her father moved away so the healer could take his place at her side. Younger than she’d thought, with serious eyes as he held out a bottle. “I’ll not pretend I know what’s safe for your kind. I’d give this for pain before I set it, but would you rather go without? The choice is yours.”
“She took something before I left.” Braum. So he’d come back after all. Her heart had no business fluttering so. “Boiled herbs.”
The healer moved away, presumably to inspect the canister and its contents.
Da was back. Patting her hand and smoothing her hair, and looking at her as if she was a sickly fledgling that needed his care and compassion. “’m all right,” she managed, and she’d rather like another cup of herbs as her feelings were growing sharper. Her skin itched for having so many men in the house, regardless of how she felt for two of them. It was crowded, and she really wished to know if she’d remembered to ask for a shift...
“No,” Da corrected firmly. “And it might have been even worse.” He glared down at the floor, and it was not at all an expression she was used to seeing on his features. Always smiling, always crinkling about his edges with good-humour.
“Roof needed fixing,” she reminded him. “No one else to do it.”
She wasn’t going to argue, but she wasn’t sure if he’d seen. She hadn’t been up there for the amusement of it, and she couldn’t abide him thinking she was as foolish as that.
“You’re going to pretend that’s true? With that man over there, looking ready to burst every time you twitch and wince?”
Wren closed her eyes. “You said we weren’t talking about him.” The words came out more clearly, and she was almost sorry for it. It was all easier under the muzzy haze of potent herbs. It was quite another to be lucid. To think and feel. For fear to creep about the edges, loosening her tongue until she inevitably hurt Braum again.
At any other time, her father might have chuckled at her stubbornness. Would have tugged at her braid and smiled until his eyes crinkled. But today he sighed, and she tried to pretend it didn’t bother her. “So I did, sweet. I’m just not sure that’s a promise I’m going to be able to keep for long.”
Maybe she should take the healer’s potion after all. And if it mingled poorly with the herbs or her physiology, she wouldn’t have to talk about anything at all.
It was a morbid, horrid thought that would have earned her a sharp word from her mother if she’d ever voiced it aloud. But thinking of Mama, lying in her bed, wrapped in her quilts...
When the healer returned, she shook off his offer of the potion. Allowed her father to take her hand and wondered why she was a little disappointed it wasn’t Braum instead.
“Ready?” the healer asked. Perhaps he meant to be gentle in his manner, but it grated on her. There was not going to be anything gentle with what came next, and she was not certain there was anything she could have done to prepare herself.
He did not wait for her reply. The pain was a flaring, blinding light that forced sound from her throat as she tried desperately not to move. There were hands pressing at her, and somehow she knew they were Braum’s—and she hated that was his task rather than to comfort. To distract her with talk of new projects and fresh improvements, ones that had never occurred to her to want.
“The worst is behind you,” the healer soothed. “The wrappings will be a comfort while it mends.”
Comfort was the wrong word. She felt bruised and battered, inside and out. Not like herself at all. A different woman had woken from her fall. One that forgot to ask for shifts and didn’t banish Braum for invading her home and undressing her and allowing her father to see him when they’d already discussed waiting...
Her tears were silent. A private mourning for what was to come and all she might have to say.
The healer was back at her side; the wrappings finished. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Perhaps you’d like some privacy and I could look you over more thoroughly.”
He gave a pointed look toward her father, but did not do the same toward Braum.
Because a mate would stay for such a thing, wouldn’t he? He’d have seen every bit of her already—nothing could surprise him save how black and blue she’d turned from her plummet from the window.
Except they weren’t like that. She’d made sure of that.
A lump settled in her throat.
“No, but thank you. My wing took the worst of it.” The journey could not have been easy, although the winds did not sound as harsh as they had been. The rain was present, but almost lazy as it dribbled down onto her roof.
Her poor, broken roof.
He gave a thin-lipped smile. “I can see that.”
“I have coins,” Wren blurted out, suddenly remembering payment would be necessary. She could offer him milk if he was in want of a trade, but that would mean more effort for Da or Braum and...
Da made a sour face and tapped her lightly on the nose. “Stubborn to the last,” he chided, but there was a hint of warmth back in his features, and that was something.
She couldn’t see Braum. Hadn’t since she’d woken. It... bothered her. The not knowing. Had he left, and she hadn’t noticed? But no, those had been his hands on her back, she was certain of it. She might not have often felt them, but she’d stared at them more than she cared to admit. They were not healer’s hands. They were large and scarred—with calluses smoothed with time and age. He knew hard work and long hours, and he knew also what it was to sit and rest on her porch with a reluctant mate and a half-wild leptus.